The Alaska Public Offices Commission has agreed to investigate allegations that Fairbanks lawmaker Jay Ramras has violated state election law in connection with dozens of TV ads ostensibly touting his Pike's Waterfront Lodge but strikingly similar to his own campaign ads for lieutenant governor.
The APOC has set an expedited hearing for Monday morning, the day before the primary.
Ramras is in a tight race with Anchorage resident Mead Treadwell for the GOP lieutenant governor nomination. Whoever wins the Tuesday primary will go on to the Nov. 4 general election, so the APOC hearing could be a key factor in the race.
The complaint was filed Wednesday by Anchorage resident Steve Flory. The APOC officially accepted it Friday and sent out a notice of the hearing.
Ramras could not be reached for comment Friday. He did not return phone calls or emails sent to his legislative and campaign offices.
UPDATE:
Ramras said Saturday afternoon that he and his staff had talked to APOC about the ads some time ago. It's his understanding, he said, that as long as he did not appear in hotel ads 45 days before the primary he was not in violation of campaign laws. He added that APOC staff called him Saturday and asked for an affidavit that the ads are no longer running.
"This is a political smear," he said. "This is not the kind of an issue that should intrude in the last 72 hours before the election."
Ramras questioned the timing of the complaint and why it wasn't filed well before this past week.
Flory, also reached Saturday, said the ads have always bothered him but that he thought someone else had already filed a complaint. He said he had been out of town on a sheep hunt and when he returned last week he learned that APOC had not been asked to investigate. So he researched the law and put together the complaint which he filed Wednesday. APOC asked for more information which took him another day to provide, he said.
Flory said it doesn't make sense to file a complaint after the election. "Had I known it had not been filed I would have filed it quite a bit back," he said.
The complaint alleges that between January and late June, Pike's Waterfront Lodge, a hotel on the Chena River owned by Ramras, ran dozens of ads that prominently featured Ramras talking about the future of the state and his position on issues. In one ad, "Ramras doesn't even pretend that it's anything other than a pitch about him, his statewide campaign and his political views," the complaint says. "In this 'hotel' ad, he tells viewers directly: 'This message is about my passion for an in-state natural gas bullet line.'" A search of Pike's on YouTube turns up numerous similar ads, with Ramras talking about issues more than the hotel.
Records on file with KTUU Channel 2 show Pike's Waterfront Lodge spent about $37,000 for hotel ads that aired a number of times each month between Jan. 11 and June 26. A notation at the bottom of each page logging the spots says: "These constitute use for Jay Ramras who is a candidate for Lt. Governor."
Additionally, the Ramras campaign bought more than $150,000 of spots on KTUU to air between July 5 and Aug. 24. The campaign bought another $12,000 of spots on Channel 11; that station's public political files don't reflect any Pike's Waterfront Lodge buys on Ramras' behalf but the files only contain media buys that are considered political spots.
The complaint contends the Pike's commercials are illegal for a number of reasons, including that corporations like Pike's are prohibited from contributing directly to a candidate and even if a company could contribute the ad buys would violate the $500 limit. The ads also didn't include the required "paid for by" language. And they couldn't really be construed as independent expenditures because they came from Ramras' own company.
Flory wants the APOC to order Ramras to pull any Pike's commercials off the air and to direct the campaign to return all of the "unlawful contributions" to Pike's. The complaint estimates that amount to be as high as $300,000 because the ads may have aired statewide and not just on KTUU. The complaint also asks that Ramras pay a fine of $500 a day for the violations which could add up to tens of thousands of dollars more. As of Tuesday, according to campaign finance reports, Ramras had about $24,000 left in his campaign account.
The APOC has known about the possible violations since June, when Matt Felling of Channel 11 asked executive director Holly Hill for comment on a story he aired. But, the complaint said, the APOC failed to investigate the ads.
"We need to stop playing make believe about the Ramras hotel ads," the complaint said. "APOC's inability to see, what is patently obvious to anyone who sees the Pike's ads, risks becoming an embarrassment to Alaska."
Contact Patti Epler at patti(at)alaskadispatch.com.