When it comes to balance, it’s not just about balancing out a left-wing Anchorage Assembly that seems determined to break the law and bust through the tax cap with the city’s budget.
There’s also the balance sheets in the Anchorage Municipal election runoff, which ends May 14.
The required seven-day reports filed at the Alaska Public Office Commission show that Mayor Dave Bronson’s reelection campaign has raised nearly $570,313, while Democrat-backed Suzanne LaFrance has raised $739,393.
But LaFrance has spent almost everything she has raised and has just $13,000 cash on hand, and she is nearly $84,700 in debt.
Bronson has about $134,000 cash on hand for the final six days of the campaign and has only $800 in debt.
She spent $35,000 on staff, while he has spent $8,000.
The cash and spending difference is stark, although LaFrance is getting help from the side with the major groups like Planned Parenthood, AFL-CIO, and NEA-Alaska, which are using their resources and union dues to work to take the mayor’s office. Bronson is getting nowhere near the help that LaFrance is getting from independent expenditure groups in this race.
However, LaFrance may be illegally coordinating with Planned Parenthood, which supports her. According to records, she not only attended a fundraiser put on for her by Planned Parenthood Votes Alaska on Sunday, her campaign paid money to promote the event on Facebook and elsewhere. It appears they coordinated expenditures for the event, and the candidate participated in the event. According to APOC, this is coordination between a campaign and an independent expenditure group, which is illegal.
The receipts appear to show that LaFrance, who is backed by the Alaska Democratic Party, violated the campaign law by advertising the event being put on by Planned Parenthood. The Bronson campaign was told by APOC that it was not allowed to coordinate in this way with independent expenditure groups.
