• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Government>
  3. alaska>

Part I: Alaska's constitutional convention spending spree

J.H. Snider
January 09, 2023
Part I: Alaska's constitutional convention spending spree
Rusak/Getty Images

This is the first of four parts in an exclusive weekly series of articles in The Fulcrum by J.H. Snider on Alaska’s 2022 periodic constitutional convention referendum. Part I describes the spending spree over the referendum. Part II proposes a deterrence theory to help explain the extraordinary amount the no side spent. Part III describes the failure of the referendum’s marketplace for campaign finance disclosures. Part IV provides recommended reforms to fix this broken marketplace.

J.H. Snider, the president of iSolon.org, is the editor The State Constitutional Convention Clearinghouse, which provides summary information about the 14 U.S. states with a periodic constitutional convention referendum. He also edits separate websites, such as The Alaska State Constitutional Convention Clearinghouse, for each state that has a convention referendum on its ballot. Snider has a PhD in American Government from Northwestern University and been a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the American Political Science Association, and New America.


In 2022, Alaska’s periodic constitutional convention referendum had blowout campaign expenditures compared to all other referendums on the ballot across all fifty U.S. states. Surprisingly, a large fraction of that spending can best be explained not as a means to defeat a specific referendum, which was handily done by a 40% margin, but to preserve convention opponents’ reputation for political invincibility, thus enabling the defeat of future convention referendums in Alaska and other states without bearing the costs of a fight.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Background

Fourteen U.S. states have a periodic convention referendum, with periods ranging from ten to twenty years. The convention process in these states entails three public votes: 1) whether to call a convention, 2) to elect delegates to a convention, and 3) to vote up or down any constitutional amendments proposed by the convention. The primary contemporary democratic function of this referendum, like the constitutional initiative available in 18 states, is to prevent the legislature from having monopoly proposal power over constitutional change.

Convention opponents fall into four predictable groups: 1) legislatures that dislike the convention process because it is designed to bypass their monopoly proposal power over constitutional change, 2) apex special interest groups, which are defined by their extraordinary influence over state legislatures, especially their power to veto popular legislation harmful to their core interests, 3) relatively weak interest groups that rely on mutual back scratching coalitions with 1) and 2) above to effectively pursue their core mission, and 4) interest groups representing unpopular causes that prefer to exercise their influence via the courts rather than either the legislature or a convention. However, only category 2) groups, especially public unions and industries with unpopular subsidies or protections, have in recent decades predominantly financed the campaigns opposed to calling a convention.

Convention supporters are harder to classify, largely because convention opponents work so assiduously to promote unpopular extremists with their unpopular causes as their public face. But in terms of campaign contributions, there is a sharp distinction between yes and no campaigns: yes campaigns are overwhelmingly and usually exclusively funded by individuals, not groups, and in much smaller sums than no campaigns.

Alaska’s Spending Blowout

This year three states had a periodic constitutional convention referendum on the ballot: Alaska, Missouri, and New Hampshire. In Alaska, the no campaign, dominated by Defend Our Constitution, raised $4,787,775; and the yes campaign, dominated by ConventionYes!, $61,607.

The top four contributors to the no campaign, all national organizations based in DC, were the Sixteen Thirty Fund ($3,482,700), National Education Association (NEA; $500,00), American Federation of State County & Municipal Employees ($250,000), and American Federation of Teachers (AFT; $100,000). The next five largest contributors contributed $50,000 each: one national group (the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers), three local groups (NEA-Alaska, Supervisory Unit Local 4900, and the Alaska Progressive Donor Table), and one local individual (a corporate CEO). The Sixteen Thirty Fund is a “dark money” group because its contributors are not publicly disclosed. Oil and gas interests were strongly opposed to a convention but did not directly contribute money or take a public position. Their interests were represented more indirectly, such as via an op-ed published in multiple newspapers by Frank Murkowski, a former governor and chair of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and in local Chamber of Commerce resolutions that opposed a convention without citing individual members’ positions.

Among the 140 referendums on a statewide ballot in 2022, the Alaska referendum topped the campaign finance charts on a per capita basis based on a number of criteria, including amount spent: on a no campaign, by a no campaign by interests seeking concentrated benefits (popularly labeled “special interests”), by interests located out-of-state, via dark money, and by out-of-state dark money.

In terms of the combined amount spent per capita on either a yes or no campaign, it was beaten by only one other referendum, a ballot measure in California to legalize online and mobile sports betting, where both yes and no side advocates had concentrated benefits: the yes side to break into lucrative new gambling markets and no side to maintain its exclusive gambling franchises. (The no side, which outspent the yes side 1.4 to 1, won.) Of the 54 other governance and democratic reform referendums on a 2022 ballot, none was more expensive on a per capita basis including both yes and no expenditures.

The referendum was also extraordinary in its ratio of no-to-yes dollars, which in part reflected the extent to which no dollars represented interests with concentrated benefits and yes dollars interests with diffuse benefits. The ratio of no-to-yes dollars was 78 to 1, which was greater than any of the top 25% of referendums ranked by total dollars spent by both yes and no campaigns (the next closest no-to-yes-ratio was only 10 to 1).

The 78 to 1 figure should be interpreted as merely an approximation of the no campaign’s financial advantage. For example, a well-established finding of political science research is that a dollar spent opposing rather than supporting referendums is much more effective in influencing the public. Thus, this type of one-sided spending, all other things being equal, gives monied interests seeking to preserve their veto power an advantage over those seeking to support change, which implies the 78 to 1 ratio would understate the no side’s money advantage.

Similarly, the 78 to 1 figure should mostly be conceived as covering paid media, where third parties receive payment for campaign services. Excluded are in-group expenditures that benefited the no campaign, thus also understating the no side’s money advantage. For example, the paid union staff from both national and local unions devoted to helping Defend Our Constitution’s campaign was not disclosed on Defend Our Constitution’s campaign finance reports. Campaigns without major group backers, such as ConventionYes!, lack this reporting advantage. On the other hand, they may have more volunteer labor.

Helping to explain the 78 to 1 discrepancy is that 100% of the yes money was contributed by individuals. In contrast, the known sources of no money were overwhelmingly dominated by groups with concentrated benefits that, by definition, suffer from fewer collective action problems than average citizens. However, most of the no money was contributed by dark money interests. The largest individual contribution to Defend Our Constitution was made by a corporate leader for $50,000, five times the size of the largest individual contribution, $10,000, to ConventionYes!.

Also remarkable was the referendum’s combination of high per capita expenditures with a lopsided spending ratio and win. Usually, expenditures are high when the information arms race is competitive; that is, both sides are relatively well funded and the contest close.

From Your Site Articles
  • Part II: Deterrence best explains the late spending spree - The Fulcrum ›
  • Part III: The failed constitutional convention campaign finance marketplace - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • State constitutional convention measures stoke partisan fear | AP ... ›
  • Opinion: Preparing for Alaska's constitutional convention ... ›
alaska

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

Your Take: The federal investigation of former President Trump

Our Staff
3h

I traveled to all 50 states to find solutions to America’s political division: Here’s what I learned on the ground

Ryan Bernsten
4h

COVID created an expanded social safety net; activists are now quietly working to bring it back

Davis Giangiulio
30 March

Banking, democracy & trust

Lawrence Goldstone
30 March

SVB’s newfangled failure fits a century-old pattern of bank runs, with a social media twist

Rodney Ramcharan
30 March

Podcast: How women are showing up for justice & democracy

Our Staff
30 March
Videos

Video: What is it like to be Black in America? A first conversation about race starts here

Our Staff

Video: Can bipartisanship survive the rise of the independent voter?

Our Staff

Video: Ted Lasso cast at the White House press briefing

Our Staff

Video: The hidden stories in the U.S. Census

Our Staff

Video: We asked conservatives at CPAC what woke means

Our Staff

Video: DeSantis, 18 states to push back against Biden ESG agenda

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: How women are showing up for justice & democracy

Our Staff
30 March

Podcast: Harnessing the power of juries

Our Staff
28 March

Podcast: Partial truths & corporate fables

Debilyn Molineaux
David Riordan
27 March

Podcast: Risky business: More bank collapses ahead?

Our Staff
27 March
Recommended
Your Take: The federal investigation of former President Trump

Your Take: The federal investigation of former President Trump

Your Take
I traveled to all 50 states to find solutions to America’s political division: Here’s what I learned on the ground

I traveled to all 50 states to find solutions to America’s political division: Here’s what I learned on the ground

Big Picture
Video: What is it like to be Black in America? A first conversation about race starts here

Video: What is it like to be Black in America? A first conversation about race starts here

COVID created an expanded social safety net; activists are now quietly working to bring it back

COVID created an expanded social safety net; activists are now quietly working to bring it back

Government
Banking, democracy & trust

Banking, democracy & trust

Threats to democracy
SVB’s newfangled failure fits a century-old pattern of bank runs, with a social media twist

SVB’s newfangled failure fits a century-old pattern of bank runs, with a social media twist

Big Picture