The staff of the Alaska Public Offices Commission is set the campaign contribution limit at $1,500 from an individual to a candidate, now that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out the previous $500 limit, which was in statute.
The Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court said the $500 limit is unreasonable, and it severely disadvantaged non-incumbents, and also was not elastic to adapt to inflation.
The new limit will be in effect until the commission itself, which is different from the APOC staff, overturns it, which would take four of the five commissioners.
Also another limit was created by staff: The non-political party group-to-candidate; and non-political party group-to-non-political party limit is $3,000 per year.
The ruling removes ambiguity for campaigns that was created by the Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit ruling, which had removed all limitations to state and local candidate. Federal candidates are governed by Federal Election Commission contribution limits.
So the staff is delegated to write state “lahr”. How quaint.
Why should there be any limit for political contributions? I don’t care who gives how much. What I do care about is transparency. Who gave how much, to whom and when is important to me. That information should be constantly available from APOC without a lot of links to access. APOC makes rules because that is what bureaucrats do. This notion of limiting money in politics is akin to limiting sex in marriage.
Isn’t that special; a bunch of hired state workers have determined they can set election law out of whole cloth. They must be mighty confident about the mendacity of our state judges, huh?
No limit means no limit. It doesn’t mean $1,500. This is a direct violation of the court ruling.
Oh good! Now we can send Kelly T. $3000 this year and $3000 in 2022. Get out the checkbook, Nancy.
This action by APOC unconstitutionally limits free speech – donations are speech. Changing the limit perpetuates the legal entanglement. We need to find a way that protects both the freedom to give AND limits the influence of would-be megadonors trying to sway elections the way they did with bm2. Nice intention APOC?? But useless – it will be back in court soon.
Federal Election Commission regulated contributions are not impacted by the APOC actions.
The 2021-2022 campaign contribution limit for Kelly Tshibaka for US Senate and Nick Begich for US Congress are $2900 for the primary election and $2900 for the general election.
Apparently APOC staff is unable to read. If donation limits on state and local campaigns are illegal, why is a $1500 limit legal while a $500 one not? CHeers –
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