Alaska attorney general headlines $15,000-a-head fundraiser for conservative group

Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor is headlining a $15,000-per-person fundraiser for a conservative organization that ran attack ads against liberal state legislators this year — though an official from the group said the cash will fund its “nonpolitical” advocacy arm rather than political campaigns.

Taylor is hosting a “wild Alaskan fishing expedition” to benefit Alaska Policy Partners next summer at a remote lodge outside Juneau, according to an advertisement on the group’s website. The five-day trip costs $15,000 for a double occupancy room and $25,000 for a single, the page says.

Taylor’s association with Alaska Policy Partners drew attention earlier this year, as the group paid for mailers targeting Democratic and moderate Republican candidates. Taylor was listed as a director on nonprofit corporate records that the group filed with the state Division of Corporations in March, and his wife was listed as a director on filings the group made with state campaign finance regulators in October.

Updated filings have removed both Taylors’ affiliations. Remaining leaders include a number of conservative political and business figures, including Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assemblyman Rob Yundt, oil field services executive James Udelhoven and Wade Erickson, founder of Capstone Family Medicine.

In a brief phone interview Tuesday, Seth Church, a longtime conservative activist who’s now Alaska Policy Partners’ president, said the group’s original filings contained a number of errors that were corrected. The organization has three separate entities, he added: a political action committee, a super PAC-like group and an advocacy arm.

Treg Taylor is working solely on the advocacy arm, Church said.

The group has published few specifics on its agenda. But it says on its Facebook page that it’s organizing businesses and individuals “to promote free market policies in social and civic venues and to support other institutions or programs serving the people of Alaska.”

During the election, its political efforts supported an array of conservative Republican candidates.

Treg Taylor, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, did not respond to a request for comment. He acts as the governor’s chief legal adviser and oversees the Department of Law, which prosecutes criminal law and enforces consumer protections and laws against unfair trade practice.

Originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter published by Nathaniel Herz. Subscribe here. Distributed by Alaska Beacon.