Alaska Democrats violate APOC laws

By Mike Dingman
Alaska Standard Contributor

The brilliance of Municipal elections is that they are intended to be non-partisan. Positions are to be held by men and women of various professions meeting once a week to hammer out the nuts and bolts of city government. As one prominent politician once told me “Potholes are not a member of either party, they just need to be filled”.

Last Tuesday, Anchorage Democrats decided to bring in the month of December by violating Alaska election law. A self-identified party official – Chris Jenkins – created a group on the social networking site “Facebook” titled “Hold Mayor Dan Sullivan Accountable”. In the description for the group, Jenkins – an intern for the Democratic Party of Alaska writes, “Lets take back Anchorage.” 

Today, Jason Cline, a candidate for Alaska State House, will file a complaint with the Alaska Public Offices Commission outlining the various violations of Alaska Statute 15.13.090 by the Alaska Democratic Party.

According to the APOC complaint, within an hour of creating this group, Mr. Jenkins sent an email using the official Alaska Democratic Party’s Facebook group message and signed the email “Christopher Jenkins, Intern, Alaska Democratic Party”.

At 9:01pm, Democratic Party Chairwoman Patti Higgins authored a comment on the page attacking Dan Sullivan; which according to the complaint proves that “party leadership knew of the page and its goals from the moment of the page’s creation and actively worked to promote and sanction it by lending their name and image by posting on the page’s wall.”

Further, having been aware of the site, Ms. Higgins had to have known of its claim to be “Not affiliated with any political party” even though it had clearly been advertised and promoted by the party and its leadership using party resources. Given all of this it is clear that Ms. Higgins is complicit in this deception that this group is not affiliated with the Democratic Party of Alaska.

As mentioned earlier the beauty of local elected officials is that, ideally, they are non-partisan public servants. Their passions should be with the business of running the city, not the partisan politics that plague state and national government. City Hall should be the hall of the people, not an arena for partisan battles.

This deception by the Alaska Democratic Party is a betrayal of the public trust. When party leaders speak, we trust that they are speaking the truth as they know it, with all the passion of their convictions. When they work to deceive, it serves nobody and continues the denigration of the public’s trust in our political system.

I would certainly never claim that one party is alone in the ranks of partisan politics; however, this latest example from the Alaska Democratic Party is particularly disturbing. Most political maneuvering is overt and clearly the act of a political party. This instance is just the opposite. It is a blatant attempt by the Democratic Party of Alaska, to deceive the public into believing this is a “grass-roots” type effort simply to show the Mayor that the public disagrees with many of his decisions. However, it is clear that this is a deliberate and coordinated attempt by Alaska Democratic Party officials to affect a future municipal election in their favor.

Indeed Anchorage, let’s take our municipality back. We should, mobilize to take Anchorage back from the blatant political games played by the Alaska Democratic Party. We must be vocal against these violations of state election law. Ladies and gentlemen – let’s take Anchorage back!