As they’ve done every 10 years since 1972, Alaska voters on Nov. 8 again overwhelmingly rejected the ballot measure to convene a convention to rewrite the state’s founding document.
Advocates on both sides had expected the outcome to be closer this time because of the annual deadlock in the Legislature over the size of the Permanent Fund dividend, an issue that convention supporters said they wanted to resolve with changes to the Alaska Constitution.
But as of the Nov. 9 count, 70% of voters had voted against the measure (146,092 to 63,078), with nearly all precincts counted, a greater margin of defeat than most past votes on the issue. The constitution requires voters decide the issue every 10 years.
Wrangell voters were even stronger against a constitutional convention, at almost 78% in the preliminary count.
Opponents of the ballot measure, led by campaign group Defend Our Constitution, said a diverse coalition of prominent Alaska groups helped swing momentum against a convention. In their campaign, they said a convention could open up the state to major policy shifts on a variety of issues, including privacy rights, hunting and fishing privileges and abortion access.
Supporters, led by the group Convention YES, said a flood of campaign donations from Outside allowed the opposition to overshadow their message. Craig Campbell, chair of Convention YES and former Republican lieutenant governor, called opponents’ argument that the state would open “Pandora’s box” by holding a constitutional convention “paranoia.”
Defend Our Constitution dominated spending 80 to 1. The group recently reported spending $4 million. The donations came mostly from Outside organizations like the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which is based in Washington, D.C.
Convention YES spent about $50,000, usually from small contributions from individual Alaskans, allowing them to make only small ad purchases.
Polls showed a relatively close race earlier this summer. But as the campaign wore on, an array of Alaska groups came out against a constitutional convention, helping tell their members about the potential risks of opening up the document to a rewrite.
The groups crossed the political spectrum, and included business, industry, environmental, fishing and hunting organizations. They included the Alaska Federation of Natives, the state’s largest Native organization; the United Fishermen of Alaska, the state’s largest commercial fishing trade association; the Alaska Center, a prominent environmental group.
Business groups, including the Anchorage and Fairbanks chambers of commerce, were concerned about the chilling effect that the uncertainty of a convention process would have on the business climate and investments in Alaska development projects, said Matt Shuckerow, spokesman for the Defend Our Constitution.
Jim Minnery, a Convention YES steering committee member and president of the conservative Christian advocacy group Alaska Family Council, attributed the large loss to Outside money spent on the campaign.
Campbell said Convention YES focused on the Permanent Fund and judicial reform as changes a constitutional convention could bring, though Minnery and others talked about the convention as an opportunity to limit access to abortions.
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade this summer, abortion supporters and opponents believed a constitutional convention was the likeliest path to change access to the procedure in the state. Alaska courts have upheld a woman’s right to choose, based on the state constitution’s privacy provision.
How much that issue affected the outcome of the ballot measure was difficult to know, observers said.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates and the Alaska Center’s Education Fund created their own campaign group, “Protect Our Rights: No on 1,” to oppose a convention, focusing on women’s rights.
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