Some finance complaints are little more than smoke screens

Frontiersman editorial board

This year 22 campaign finance complaints were lodged with the Alaska Public Offices Commission during the election season. That's seven more than were filed in 1998. While campaign finance is a critical issue, and while it certainly requires regulation -- and hopefully reform -- the way complaints are filed could use some scrutiny, as well.

APOC officials admit that at least some of the complaints filed during campaign season are not "bona fide." In other words, one candidate may lodge a complaint in an effort to cast an opponent in an unfavorable light, or to distract an opponent's focus away from his or her own campaign. That may not come as much of a surprise to most of us, but it should be at least a disappointment to us all. Not only do the bogus complaints bog down the commission staff in frivolous investigations, but the practice of filing erroneous complaints also speaks volumes about the state of ethics in local politics.

Perhaps we shouldn't, but we do often expect more from our local representatives -- at least in terms of ethics and decency. These are our neighbors. They are also Alaskans. We hope they'll act in a way that won't embarrass the rest of us. We have to wonder about a candidate who pores over an opponent's donations filings to find what often amount to technical inaccuracies. Of course, it is important to know who is financing campaigns, but some of the complaints seem petty at best. Wouldn't voters be better served if candidates expended as much energy on the positive aspects of their own campaigns as they do on the negative aspects of opponents' campaigns? It is just another example of how candidates turn voters off to the whole process by dragging democracy into the mud during campaigns, only to sing its praises after winning an election.

This is just one more reason why we should make campaign finance reform a top priority before the next round of elections. It is time to cut off all soft money donations. Perhaps the entire notion of privately-funded campaigns should be scrutinized. In this last election, nearly 80 percent of the winners (on the national level) outspent their opponents. If there is a clearer symptom that policy is driven more by capital than by competence, it is yet to be found. In the meantime, maybe there should be some sort of consequence for candidates who file complaints that are not "bona fide."