One of the biggest dark money groups in the country, which has controlled many of Alaska’s election outcomes over the years, is the New Venture Fund. It’s a name every Alaskan should know, but that few do.
The New Venture Fund is the group behind a new pop-up group called Citizens Against Money in Politics, which seeks to instate a $4,000 campaign contribution limit in Alaska elections for groups, and a $2,000 limit for ordinary citizens. The group is collecting signatures all over the state, most recently in Fairbanks.
This initiative would give the ability of groups like the New Venture Fund to create numerous pop-up groups and spend money changing outcomes in Alaska, while putting regular citizens at a disadvantage for fighting them. It’s similar to what happened with 2020’s Ballot Measure 2, which brought in the ranked-choice voting method now used in Alaska, to disadvantage Republicans except for Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
The New Venture Fund, along with ASEA, AFL-CIO, and NEA-Alaska — also among the biggest forces in Democrat politics in Alaska — are doing what they say the Legislature should have done — create campaign contribution limits in Alaska. The limits that were the law of the Great Land, limiting contributions to $500 per individual to a campaign, were overturned by the Ninth Circuit and currently there are no limits at all on how much can be spent on a campaign.
The campaign limit laws, however, give particular power to those groups that are “independent expenditure groups,” which is what the dark-money constellation of which the New Venture Fund is but one hot-burning star. New Venture Fund is a subset of Arabella Advisors, which has become synonymous with political “dark money.”
Year after year, Arabella guides donor money, which includes money from foreign billionaires like Hansjorg Wass, to the subgroups — New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty and Hopewell Fund. Rarely do those donations show up in a candidate’s campaign finance disclosures. But take, for example, Forrest Dunbar’s run for mayor of Anchorage. The Sixteen Thirty Fund funneled $35,000 into a group called “Building a Stronger Anchorage,” which was created solely to get Dunbar elected.
If New Venture Fund is successful in getting the signatures it needs to get campaign finance laws back on the books, it will pour millions into convincing Alaskans to vote for the initiative at the ballot box — all under the guise of making elections fair. In reality, it will make elections work for the New Venture Fund and its affiliates out of D.C.
The New Venture Fund also spawned “The Alaska Venture Fund,” a group that takes credit for stopping mining in Alaska.
For the Citizens Against Money in Politics, the group has reported $91,656.46 in contributions so far this year, with $75,000 coming from the New Venture Fund, and the AFL-CIO and NEA-Alaska contributing $5,000 each.
There is no group that has organized in order to combat the effort to limit the rights of citizens to contribute to campaigns.
And there is no sure way to know whose money is being laundered through New Venture Fund in order to change Alaska elections to benefit New Venture Fund and labor unions.
Citizens Against Money in Politics is headed in Alaska by Juneau Democrats, with former Attorney General (and former Mayor of Juneau) Bruce Botelho leading the charge.
Botelho brokered the deal that put Bill Walker and Byron Mallott together after the ballot was already set in 2014, helping that ticket to become the Democrats’ nominee for governor and lieutenant governor. He was a significant player in the drive to take the Republicans’ primary away from them and implement ranked-choice general elections in Alaska.
That is money that educators could use in their retirement!
Do the teachers understand how the NEA spends money that the teachers trust them for????
Jojo, most teachers probably don’t know because they don’t ask their NEA handlers. Even if the teachers did know, they would fear the power of the NEA/AFT to harass them and possibly result in losing their jobs. That is what fear does. Most government employees hunker down, hide, collect their paychecks which is understandable. That is, until it reaches a breaking point and they get the courage to say, “Stop, no more. I cannot be a party to this”.
Everyone, I mean Everyone needs to repost this. It is not a joke.
This group Arabella Advisors funnels billions through over 500+ nonprofits throughout the country.
$6.5 billion raised since inception in 2016.
They raise $1.6 billion a year in donations going to left wing causes.
That is more than the RNC and DNC raise per year.
Hope that rings a loud bell in your ears.
They have been behind the RCV, they have been behind the decriminalizing hard drugs in Oregon, RCV push in Idaho, Minimum Wage Increase in Alaska, etc, etc
……..but Lisa Murkowski loves these people…..
The non profit label has become the single biggest criminal group in the US. Most of them are created purely to line the pockets of a few under the facade of a laudable activity. Here in Anchorage, I have watched some of them operating to rake in much of the CARES act money and other money, both from COVID money printed by the Federal government and money from gas, alcohol, and marijuana taxes. And those sales taxes were passed in the violation of the muni charter and the ballot outlined specific uses for that tax money, which all went out hte window with the racketeering within this muni assembly.
So the big corporations and non profits can launder money but the private citizen can’t.
Sounds like elite power grab.
Radical Democrat groups and their puppet masters, teachers unions, trying to get their radical Democrat candidates into office anyway they can. Stop them in their tracks.
Vote Republican!
Arabella Advisors is a curse upon this nation. They are an un-American organization that needs to end.
SUZANNE DOWNING MUST READ OF ALASKA, CONGRATULATIONS ABSOLUTELY SO MA’AM, WHAT A FUN LITTLE INVENTION YOU CAME UP WITH HERE I ENJOY MUST READ LOTS THANK YOU ALL.
Thanks for naming names. Gives me search and research data.
This group Arabella Advisors funnels hate, lies and supports people who want to hurt you now and in the future.
These people are scum of the earth.
$100.00 through Arabella is translated down to $1,000’s through all the shill sub-groups
Get it firmly in your mind and nothing else –THESE PEOPLE ARE YOUR ENEMY AND ENEMIES OF YOUR KIDS AND FRIENDS—
What? Do they want to limit contributions to $249.00 dollars per year? This is b.s. to the hilt!
I agree with Phil – everyone needs to share this.
I had to chase these Arabella bots off with a stick at the Ninilchik Fair this last weekend. They spouted a story full of pie-in-the-sky promises of a glowing future for elections in Alaska, but in reality they were spreading more horse***t than the barrel racers.
Very good article.
Hopewell Fund , Sixteen, Thirty fund , Windward fund, New venture fund and North fund are also under the umbrella of AA
The owner of these nonprofit ran by the for profit Arabella Advisors was started by the same person Eric Kessler , the companies are backed by George Soros as well as others.
Here in Fairbanks, the petitioners approached our son-in-law walking into the Noel Wien library. The petitioners are claiming to help Phil against Ranked Choice voting. That is a blatant lie. They also claim that Phil said to do this, that they are helping Phil. If you are on social media platforms put this information on all of them. This is attorney Scott Kendall’s scheme. The same Kendall who tried to delete homeschooling from the Alaska State Budget last session.
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