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Gara's fundraising

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Posted: May 12, 2008 - 5:10 pm

From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage --

Anchorage Democratic state Rep. Les Gara is apparently on vacation in Italy. But a House Democratic Campaign Committee fundraising letter that Gara sent out during the most recent session of the state Legislature is causing a stir.

KTUU-TV was given a copy on Friday and did this story. (UPDATE -- KTUU on Monday night did this follow up story with a different tone.)

We got our copy of the letter today (Monday) --a note to leakers - feel free to send us this stuff the same time as our television friends.

The issue is whether Gara violated the ban on legislators' fundraising during the legislative session. Here's what the law says:

"A legislator or legislative employee may not

(1)on a day when either house of the legislature is in regular or special session, solicit or accept a contribution or a promise or pledge to make a contribution for a campaign for the state legislature..."

That makes it sound like what Gara did is a pretty clear violation. But here's where it starts getting murkier. The House Democratic Campaign Committee is a subdivision of the state Democratic Party.

And Joyce Anderson, administrator of the legislative ethics committee, had written Gara a Jan. 19, 2006 email that "you are not prohibited from raising money for a political party during session...AS 24.60.031 only prohibits you from soliciting or accepting a contribution or a promise or pledge to make a contribution for a campaign for the state Legislature."

Anderson had sent Gara an earlier email that included an advisory opinion saying:

"If the donation was made to a political party or to another group which was not connected to a candidate, the donation could be accepted by the group during the session and given to support the campaign of an incumbent legislator after the session ended."

Gara also got a letter from APOC on April 14 (after the fundraising letter went out) saying that a political party can raise money during the session. "This means that if a subordinate unit of the party, such as the House Democratic Campaign Committee or the House Majority Campaign were to ask about fundraising during session, under AS 15.13. the answer would be yes, based on the information given to us (by Gara)."

Confused?

I'm pretty sure that the legislative ethics committee is hashing all this out today. The committee is meeting in secret, so I can't say for sure, but it will become public if a violation is found.

It's not clear whom exactly the fundraising letter went out to, other than likely people who had donated to Democrats before.

Read the letter for yourself here. It says "you can help us re-elect great Democratic legislators like Berta Gardner, Harry Crawford, Woodie Salmon and David Guttenberg..." The letter focuses on the FBI investigations, including a graphic of a guy in handcuffs, and says it's time to change the Legislature.

UPDATE -- I see former Republican legislator Andrew Halcro has now written about this on his blog. Halcro says Gara arguably stepped over the line by specifying candidates in the fundraising letter. You can read his take on it here. Offering a different perspective on that question is Democratic Rep. Harry Crawford, who said to me the candidates mentioned weren't being promised funds, they were just used as examples.

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11 May 24, 2008 - 2:02pm | maxk

trumped up charge by those with the most to lose

I live in Rep. Les Gara’s district and support him 100%. He's a former prosecutor and has done more for open, transparent government than anyone else in Alaska. He’s sponsored legislation to prohibit so-called “consulting fees” to legislators, faught proposals to weaken registration rules for lobbyists, and been a leader on open meetings – and all of this before the VECO scandal.

It should be noted that he checked with the Alaska Public Offices Commission and the Legislative Ethics Committee in advance of sending out a letter and both said it was fine. In the long run, we’d be better off with publically-funded campaigns (to avoid even the appearance of impropriety) but until then, hats off to Rep. Gara him for checking that it was okay first. If only half our legislators could be so conscientious.

Really, people – time to get back to work.

June 7, 2008 - 12:48am | alaskananny

A small distinction

When he asked AK Offices Commisison and the Ethics Committee if it were ok to send the letter, did he indicate that he was sending it out to raise money for the party or for the party on behalf of incumbents? I think that is where the gray area in the law exists. Since the letter references raising funds to support incumbents, it should be prohibited. Or the activity should at least be avoided. It just looks like he is raising funds for incumbents during session. The look of impropriety is just too great...

June 10, 2008 - 7:48pm | akartisan

Also, Was He Not Paying Attention To His Proposed Legislation?

Just because it was ruled "legal" Gara should have known that it would appear fundamentally flawed. And since he sought clarification in 2006, BEFORE the legislative corruption cases exploded onto the national media, he should have known the unspoken rules had changed. Especially in his most visible role in the charge to change the ethics arena.

10 May 14, 2008 - 7:38pm | juno

Gara hoist on his own petard.

Feb. 20, 2008. HB305 (An Act relating to campaign fund raising during a regular or special legislative session) was on House floor for vote.
Amendment No. 2: Offered by Gara’s Demo colleagues to insert a new subparagraph to prohibitions on fund raising during session and reads:
(D) FOR A POLITICAL PARTY (pg 3)
GARA VOTED YES for amendment and VOTED YES for HB305.

Gara mails out illegal fundraising letter one month later.

Was Les Gara paying attention? Or did he do this on purpose?
How does what he did square with what he knew or should have known to be in violation of specific prohibitions to campaign fundraising laid out in HB 305?

9 May 13, 2008 - 10:24am | akmooster

the point here is...

gara broke the law and the intent of the law. The d's are now rallying behind him with their myriad of excuses and loopholing. Shame on you.
Once again the d's could take the high ground and say NOT IN MY PARTY and throw the bum out. But no, instead its the old "its okay if he is a crook because he's our crook, its THEIR crook that needs to go".
Shameful.

May 23, 2008 - 8:49am | fsmith

Actually, Gara didn't break the law.

If you can read English, you'll see that this is the case.

If you are trying to equate doing something that is legal, while asking for Ethics and APOC clarification, then holding the checks for months without cashing them, with taking thousands of dollars from Bill Allen and Rick Smith on the FBI's "Candid Camera" while discussing specific legislation with the oil industry's bagmen, you're suffering from an extreme case of cognitive dissonance.

8 May 13, 2008 - 12:41am | juno

Return $$$ to sender

No House Dems can accept $$$ raised during session even if $$$ was raised for them. Make public list of House Dem Campaign Comm contributors. All house dem candidates receiving this $$$ are in violation.
Nothig murky in this Standard of Conduct Handbook
FUNDRAISING FOR POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS DURING SESSION AS 24.60.031
A legislator or legislative employee may not request or accept a contribution, or a promise to make a contribution, for any state legislative campaign while the legislature is in regular or special session.
This rule prohibits legislators and legislative employees from raising funds for other legislative candidates...

A legislator or legislative employee on behalf of another may not accept money from a fundraising event held during session if a substantial purpose of the event was to raise money for the legislator’s campaign or for state legislative political purposes...

May 23, 2008 - 8:53am | fsmith

Another non-reader (juno) has offered their opinion.

What part of this don't you understand? No contribution was received for any specific legislator. No check was cashed. No contribution was earmarked for any individual legislator. What part of that are you unable to comprehend?

June 10, 2008 - 7:46pm | akartisan

It Doesnt Say "Specific" Legislator

It says any legislative campaign. Period.

He should have known better. At least now there is a voter alternative.

May 13, 2008 - 12:45am | Cartman3_15

You need to get

a hobby.

7 May 12, 2008 - 8:08pm | bushrat53_99649

Here's A novel idea

Let's wait and see what the outcome will be.

6 May 12, 2008 - 8:10pm | tlamb775

Sort of like

solicting money for a company (insert the word group) and having the company donate the money to a candidate.

Slush fund comes to mind. Playing fast and loose with the law.

It's partisan political activity that is done well ahead of the 90 days preceeding an election.

What a joke.......

5 May 12, 2008 - 8:26pm | juno

Les. You did a baaad baaad thing.

Ralph Samuels said it best.
"Republican Rep. Ralph Samuels says the ban on legislators fund raising while in session is about as straightforward as it gets. 'It's pretty black and white to me,' he said. 'The reason you don't raise money during the session is that elected officials are talking about issues that directly affect the people that are probably donating to that campaign. And it's just flat-out wrong; I don't care if it's legal or not; it's wrong."

Did this Alaska State House Legislative campaign fundraiser letter go to people with business before Reps Gara, Gardner, Crawford, Salmon and Guttenberg during session between Jan. and April 2008? Where is the list of contributions to this House Democrat Campaign Committee showing names and dates of contributors?

May 23, 2008 - 9:18am | fsmith

So Ralph had no idea what was going on with VECO? Really?

House Majority Leader Ralph Samuels, R-Anchorage, said he turned last year's contributions over to charity after the FBI searched Veco's offices and those of six lawmakers last August.

What about prior years?

Did Samuels have no clue about VECO when Bill Allen sat in the gallery, passing notes over the rail to his colleagues and perhaps to him? When Bill was calling the majority on cell phones during votes?

Just takes a minute to find entries such as these on the APOC site:

06/17/2004 Monetary 7026 $500.00 $500.00 BILL ALLEN 3601 C Street, Ste 1000 Anchorage AK 99503 Anchorage Ceo VECO

06/17/2004 Monetary 8623 $500.00 $500.00 JEANNETTE ALLEN 2101 Otter Anchorage AK 99504 Anchorage Housewife N/a

06/17/2004 Monetary 8650 $500.00 $500.00 MARK ALLEN 2101 Otter Anchorage AK 99504 Anchorage Manager VECO

06/17/2004 Monetary 6786 $500.00 $500.00
PETE LEATHARD 3840 Delwood Place Anchorage AK 99504 Anchorage Vice President VECO

Were Bill and Mark registered lobbyists (as they should have been)? If so, did they live in Samuels' district, or were the contributions illegal?

4 May 12, 2008 - 7:35pm | hitman

If...

and its a BIG "if", anyone has made a mistake here its Joyce Anderson...she's the administrator of the legislative ethics committee and wrote the letter to Gara giving him the "green light".

I think his political detractors are grasping at straws here.

May 12, 2008 - 8:30pm | TheSdog

Hitman

Ignorance is no excuse when it comes to the law. It is also not an excuse if someone gives you bad advice.

There may be some way to spin this as being legal but does that make it ethical? That is the question especially for a man who is only surpassed in his sanctimonious rhetoric in this state by Palin/.

May 13, 2008 - 5:30am | hitman

Exactly...

but acting on bad advice that you don't consider bad at the time does not make you culpable in legislative matters. It does if you're in a court of law.

APOC is toothless anyways...you have to PROVE that he knew the law AND purposely broke it. People make mistakes...there's a little difference between this and people filing through Bill Allens hotel suite on videotape taking bribes.

You can make the case against President Bush with your first sentence...he didn't think the bad advice he was given in the run-up to the Iraq War was bad advice. Debatable yes, but facts on the ground prove otherwise.

This is why Joyce Anderson should bear the responsibility. This is how everyday business is done in the legislature. They ALL rely on advice from legislative administrators...that's they're JOB...to understand the law and pass along that advice in the ethics committee or any committee.

Having said that, Gara being a lawyer, should've taken a closer look to be sure. I know I would've considering the corruption down there...and I'm no lawyer. Common sense tells me that.

by the way...I bet we'll see some more indictments in the next 2 weeks. Just a hunch.

May 13, 2008 - 8:39am | TheSdog

hitman

Gara is too smart for anyone to believe he did not see at least the appearance of a problem here. You can twist any argument you want but at the end of the day he acted in a way inconsistent with his sthical rhetoric.

As for Bush...

Iraq was a ridiculous decision. The lefties are right when they claim people in the Bush administration were looking for excuse to invade Iraq. You can argue why the fools Bush surrounded himself thought that but my general feeling is they thought a job had been left unfinished a decade earlier.

The situation is analagous in that people in the Bush administration wanted the argument made a certain way and looked for the "advice" they wanted. Gara did the same thing here.

And Bush is being held responsible, as well as the entire R party, for the mistake made.

May 13, 2008 - 1:19am | celtic_diva_ak

It's the APOC's job to interpret the rules

...and they gave him the green light to raise money for the Party.

If you read the letter, that's clearly what the money is for...The Democratic Party's House Campaign Committee's Candidate Fund. It's not designated for a specific Legislator - it's for whatever House Democrat needs it.

I doubt seriously they are going to bust him for something they told him he could do.

May 13, 2008 - 8:42am | TheSdog

So unethical behavior

is okay if you can find a way to rationalize it?

It is funny to see Ds like yourself scurry around looking for any possible excuse. If Gara was an R you would be the first one trying to nail him to the cross.

May 13, 2008 - 7:54am | akwillis

Like a teenager exploiting an inattentive parent........

I despise both political parties and what they have done to this nation and state. When push comes to shove "rules" mean very little if anything to an Alaska Legislator representing primarily the interests of those who fund his or her political party. Les Gara is a prime example of what is wrong in Alaska politics. I see in Gara another Pete Kott, Tom Anderson, et.al. in training. The process that corrupts and distracts those with several terms in the legislature is working its magic with this guy. Wait until the Democrats gain the majority and you will see history repeat itself in Juneau with Gara and his ilk in control. Gara, as a lawyer, is a trained wordsmith who can appreciate the value of poorly written law which invites his equivocation and displacement of responsibility. All the better when he can create the law.

May 12, 2008 - 10:56pm | Cartman3_15

Funny

I didn't hear you make this same argument about Don Young being free to raise money while LeDoux was being bullied for doing the same thing.

Not that the truth matters to you when it comes to your agenda, but the "someone" who gave Gara advice is the person in charge of such things. People without closed minds might make an assumption that such a person would know what's right, and that perhaps the advice she gave was actually right.

May 13, 2008 - 9:28am | TheSdog

cartman

My general feeling is that many of these regulations do nothing except give people an excuse to cry foul. It is clearly unfair to limit Ledoux from fundraising when her competition can raise money.

There is an easy solution for her though which is she could have resigned her position. Fair? No, but none of this stuff is fair. It is an attempt to clean up things but as always, there will be loopholes.

Even in this case, the argument is whether or not you can twist something to make it appear okay. It has been going on both before and after the fact.

Gara has stood on the ivory tower and claimed to be beyond reproach. If you do this, you should be held to the highest standard possible. You lose your ability to split hairs when you use the kind of self-righteous rhetoric Mr. Gara has used. It makes it inappropriate for him to use loopholes.

May 13, 2008 - 11:18am | Cartman3_15

Loopholes

Once again, your dishonesty shines in this post. You base your whole argument on your personal definition of a "loophole."

If we assume Gara did his homework -- as it appears he did, checking with all the "authorities" on this -- and got the green light for it, it is not fair -- or honest -- to call it a loophole. But experience tells me that won't dissuade you from doing it.

But you're right. The existing regulations make it easy for those with agenda to cry foul. Just as you have done.

May 12, 2008 - 11:36pm | tlamb775

Funny thing about the law

it states that prior to 90 days before an election a legislator in legislative session, may not solicit funds in the capital city.....

"a legislator or legislative employee may, EXCEPT IN THE CAPITAL CITY, solicit or accept a contribution,

That is the truth.

Where was Rep. Gara on March 25, 2008?

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=8069698

"This bill's going to last 10 minutes on the books and it's going to be struck down. So for $800,000, the cost of the legal fees that are going to be incurred by this bill, go ahead, try and take away a woman's right to choose, try and take away a woman's right to a first-trimester abortion," said Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage. "

Rep Gara, smile for the KTUU camera...................

Try using the same excuse on Ben Stevens when APOC chnaged their minds.............................

Les is a lwayer and he was a chapion of the law. Is he going to use the well she told me it was okay excuse, when the law is clear?

Nothing muddy about what the law states.

May 13, 2008 - 12:42am | Cartman3_15

I'm willing to withhold final judgment

until the dust settles on this.

Until then, I'm inclined to trust APOC and the administrator of the legislative ethics committee. Both appear to agree, like you, that there indeed is nothing muddy about what the law states. Their conclusion, however, differs substantially from yours.

May 12, 2008 - 8:21pm | alaskananny

Regardless of what the law

Regardless of what the law says or the interpretation of the law by the administrator of the committee, if something doesn't look right, a Legislator always has the choice not to do it. That is what Ethics is.

May 12, 2008 - 8:44pm | juno

Ignorance no defense. Gara knows Ethics.

A Note from Representative Les Gara. 3/8/07
Dear Neighbors:
I'm writing to update you on some of the ethics reform issues we’re working on. Alaskans have a right to clean government and to public officials whose sole allegiance is to the voters. We’re working on a number of fixes to help ensure elected officials work for us and not for special interests...
Best Regards,
Les Gara

May 12, 2008 - 10:57pm | Cartman3_15

Ignorance no defense

That's why there's no defending you and your posts.

3 May 12, 2008 - 7:02pm | n0se

There's nothing to see here, move along now

Funny how John Harris and the rest of the CBC gang wasn't jumping up and down when Frank the Bank and his corrupt band of hooligans was gutting funding for APOC to the point where it was almost eliminated altogether.

2 May 12, 2008 - 5:56pm | alaskananny

Does "solict" = "raise"?

In the context of the letter, he is soliciting funds from who knows who, to support the House Democratic Campaign Committee. The letter further lists all of the Democratic incumbents in the House, minus Rep. Kerttula, Rep. Gara, and Rep. Doogan.

The law doesn't state that solicting, accepting, or raising funds for a party, or a subset of a party is legal. All of the incumbents listed are candidates in the upcoming elections. So, I see it as raising funds (soliciting funds) to support candidates for their upcoming campaigns.

Whether the law implicitley states it is legal or not, the look of impropriety is overwhelming. Legislators should not be raising funds during session. Period. Not for a party, not for one another, not for themselves.

I would like to know who this letter went too. It does make a difference especially if it went to people who had business pending before the Legislature in the last session.

I thought that there was a bill this session that would have prohibited legislators from doing this; from raising funds for parties during session. Back to the premise that legislators shouldn't raise money, period. What happened to the bill? Did Rep. Gara vote for it?

1 May 12, 2008 - 6:11pm | juno

Les is more Honest or Dishonest?

Gara dishonest according to Legislative Ethics Law as amended in 2007.
KTUU 2007 Gara says: "You hear the line that you can't legislate ethics. And I understand that point. I think what those people are saying is you either have people who are honest or dishonest, and you can't make them honest with the law. The point, though, is that if you have strong ethics laws, you ferret out the people who are doing the bad things."

May 12, 2008 - 6:40pm | rfn

Now, now....

Mr. Gara is a Democrat and Democrats understand the power of parsing words. If the law is read with precise definition then some observers might truly believe neither the letter nor the spirit of the law has been challenged.

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