Shawn Griffiths
JUNEAU, Alaska — Tuesday was primary election day in Alaska, but there weren't just candidates on the nonpartisan ballot. Voters also overwhelmingly backed limits on campaign contributions, 5 years after a federal court struck down a similar effort.
Ballot Measure 1 was approved with 71% support (as of this writing). The result puts Alaska back in the business of limiting how much individuals and political groups can give directly to candidates—more on that in a bit.
However, this will not be the final vote this year on campaign finance reform.
In November, Alaskans will vote on another measure that could repeal election reforms adopted in 2020 that implemented the nonpartisan Top Four open primary system used Tuesday and ranked choice voting in the general election.
But it also put in place several finance disclosure provisions specifically targeting “dark money” from out-of-state sources.
In other words: Alaska voters just decided how much political money can be given directly to candidates. In November, they will decide, among other things, how much information voters are entitled to have about where other political money comes from.
Especially at a time when more and more donors are funneling money through entities that—absent state disclosure requirements—can mask who is behind the cash flow.
What Does Ballot Measure 1 Do?
The measure adopted by voters on Tuesday establishes new limits for contributions in state and local elections.
Here’s what it does:
- An individual can give up to $2,000 per election cycle to a candidate;
- An individual can give up to $5,000 per year to a political party or other political group;
- A group other than a political party can give up to $4,000 per election cycle to a candidate;
- Individuals can give up to $4,000 per election cycle to a joint campaign for governor and lieutenant governor, while groups can give up to $8,000; and
- Contribution limits will be adjusted for inflation every 10 years beginning in 2031.
Notably, it specifically exempts contributions from organizations that make only independent expenditures. These are groups that spend money supporting or opposing candidates, but are not supposed to coordinate directly with campaigns.
Think Super PACs.
These groups can still accept unlimited contributions, which is important to keep in mind. The measure does not put a ceiling on all money in Alaska politics. It primarily restores limits on money contributed directly to candidates and certain political organizations.
Ballot Measure 1 was sponsored by former Alaska Attorney General Bruce Botelho, David Monson and independent state Rep. Calvin Schrage, working with Citizens Against Money in Politics.
Supporters argued that the absence of individual contribution limits after a 2021 court ruling allowed wealthy donors and special interests to exercise disproportionate influence by writing five- and six-figure checks directly to candidates.
Opponents, on the other hand, argued the measure restricted political speech and could make it harder for lesser-known challengers to raise enough money to compete with incumbents who already have name recognition and established political networks.
Alaska Has Been Fighting Over Contribution Limits for Decades
This isn’t the first time Alaska or its voters have tried to impose individual-to-candidate and individual-to-group contribution limits.
Alaska imposed a $1,000 annual individual contribution limit in 1974. In 1996, lawmakers cut the individual-to-candidate limit to $500 and imposed the same limit on contributions to non-party political groups.
The legislature reversed course in 2003, raising those limits back to $1,000.
Dissatisfied with this decision, voters stepped in with a ballot measure 3 years later that tried to restore the $500 cap. Also designated Ballot Measure 1, it passed with 73% of the vote.
However, it didn’t survive in federal court.
The measure was initially upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but in 2019, the US Supreme Court ordered the Ninth to reconsider whether the $500 limit was consistent with modern court precedent.
SCOTUS specifically pointed to how low the cap was compared with other states, the fact that the same limit applied to every state office, and the lack of an inflation adjustment.
On remand, the Ninth Circuit ruled in 2021 that Alaska had not shown that its $500 individual-to-candidate and individual-to-group limits were sufficiently tailored to withstand constitutional scrutiny.
The court noted, among other things, the absence of inflation indexing—something this year’s measure included.
The Alaska Legislature almost took care of the issue earlier this year. HB 16 contained virtually identical limits and passed the Senate 12-8 and the House 21-19. But Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed the bill, arguing that such limits only favored self-funded candidates.
If the bill had been allowed to become law, it would have canceled the vote on Ballot Measure 1.
But Another Campaign Finance Vote Is Coming in November
On November 3, Alaska voters will decide Ballot Measure 2, titled, "An Act Restoring Political Party Primaries, Ending Ranked-Choice General Elections, and Repealing Recent Campaign Finance Laws."
The proposal targets the sweeping election reform package approved by a majority of Alaska voters in 2020.
That measure replaced closed partisan primaries with a single nonpartisan open primary in which all voters and candidates, regardless of party, participate on the same ballot and the top four candidates advance.
It also implemented ranked choice voting in general elections.
But the 2020 initiative contained a third major component: tougher campaign finance disclosure requirements intended to expose the original sources behind money spent to influence Alaska elections.
The law requires people who contribute $2,000 or more annually to an organization making independent expenditures (e.g. super PACs) in candidate elections to quickly disclose those contributions.
It also included "true source" requirements designed to prevent the identity of an original donor from disappearing behind an intermediary organization. And, it imposed additional disclaimer requirements on certain political advertisements funded predominantly by donors outside Alaska.
In 2024, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the disclosure system, leaving lower-court decisions allowing the rules to remain in force.
The official summary for November's Ballot Measure 2 says the proposal would repeal disclosure rules involving digital advertisements, out-of-state donations, undisclosed donations and the true source of donations.
It would also change the definition of a campaign expenditure and eliminate some existing fines.
Supporters of the repeal, organized under the Repeal Now campaign, argue that the disclosure requirements are burdensome, particularly for smaller political organizations, and have not stopped undisclosed money from influencing Alaska politics.
Opponents, including Protect Alaska's Elections, argue that repealing them would make it easier for wealthy donors and outside organizations to obscure the original source of money spent to influence Alaska voters.
This is also not the first attempt to repeal the 2020 reform package. A similar measure failed in 2024 by fewer than 1,000 votes, though that effort left out the new campaign finance rules—which could change how voters look at it.