Clean elections as important to Alaska's future as statehood was
by Vic Fischer
Letter to the Editor, Anchorage Daily News
Fifty years ago, I actively participated in Alaska's fight for statehood. Now, I am one of three sponsors of Ballot Measure 3, for public funding of campaigns, designed to bring clean elections to our state.
The arguments against the Clean Elections initiative are just as preposterous as those against statehood during the 1950s. Now as then, the naysayers stand reality on its head.
Then, anti-statehooders argued Alaska would be better off remaining a territory or becoming a commonwealth like Puerto Rico. Their arguments today are similarly wacko. Quite opposite to their negatives, Clean Elections will reduce special-interest influence. It will reduce corruption. It will make legislators accountable to voters, not to lobbyists.
Clean Elections has worked in other states, and so it will in Alaska. Public campaign funding is a very small price to pay for good government.
I urge you to again do what's right for Alaska -- and to vote yes on Ballot Measure 3, for clean election campaigns.
-- Vic Fischer
Alaska Constitutional Convention delegate
Former Alaska state senator
Anchorage