Alaska judge confirms legislative candidate for primary despite blank financial disclosure form

Ruling may allow future political candidates to temporarily hide their personal finances from voters

(Krisanapong Detraphiphat/Getty Images)

By James Brooks

Alaska Beacon

An Anchorage Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that the Alaska Division of Elections was correct to keep Anchorage Republican Jose Tagle on the primary election ballot for state House even though he filed a blank form when asked to disclose his personal finances.

State law requires candidates for public office to complete a Public Official Financial Disclosure form that lists their income and personal finances when they register as a candidate, but Tagle filed a blank form when he filed to challenge incumbent Rep. Ted Eischeid, D-Anchorage.

The Alaska Democratic Party challenged Tagle’s eligibility, but the division dismissed the party’s challenge, saying that the Alaska Public Offices Commission, not the division, is in charge of verifying a form’s accuracy. 

The party sued the division, challenging that dismissal and arguing that a blank form is the same as filing no disclosure at all.

In a 23-page decision, Judge Josie Garton agreed with elections officials, saying the Division of Elections does not have to ensure that the information in the disclosure form is accurate. 

“While the Division enforces the physical, simultaneous filing of the statement at the deadline,

Determining whether the statement’s contents are substantively compliant with (state law) is the express statutory responsibility of APOC,” she wrote.

Candidates have 30 days after the filing deadline to amend their personal financial disclosure forms, Garton said, and if they remain inaccurate at that deadline, only then may the director of the Division of Elections “not certify a person’s nomination or election to office.”

It isn’t yet clear what that will mean for Tagle’s election. Tagle filed an amended financial disclosure form on Aug. 8, more than a month after the 30-day period allowed by law. 

Sam Curtis, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Law, said by email that “APOC can now consider his amended financial disclosure, the complaint filed against him, and whether he is eligible to advance out of the primary election and appear in the general election.”

The department represented the division and the lieutenant governor’s office in the case. 

Of Garton’s decision, he wrote, “the court’s decision confirms the Division’s practice: the Division makes sure candidates file financial disclosures on time, while the Alaska Public Offices Commission investigates whether their disclosures are accurate. This is the process set out in law. Mr. Tagle filed on time and is on the primary election ballot.”

Tagle and Eischeid are the only registered candidates for House District 22, and if Tagle is disqualified from advancing to the general election, Eischeid would be unopposed for re-election.

Garton’s decision appears to open the door for future candidates to delay disclosing their personal finances until the primary election is well underway.

Alaska’s candidate filing deadline is June 1, and if candidates are permitted to file blank forms until the 30-day period ends, that would halve the amount of time that primary election voters have to inspect candidates’ personal finances.

In court last week, an attorney representing the state said that practice is acceptable under current law.

Garton asked about the issue during oral arguments last week, and her ruling on Thursday adopts the state’s position. 

“A person who files a POFD that fails to accurately report the required information does not forfeit (their candidacy) upon the initial, non-compliant filing,” she wrote.

The Alaska Democratic Party had suggested in preliminary written arguments that it could appeal Garton’s decision to the Alaska Supreme Court, but in a statement on Thursday, the party implied that it would not do so.

“The Division of Elections has decided it wants to keep its head in the sand, and the court concluded that it is up to APOC to clean this mess up,” said Jenny-Marie Stryker, executive director of the Alaska Democratic Party, in a written statement. “Now that the decision sits squarely with APOC, we expect the commission to take a hard look at the facts and the law. Mr. Tagle’s blank disclosure left voters in the dark for months — and even if his recent amended filing is accurate, which is not at all clear, it does not change the fact that it was submitted well after the deadline to come into compliance.”

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.