Alaskans Have Chance to Get Their State Back from Special Interests

Alaska has been inundated with scandals with Sen. Ted Stevens getting indicted, Rep. Don Young being under federal investigation for possibly taking bribes, and Gov. Sarah Palin facing a state probe.

This fall Alaskans will have a chance to take their state back from corruption and vote on a ballot measure that would adopt clean elections in statewide races.

"This is the most important ballot initiative, the most important people's initiative that we've had since statehood. If we get this right, we get our state back," said Tim June of Alaskans for Clean Elections.

The idea is to offer candidates money from the state to finance their entire campaign.

To qualify, candidates would have to get a certain amount of $5donations and signatures from voters in their district. Once that happens candidates would have to agree to give up any private donations as well as forego out-of-pocket cash expenditures.

"Instead of making a winner determined by who has the most money, Clean Elections levels the playing field by offering candidates an equal amount of funding to whoever they're running against," said June.

The measure hopes to limit the power of special interest groups.

"We have always been under pressure from very large multinational corporate interests, industry interest that are constantly trying to change Legislation," said June.

Alaska would be the eighth state in the country to provide public funding to state candidates."

There is a similar bill in Iowa that would limit the power of special interest groups called Voter Owned Iowa Clean Elections or VOICE. Like the measure in Alaska, the VOICE bill would require candidates to get $5 donations along with their signatures to qualify. All of this money would go into a fund that would be used by candidates that have met the requirements to earn public money. The rest of the money would come from unclaimed property and a check off on your state income taxes.

Under the VOICE bill no taxpayer money would be used unless you want to mark the check off on your state income taxes. Overall, the system would cost around $10 million or less than 1/10 of 1% of the state's annual budget.

Unfortunately, the bill has been stalled in committee the last two years by Rep. Jo Oldson. Sen. Gronstal, Rep. Murphy, and Rep. McCarthy. As the fall election approaches, ask your local candidates what their opinion on VOICE is and tell them it is time for Iowans to get their state back from the special interests.