Complaints against Wilson and Taylor governor campaigns question donation source, not size

A former Anchorage Assembly chair has filed campaign-finance complaints against two Republican candidates for governor, Bernadette Wilson and Treg Taylor.

Christopher Constant, who chaired the Anchorage Assembly until April, filed his complaints with the Alaska Public Offices Commission on July 27. The first complaint questions if a $25,000 donation to Wilson came from a company rather than an individual. Second complaint alleges Taylor's campaign failed to itemize $147,000 in retainer payments to consultants and lawyers.

Alaska's old donation limits were struck down in 2021 and not replaced, leaving only a ban on corporate giving to candidates.

That is the hinge of the Wilson complaint. The campaign's Thirty Day Report lists a $25,000 credit card contribution received April 20 from "LLC, IPOP" of Las Vegas, with the occupation and employer fields beside it reading "Owner" and "IPOP LLC." A company in one field, a person in the next. "Alaska law does not allow a company to give money to a candidate. It does allow an individual, including a business owner, to give," Constant wrote. "Which one actually happened here matters, and the report does not make clear." The complaint asks the commission to determine the true source and order the money returned if it came from the firm. It also questions the campaign's credit card fees, which it calculates at an effective 27.77% across both reports against WinRed's published rate of 3.94%.

The complaint against Taylor and Treasurer Donald Handeland is about description, not money coming in. It identifies 21 payments to three consulting and research vendors and three to law firms, each described only by a month name and the word "Retainer," and alleges 24 violations of the duty to itemize expenditures. The consulting entries total about $139,500; with the attorneys, about $146,800, roughly 23% of the campaign's $636,000 in reported spending. "This pattern is not an isolated drafting lapse; it runs through every retainer-labeled entry filed to date, in both reports, for the full life of the Campaign," Constant wrote. The same Thirty Day Report lists the largest single contribution of the period: a $20,000 check from Candice English, Taylor's running mate for lieutenant governor.

The timing is the complaint's sharpest point. On July 19 an APOC paralegal emailed all candidates, chairs and treasurers a notice quoting the itemization regulation and telling campaigns to amend deficient reports. The Taylor campaign's Thirty Day Report was certified and filed July 20 with the same labels.

Neither case appears on the commission's August 26 agenda.