Also at the Parade - Alaskans For Clean Elections Signs & Materials

There will be signs and other materials from Alaskans for Clean Elections at the parade. Diane Benson, Ethan Berkowitz, Mark Begich, Wally Hickel, Vic Fisher, Katie Hurley and a host of other prominent Alaskans in public life, have heartily endorsed this ballot initiative. The Anchorage Daily News fulsomely endorsed it in a column last week.

Here's a guest post by Jim Sykes on this:

The most important vote on August 26th

Ballot Measure 3, public funding for campaigns, is known as Clean Elections because it takes special interest money out of our election system. Despite it's enormous success in states that already use the system, opponents are slinging mud with untruths and misleading information.

It's critical to clear up this mud with actual facts. Please visit www.alaskansforcleanelections.org and ask people to pass on the link. Alaskans from all political stripes are featured in videos. Find the You'll Fact Check page to debunk myths from opponents (right hand menu) and important reference documents (left menu). Right now Ballot Measure 3 is a toss up. Now is the time Alaskans need win Clean Elections to get the special interest money out of elections with a system that's proven to work well.

Ballot Measure 3, Clean Elections, is pretty easy. If you want to continue with special interest money dominating our election system, you probably won't support it. If you want less influence from special interest money, real competition for ideas and issues and a better democracy, vote yes.

Public funding for campaigns, known as Clean Elections, is a voluntary add-on to our current election system. The Clean Elections system has proven encourage more and better candidates, including more women and lower income candidates, while severely reducing the influence of special interests. Candidates who choose to raise private funds can continue to do so under the current system.

4 out of 5 voters support this system in states with the most experience--an enormously high level of support. Opponents say the system is bad and doesn't work, yet if that were true, states that have the system would have gotten rid of it.

Whether we know it or not, our current system allows bunches of our public money to fund some campaigns partially through political favors, paybacks and sweetheart deals on state resources. The federal indictment against Sen. John Cowdery made it clear:

"COMPANY VP told COMPANY CEO on two separate occasions that the only leverage COMPANY A (Veco) had to change votes on the 20/20 PPT (Petroleum Production Tax) legislation is through campaign contributions and by hosting fund-raisers."

Contributions became a gateway for bribes. Veco mostly bribed those who received its contributions. The 2006 PPT vote was worth over a billion dollars a year to Veco and big oil.

That amount could have funded Clean Elections for 200 years. The $9 per year per Alaskan per year estimated cost is tiny compared to the paybacks to funders that our current system invites.

Join Walter Hickel, Tony Knowles, Arliss Sturgulewski, Vic Fischer, Jim Whitaker, Janet Kincaid, Katie Hurley, John Havelock, AARP, the Alaska Women's Political Caucus, and many other Alaskans from across the political spectrum and vote YES on 3. Make Alaska's election system the best it can be.

Jim Sykes

PO Box 696, Palmer, AK 99645