THE ANCHORAGE DAILY PLANET
Just curious: With a shadowy effort underway to unseat Alaska’s duly elected governor for sins mostly imagined, why has the question of who is paying for it all not caused even a ripple in Alaska’s news media?
Where are the investigative reporters, the questions, the answers? We have a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper.
We have award-winning broadcast outlets.
They can find out almost anything – anything but who is paying for the 9-month-old effort to recall Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
As of this morning, Alaska Public Offices Commission reports show nothing being spent, nothing being contributed, nothing being reported by the Recall Dunleavy effort. Big fat zeros across the columns.
But we all know that cannot be true. Somebody is paying the legal bills all the way to the Alaska Supreme Court. Somebody is paying to get the recall petitions out to Alaskans. Somebody is underwriting the campaign. Who are they?
That remains a secret. State law actually allows that, allows Recall Dunleavy to take in and spend undocumented wads of cash from anybody, except foreign interests – until the question reaches the ballot.
If signature-gathering money is rolled over into the ensuing special recall election campaign, backers would have to report every penny collected and spent since signature-gathering began. That is unlikely to happen based on the secrecy so far.
You would think that very lack of transparency, that secrecy would be a red flag for the media. You would be wrong. You have to wonder: Why is it not?