State Sen. Kelly Merrick, running against a strong Republican challenger Jared Goecker, has had a string of campaign blunders and violations, and now she has yet another problem: Republicans have filed a complaint against her campaign with the Alaska Public Offices Commission.
According to the complaint, Merrick, who is an out-of-favor lawmaker, has admitted to taking donations from a business. That is illegal in Alaska. Businesses are not allowed to donate directly to candidates.
But the rules are sometimes different for the candidates backed by Big Labor.
The complaint also lists other violations by Merrick’s campaign involving in-kind donations that were not disclosed.
Merrick helped form a Democrat-majority caucus in the Alaska Senate, even though she represents one of the most conservative districts in Alaska — Chugiak-Eagle River. It’s become a campaign issue for her, although she has the strong support of the major labor unions of Alaska, due in no small part to her husband being the head of one of them.
She does not have the strong support of Republicans.
Earlier, Merrick’s union supporters violated the law by putting out a campaign mailer that used a police officer in uniform, with a badge, endorsing her. It is illegal for police officers to use their uniforms in partisan political ads.
Goecker, however, has the support of people like Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who endorsed him without even mentioning to voters that they could also vote for Merrick second in the ranked-choice ballot. Dunleavy completely ignored Merrick’s candidacy in his endorsement of Goecker.
District 24 Republicans endorsed Merrick after being pressured to do so by her husband, but Jared Goecker has the endorsement of both District 23, 24, and the Alaska Republican Party, which refused to endorse Merrick this year.
That is good. But, why isn’t there noise, also, from the parties about the growing number of democrats using public buildings for their campaigning?
Merrick will be in good company with Fletcher from Fairbanks. Maybe even cellmates? All night lady’s leg-wrestling matches is hard to beat by incarcerees.