The Alaska Public Offices Commission is investigating a complaint by an Anchorage activist that an advertising campaign on behalf of state Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Haines, violated campaign reporting regulations.
The 12 ads placed in the Chilkat Valley News were organized by Haines resident Jim Studley, who serves as deputy treasurer of Thomas’ re-election campaign. The ads were paid for by various residents and businesses supporting Thomas and their names appeared at the bottom of the ads. Thomas is seeking re-election in November to a seat in the state House of Representatives.
Linda Kellen submitted five complaints to APOC on Oct. 4, one each in the names of Thomas, his wife and campaign treasurer Joyce Thomas, deputy campaign treasurer Studley, campaign chair Doug Olerud and deputy campaign treasurer Gregg Richmond.
Kellen said no required paperwork was filed with APOC for any of the ads, but that she brought complaints against the five individuals because they were involved with the campaign and Studley, Richmond and Olerud also are connected to companies that purchased the ads.
“This is more than a blurring of the lines. None of the rules at all were followed,” Kellen said.
Under state campaign laws, spending on candidates comes either as an “independent expenditure” unsolicited by the campaign and independent of it, or as a campaign expenditure. “Basically, none of the rules were followed for either one. I couldn’t tell what they were trying to do. There was no paperwork at all done,” Kellen said.
But Studley this week said that he contacted APOC previous to running the ads and was told that as long as they were “thank you” ads, no reporting was required. “We really thought we weren’t doing anything wrong. On two of the ads we may have screwed up because we used the word ‘vote.’”
Studley provided an e-mail from APOC paralegal Heather Hebdon that said, in part, “from the way you have described the ads it would not appear that they would require disclosure on Rep. Thomas’ campaign disclosure report. If the businesses are simply running the ads to thank him for his service and are not campaign related, they would not require disclosure. If, however, they are campaign-related, the businesses themselves might have reporting requirements as independent expenditures.”
The ads started running in June. Some were limited to expressions of thanks, but others included language like “working for all of us” and “he gets the job done.”
APOC executive director Holly Hill said the agency would first determine whether ads fall under its authority as communication it regulates. “If you’re not influencing the election of a candidate or a ballot initiative, it has nothing to do with APOC,” she said.
Other questions may include whether ads qualified as independent expenditures, whether they were reported correctly and whether the ads contained required attribution.
APOC staff will provide a report and will recommend either dismissal, assessment of a violation and penalty, or a consent agreement settling the matter. The staff report and hearing on the matter may be held in mid-November. The statewide election will be held Nov. 2.
Kellen, a Democrat, described herself as a watchdog for government transparency who is equally tough on members of her own party. “My big thing is transparency, ethics and disclosure. For me to get involved in a community I’m not part of, it had to be a fairly flagrant violation.”
Kellen said it’s understandable that residents may not know all the reporting requirements that go with political contributions, especially considering a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that’s changed some regulations, but members of Thomas’ campaign should have known, she said.
Kellen said she hopes her complaints would prove educational for campaigns and givers. “All I really want is for the rules to apply to everybody. We have to get people to follow the rules that we have.”
Kellen said she was alerted to the ads by a local woman who inquired about placing their own ads. Newspaper staffers this week said they remembered a phone call from Kellen but couldn’t recall a resident making similar inquiries. Kellen declined to provide the woman’s name.
Bill Thomas didn’t return a message to the CVN relayed to him Wednesday by his office staffers in Haines.