By Sentinel Staff
An Anchorage Superior Court Judge William F. Morse issued a ruling Monday ordering Alaska to once again enforce strict limits on political donations to independent groups known as “Super PACs.”
The judge ruled that the state’s election enforcement agency “has construed the constitutional restrictions on these types of contributions too broadly,” and that the agency “should reinstate enforcement of the contribution limits at issue.”
The ruling was in a lawsuit against the state by the nonprofit Equal Citizens, which hailed it as the first step in challenging the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” ruling that in effect removed limits on campaign donations to super PACs and independent groups.
The case was brought by a cross-partisan group of three Alaskans – Donna Patrick and Pat Lambert of Fairbanks and James Barnett of Anchorage – who jointly challenged Alaska’s 2012 decision to abandon enforcement of strict limits on donations to independent political groups.
In a news release Tuesday the plaintiffs said the state’s failure to enforce the limits set by Alaska law enabled independent groups to accept many donations of $10,000 or more from wealthy individuals or out-of-state interests.
Equal Citizens called Morse’s decision “a landmark ruling.”
“The victory was the result of years of hard work and a creative litigation strategy by Equal Citizens founder Lawrence Lessig – also a Harvard Law Professor – and Equal Citizens chief counsel Jason Harrow, who worked alongside attorneys at the firm Davis Wright Tremaine and with noted experts Jack Rakove and Adam Bonica, both of Stanford University,” said the Equal Citizens news release.
“This is historic,” said Lessig in the news release. “It shows what we have known for many years: Citizens United did not create the Super PAC; instead, unlimited donations have flown into independent groups because of incorrect interpretations by lower courts and state elections agencies. This decision gives Alaskans and all Americans a chance to revisit those destructive decisions. And it will allow us to continue to make our case that the Framers did not wish to see Super PACs. Just the opposite: they would have despised the kind of corruption we have seen recently, and the Constitution gives states the power to eliminate it.”
Harrow added: “The judge’s opinion said that ‘immediate review’ by the Alaska Supreme Court is appropriate in a case of this magnitude. We look forward to taking the case there and, hopefully, to the U.S. Supreme Court. We are confident we have a theory that the Constitution does not require the states to get out of the business of curbing unlimited donations to Super PACs.”
