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| Lawsuit Filed to Stop Out-of-State Donations in US Senate Races. |
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Wednesday February 25, 2004 PO Box 696 Palmer, AK 99645 LAWSUIT FILED TO STOP OUT-OF-STATE DONATIONS IN US SENATE RACES Press Conference at 2 p.m. 2/25/04 Washington DC WASHINGTON, DC -- Alaska US Senate candidate Jim Sykes filed suit to eliminate out-of-state contributions to the US Senate race in Alaska. The lawsuit names the Federal Election Commission and some of the most well-known big money donors in the United States who are not residents or voters of Alaska. However, these out-of-state donors are trying to influence who will be Alaska's next Senator Washington DC-based Haliburton Company Political Action Committee, Jack Valenti, Michael Berman, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Sykes had requested US Senate candidates to limit campaign contributions to Alaskans, in a letter dated January 21, 2004, (available here at the press conference and at <http://www.sykesforalaska.us>). Alaska approved a state law in 1996 requiring all contributions to be from Alaskans. Then-Governor Tony Knowles reportedly said he was "very happy this law is in place." [Anchorage Daily News May 31, 1996] During the 2000 and 2002 elections Lisa Murkowski was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives funded by campaign contributions only from Alaskans. All that was requested of Knowles and Murkowski was to voluntarily follow the guidelines of state laws in the US Senate race. Sykes said, "No one should take Outside special interest money to win an election for and by Alaskans. The problem is not thousands of Alaskans who might go to Washington, but those behind the special interest money already in Washington." Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 intended our republican form of government to prevent "factions" from unduly influencing the decisions of the United States Senate. Sykes, who has worked for many years to reduce the influence of money in Alaska politics, noted that the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) defines the term "contribution" as money or any other thing of value that a contributor gives for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office. The huge amounts of Outside money that influence the election infringes on the right of in-state voters to decide among themselves who should represent them. Sykes added, "There is no compelling governmental interest which justifies such infringement upon Alaska voters or voters of any other state." The lawsuit asks that both a preliminary and a permanent injunction enjoining the individual, political action committee, and senatorial campaign committee defendants in this action and the members of the classes they represent from making campaign contributions to candidates seeking election to the United States Senate in the November 2, 2004 Alaska general election, and directing such defendants and class members to seek the return of contributions made prior to the entry of the court's injunction.
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