The Alaska Center (for the Environment) has issued its list of endorsed candidates, and there’s something Alaska voters need to know about them. They answered affirmatively a question about whether they will work to end Alaska’s oil economy in 27 years.
Earlier this year, the center sent a questionnaire to all candidates for State House, State Senate, U.S. House, U.S. Senate and Governor.
The candidates were asked:
- Do you acknowledge that human actions are a significant contributor to climate
change? Will your actions to stop climate change match the urgency of its effects
in Alaska? - Do you support transitioning to 100 percent clean energy no later than 2050 to help build pollution-free communities?
Many Republican candidates did not bother to answer the questionnaire, they told Must Read Alaska. Why? They already know they will not be endorsed by the group that has become a major arm of leftist dark money influence from Outside the state.
The Alaska Center is funded by groups such as the Sixteen Thirty Fund, League of Conservation Voters, and Tides Advocacy Fund, the Alaska Conservation Foundation, the Brainerd Foundation, and the Harder Foundation.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund is a dark money arm of Arabella Advisors and was active in other Alaska campaigns this year, such as Forrest Dunbar for Anchorage mayor, and in recent years in Alaska.
Arabella Advisors, founded by a former appointee of President Bill Clinton, is a Washington, D.C.-based, for-profit business that works with left-leaning donors and progressive nonprofits and has become known as the hub of the liberal “dark money” network. It’s part of what might be called a vast left-wing conspiracy, to turn a phrase from Hillary Clinton.
The Alaska Center, which is now dependent on Arabella Advisors through its dark money donors, advocates for things like ranked choice voting, automatic voter registration, carbon taxes, and a mandate of reaching 50 percent “renewable” energy statewide by 2025, with 100 percent clean energy by 2050.
The group also supports higher taxes on oil and natural gas. At least until oil and gas can be destroyed as an industry in Alaska.
Arabella Advisors also supports the nonprofit States Newsroom, which operates the Alaska Beacon, a new online news organization, making Arabella one of the biggest media influencers in the state. All mainstream media outlets now routinely run stories from the Alaska Beacon.
This year, Arabella-Sixteen Thirty Fund is also attempting to defeat Alaska’s Ballot Measure 1, which is the call for a constitutional convention.
The Alaska Center has endorsed 100 percent Democratic ticket except for candidates such as former Gov. Bill Walker, who in his fourth run for governor, declines to associate with a party. With Walker, the Center advises voters to mark him second, after Democrat Les Gara. The group has endorsed Calvin Schrage, also another pretend-independent, who actually caucuses with the Democrats for Anchorage House District 12.
The Alaska Center has endorsed Pat Chesbro, the Democrat, for U.S. Senate, and Democrat Congresswoman Mary Peltola for U.S. House.
The list of the group’s endorsed radical, far-left candidates is at this link.
ActivistFacts.com, which tracks radical organizations like Arabella, describes it this way:
Arabella Advisors is a consulting firm that oversees a major leftwing “dark money” network. Arabella manages the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that has been widely dubbed as a “dark money” political fund, and its sister project, the New Venture Fund. Other Arabella-managed entities include the Windward Fund and the Hopewell Fund.
Arabella, founded in 2005 by Eric Kessler, an alum of Bill Clinton’s White House, is known for using its four main funds to prop up paper-thin nonprofit groups that promote left-wing policies. These nonprofits have been dubbed “pop-ups” because most of them appear to be grassroots organizations but, in effect, are barely more than websites. The “pop-ups” drive millions in donations to promote liberal policy issues all while providing cover for whoever is making the donations.
This layer of anonymity has helped Arabella rake in billions into the projects it manages. Between 2013 and 2018, four nonprofits under Arabella’s umbrella reported a combined revenue of roughly $2.3 billion. Those four funds financed hundreds of leftwing “pop-up” campaigns.
While Arabella’s projects are often cloaked in secrecy, the organization is facing more scrutiny from corporate media. The Daily Beast reported Arabella got caught scrubbing its Wikipedia pages of mentions of “dark money.”
Some in the media, meanwhile, have condemned Arabella for its “dark money” operations that have pushed policy changes on everything from the supporting mail-in voting to opposing Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. In a 2018 report, Politico found that Arabella’s Sixteen Thirty Fund had spent $140 million on more than 100 left-wing causes during the midterm election season. More than one-third of that money came from one anonymous donor.
The New York Times published a similar report after tracing several mundane-sounding nonprofits back to Arabella, including Keep Iowa Healthy, New Jersey for a Better Future, and North Carolinians for a Fair Economy — all of which were advocating for policies in areas with vulnerable Republican House members.
Its main funds cover the habit of the leftwing ideology. The Hopewell Fund promotes access to abortion and social justice, the Windward Fund promotes environmental issues, and the New Venture Fund acts as an incubator for scores of smaller left-wing campaigns through “fiscal sponsorship” programs.
Many of Arabella’s board members sit on boards for the various funds. Kessler, for example, was president of the New Venture Fund.
For more information on Arabella projects, read the profile of Accountable.US and InfluenceWatch’s profile of the New Venture Fund.
Ballot Measure 2 strikes Dunbar campaign, forced to admit its dark money is from Outside Alaska
