A group of conservative Alaskans, headed by a leading member of the Alaska Republican Party, has formed a new campaign organization intended to encourage Alaskans to call a constitutional convention and allow sweeping changes in the way Alaska runs its government, sets its budget and regulates the lives of its residents.
Jim Minnery, president of the anti-abortion Alaska Family Council, announced the creation of ConventionYes on Aug. 8. Minnery is a member of the new group’s steering committee. The group’s chair is Craig Campbell, national committeeman for the Alaska Republican Party.
“The Constitutional Convention call is a fundamental question for ‘We the People,’” Campbell said in a prepared statement. “This is an opportunity for us to go back to see where our state is and where we want to go and under what rules we want to live by.”
Alaskans are asked once per decade whether they want to call a convention to consider rewriting the state constitution, and the next vote is on the Nov. 8 general election ballot. Voters have rejected the convention every decade since statehood.
This time, convention opponents have been campaigning for months, arguing that a convention — particularly in a politically polarized time — will cause uncertainty and chaos.
“It is a slippery path, and once you decide to open up a convention, the constitution is very clear that delegates who are selected are completely free to entirely rewrite the document,” said Bruce Botelho, a former attorney general who chairs the leading anti-convention group.
The Alaska Supreme Court has repeatedly interpreted Alaska’s constitutional right to privacy to cover health care, including access to abortion. A convention could be a first step to banning or limiting access, either directly by rewriting the privacy clause or, indirectly, by changing how judges are chosen.
R. Keith Heim, a member of the ConventionYes steering committee, said his biggest interest is changing the constitution to mandate large Permanent Fund dividends.
“The biggest driving force for the convention, yes, is to basically put this Permanent Fund dividend into the constitution,” he said.
Among the other members advocating for a constitutional convention are Jake Libbey, publisher of the conservative Christian website the Alaska Watchman; former Anchorage Republican legislator Fritz Pettyjohn; conservative Alaska environmental scientist and lodge owner Fred Vreeman; and Leigh Sloan, an Anchorage woman who says on her website that her “desire is to shift paradigms in our culture to reflect kingdom truths.”
The latter term is sometimes used to describe evangelical Christian ideals.
The group has not yet registered with the Alaska Public Offices Commission to report campaign donations.
The vote-no group Defend Our Constitution is well established and well-funded, having listed more than $320,000 in donations as of its latest disclosure report.
Among the supporters of the “vote no” cause are the chambers of commerce in Fairbanks, Juneau and Ketchikan, the Alaska Municipal League, and the regional Native corporations Sealaska and Doyon.
Heim said one of the new group’s key goals is to overcome the vote-no group’s assertions that the convention will cause chaos. “We’ve just got to get the people to understand that voting yes is not going to kill the state,” he said.
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