"This
action comes as little surprise as the Republican-backed, mis-named
'Americans for Job Security' initiated its third round of negative
attack ads in the Alaska media. The Republican super-majority
in the Legislature predictably flexed its muscle to open wide
the floodgates of soft money. The next gold rush to Alaska will
be a bonanza of soft money bringing the Washington, D.C., beltway
brand of politics, with its anonymous funding sources and thinly
disguised partisan agendas, into Alaska affairs.
Alaskans
will not tolerate much more of this underhanded, mudslinging,
machine politics meddling in their affairs. Instead, as they
have in the past, I expect voters will turn to the referendum
and initiative process to do what the Republican majority won't:
enact strong and effective campaign finance laws that reject
the influence of outside soft money in Alaska politics."
