The Anchorage Daily News
www.adn.com

Political group makes its mark first time out

ELECTION: The success of the Alaska Conservation Voters may signal a shift in state politics.

By Elizabeth Manning

January 22, 2001

As the Legislature convened this month in Juneau, the Alaska Conservation Voters watched 10 of the 31 legislative candidates it supported take office. Three of them -- Harry Crawford, Sharon Cissna and Bettye Davis -- prevailed in some of the election's closest races.

It marked a solid victory for the fledgling political conservation group, though it amounted to just a small advance for conservation interests within the Republican-dominated Legislature. It also moved the group from obscurity to the limelight in just one election cycle.

"This is not your mama's environmental community," said Art Hackney, a pollster and Republican Party strategist. "They played a political card and played it in a big way. They are a very sophisticated group of environmental advocates."

The group's advance signaled a potential ground shift in Alaska politics.

"Clearly it's hard work, and change is slow," said Kay Brown, a former Democratic legislator and consultant to the Alaska Conservation Voters. "But I think there's a good chance things could be different in six to eight years."

Nationwide, environmental political groups have grown in influence and in numbers: from six to 26 in the past three years, said Sam Schuchat, executive director of the Federation of State Conservation Voter Leagues. Spending has risen too.

The Alaska Conservation Voters and its educational arm, the Alaska Conservation Alliance, spent an unprecedented $377,000 on November's election, according to the group's year-end reports.

By comparison, the state Republican Party and its affiliates spent $337,000, while the Democratic Party and its affiliates spent $192,000, as of the latest campaign finance reports.

The conservation group's total ranks Alaska third in campaign spending among 22 state environmental political action committees in last year's elections, Schuchat said. Washington topped the list, then California, Alaska and Oregon.

The Alaska Conservation Voters spent the biggest part, roughly $216,000, to fight ballot Proposition 1, which would have banned future wildlife initiatives and, to a lesser extent, to support Proposition 6, to uphold a ban on land-and-shoot wolf hunting. It scored victories on both.

It spent the rest, about $161,000, to help its favored candidates. Those with a strong environmental record and a good chance of winning and who were in tight races got the most, said Mary Core, director of the Alaska Conservation Voters.

Crawford, a Democrat from Muldoon who defeated Republican warhorse Ramona Barnes, said the money and the campaign mailings by the Alaska Conservation Voters helped. On the other hand, he said, the group's name on mailings could have hurt him among voters who are not environmentalists.

Making history

No conservation group in Alaska has ever participated in a campaign like the one the Alaska Conservation Voters just did. The change is due primarily to campaign finance reform and a subsequent Supreme Court ruling that limited election spending by businesses while lifting restrictions on nonprofit corporations.

Before campaign finance reform in the late 1990s, oil companies and unions were traditionally the big campaign donors in Alaska. New laws prohibit corporations from giving money to candidates or making independent expenditures -- spending to help a candidate without the candidate's direct knowledge or cooperation.

Core said corporate interests still find ways to influence campaigns by urging their employees to contribute money or through political action committees. But now conservationists or other nonprofit groups can compete.

The Alaska Conservation Voters supported 27 Democrats, two Republicans, one nonpartisan candidate and one independent in the last election, Core said.

"We are reasonable people trying to have clean air, clean water and sound economic development," Core said. "This is not a radical view."

The Republican Party counterattacked as soon as glossy candidate mailers paid for by the political conservation lobby reached mailboxes across Anchorage. Party leaders and Republican candidates accused the group of accepting money from radical Outside environmental groups and not disclosing the source of its funds. The party filed a formal complaint with the Alaska Public Offices Commission. The complaint is pending.

Following an Alaska Supreme Court ruling two years ago, the public offices commission determined that the Alaska Conservation Voters was not a corporation but also was not a political action committee. Rather, it belonged to a category of nonprofit corporations or groups that do both educational and political work.

The commission said the conservation group could give money to candidates under the same rules as political action committees and do something PACs are not allowed to do: shift money from a general operating fund into a political fund. The group must ensure no money comes from a business and must keep track of money raised with a specific campaign or candidate in mind to make sure the group doesn't violate campaign rules.

Republicans argue that distinction allows the Alaska Conservation Voters and groups like it to raise unlimited funds from Outside foundations or individuals and then spend the money however they want on elections. Other groups and candidates must follow strict limits on Outside money. Political parties, for example, may raise only 10 percent of their funds from Outside.

The group's campaign disclosure reports make it impossible to tell where the money used in its different campaigns came from. Nearly all of it was contributed by the group's operating fund -- collected from many donors and pooled together -- to its political fund. Typically, candidate reports or political action committee reports list specific individuals or groups as contributors.

Randy Ruedrich, chairman of the Alaska Republican Party, argues the Alaska Conservation Voters should be held to the same rules as other political groups. Seattle software mogul Paul Brainerd contributed more than $100,000 to the group's operating fund, Ruedrich noted. The group did not disclose that information until the Republicans charged that it was concealing its contributors.

"This is a complete betrayal of the people of Alaska to use funds from Outside of Alaska and not report the source of those funds," Ruedrich said.

Core argues it's not deceptive. She said she could not provide details about the sources of campaign money because of the group's accounting procedures. But she said it's no secret the group's general fund is supported by individuals or foundations that care about Alaska's environment and by some of the Alaska Conservation Voter's member groups, such as the Sierra Club.

Getting out the vote

Schuchat, of the Federation of State Conservation Voter Leagues, said environmental groups nationwide got serious about local and state politics in the early 1990s, when federal environmental regulatory power started to devolve to the states.

About the same time, conservation groups in Washington state compared membership lists and found members were not regular voters. In short, there were potential voters for their cause.

Mike Coumbe, Alaska director of the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, said he found that about 60,000 Alaskans belonged to conservation groups but that not all voted.

Since the changes in campaign finance rules and the subsequent Supreme Court ruling, the Alaska Conservation Voters has participated in two municipal and November's state election.

Cam Toohey, executive director of Arctic Power, a group pushing for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, said he expects the Legislature to try to close the campaign finance loophole that the group found. If not, development interests might form groups to exploit the same rules.

In any event, Toohey said he doesn't think pro-environment candidates will play well in Alaska, with it's resource-based economy.

"They are still trying to sell a beat-up old Volkswagen," Toohey said. "I don't care how it's painted. It's still hard to sell."

But Core and Brown believe their message will resonate with voters, particularly as more families put down roots in Alaska. The hardest task, Brown said, is to find qualified candidates who don't mind moving to Juneau and working for less than what most companies pay.