Alaska lobbying initiative campaign continues

ANCHORAGE - Foes of an Alaska initiative to restrict government lobbying and campaign spending say they'll continue their campaign even though supporters have suspended their efforts.

The Anchorage Daily News reports the Stop the Gag Law committee plans to spend $1 million to defeat Proposition 1 on the August ballot.

The opponents, led by the Alaska Municipal League and AFL-CIO, say the measure is confusing and so broad it could prevent a fire chief from appearing before his local council.

"Their decision doesn't change our track. It's still going to be on the ballot. It's still a bad initiative. We're still going to be educating people about the fact it's a bad initiative," said campaign manager Josh Applebee.

Supporters in the Clean Team Alaska group suspended their efforts Thursday to protest changes made in the initiative wording by Lt. Gov. Craig Campbell.

Campbell told The Anchorage Daily News he made the changes to help voters understand the implications.

"We want to make sure it's right. We want to make sure it's legal. And we want to make sure it's clear," Campbell said.

"I take no position as to whether it's a good initiative and on whether people should vote for it or not," Campbell said.

His summary on May 18 added detail to language approved in May 2008.

Proposition 1 would ban campaign contributions from government contractors and their relatives, outlaw publicly funded lobbying or campaigning, and generally bar government contractors from hiring a legislator who has been out of office less than two years.

Opponents had raised concerns that earlier language didn't fully explain the scope of restrictions.

The new wording says that family members of government contractors, as well the contractors themselves, would be banned from making political contributions. The new summary also specifies that state and local government agencies, and school districts, would be banned from using public money for lobbying or political campaigns. The original didn't say who would be banned from spending public money for those purposes.

Initiative backers say the new wording emphasizes the campaign message of their opponents.

"As we have traveled the state, the culture of corruption is even more embedded and profound than we realized when we started this campaign," the committee chairman, former state legislator Dick Randolph, said in a written statement Thursday.

"The current attorney general and lieutenant governor are clearly not acting within the law, and the only course of action we have is a lengthy and costly legal fight with very little expectation of a favorable ruling from a court system that embraces the same culture of corruption as the attorney general and lieutenant governor," he said.