Unalaska, AK – On Tuesday, Alaskans will head to the polls to vote for their favored candidates. They'll also be voting on Ballot Measure One, which its supporters have called an "anti-corruption measure" and its opponents have called a "gag law."

The objective of the legislation is to reduce wasteful government spending and to minimize the role of lobbyists in Alaska government. The measure would mandate that no public organization or government employee could use public resources for lobbying or campaigning. But critics say that the measure is overly broad and may disproportionately affects small, rural communities.

One concern that critics have is that it could make it difficult for rural mayors and council members to travel to Juneau or Anchorage. Superintendent John Conwell also says that it would affect the way the school board works and would hamper school districts ability to run effectively. He gives one example of how the measure could affect student life.

"To me an example of the importance of school board members having a voice in Juneau is the recent passage of the Alaska performance scholarship," says Conwell. "I think without some very active advocacy from our state school board association, our school administrators association, the teachers unions -- that may not have passed last year. And that's going to be a program that directly benefits Alaska students. That's going to be a program that's going to provide scholarship money to students to go to college who might not otherwise have been able to attend college because of the high cost."

He adds that as the measure is written, it could even affect the way students handle extracurricular activities.

"I sit back and kind of wonder how this might affect our student government representatives going into Juneau or attending activities in Anchorage where there's a legislator present," says Conwell.

Measure One also focuses on promoting competitive bidding processes. Sonia Handforth-Kome, director of Iliuliuk Clinic and school board representative, says that's not really reasonable in Unalaska because the size of city means non-profits don't have anyone to compete against. The clinic, for example is the only clinic in town. There are no other clinics that could go up against it for government bids, she says. By default, Measure One would target that non-profit. Handforth-Kome says that because of that, clinic staff would be unable to advocate their position to legislators and their families would be unable to donate to political campaigns under Measure One.

"If everyone who had a contract with the city of Unalaska or did work for the city of Unalaska even in a limited basis or everyone who had received money from the city of Unalaska to function which is every non-profit in town or the relatives of anyone who worked somewhere where that was the case," Handforth-Kome says of the people who would be affected by Measure One. "Well, that would just pretty much shut down the ability of Unalaskans to comment on their own government."

Handforth-Kome also says that she fighting corruption and increasing transparency are good goals, but she thinks that this measure overreaches.
"It does muzzle us. One of the ads is 'Stop the Gag Law,' and I don't think that it was intended as a gag law but I think that it functions as one," she adds.

Ken Jacobus is the deputy treasurer for the pro-Measure One group Alaskans for Open Government, and he says that much of the criticism the measure -- and his organization -- has received is unfair.

"The purpose of the initiative is really simple. We don't want to try to gag anybody in trying to communicate with their legislature," says Jacobus. "The only thing were interested in is 1) to try to save public money 2) to try to make sure that people who get public contracts are not given these public contracts as a result of their making contributions to the people who give out the public contract and 3) having public contracts posted on the website so that the people of Alaska can see who is getting these public contracting dollars."

Ballot Measure One has received substantial criticism this summer. Opponents have complained that Measure One backers like Clean Team Alaska and Americans for Limited Government have themselves not been fully transparent about their own funding. Earlier this month, Alaskans for Open Government was fined almost $340,000 -- a record amount.