Howie in Alaska
Stop The Corruption.
This committee was created to advance an Open and Clean Government initiative in Alaska. Press reports indicate that its signature gatherers were attempting to compete with the gathering of signatures on Alaska's now failed Clean Elections initiative. If passed, the Alaska version would eliminate public financing at the same time that it put major restrictions on unions and contractors.
The committee chair is Dick Randolph, a former state legislator who was elected on the Libertarian line and is a longtime Libertarian Party ally of Howard Rich, Eric O'Keefe and the rest of the Americans for Limited Government crew. When asked by the Anchorage Daily News why he agreed to be part of this effort, Randolph remarked that he signed on after being contacted by an old friend, multi-millionaire New York City real estate developer Howie Rich. When the Anchorage Daily News attempted to clarify Rich's involvement in the Anti-Corruption Act, Scott Kohlaas a Libertarian working on the initiative said, "I can tell you he sent me an e-mail telling me not to ‘eff' this up."
In addition to Randolph, the committee's registration lists Robert Clift as treasurer and Robert Adney as Deputy Treasurer. Clift appears to have run for Congress in 2002 against Don Young on the Libertarian line. Adney has been a campaign manager for two previous ballot campaigns that are associated with Howard Rich. The first was TABOR (known as TASC) in Nevada in 2006. This was part of a series of TABOR initiatives that Rich supported that year. In 2007, Adney managed the California Term Limits Defense Fund, which was financed by Rich's US Term Limits. Adney appeared at the 2006 Americans for Limited Government summit in Chicago on the same panel as Richard Berman and Patrick Touhey the public face of Missouri TABOR in ‘06.
Alaska Public Intererst Research Group has filed a complaint with the state over "Stop the Corruption"'s claim that it has not received or spent any money. AkPIRG's complaint is based on the presence of a campaign manager and campaign offices.
