Former Alaska AG Treg Taylor asks for exemption from financial disclosure requirements
- Alaska Beacon
- Sep 13
- 2 min read
By James Brooks
Alaska Beacon
Ahead of an expected run for governor, former Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor is asking the state’s campaign finance regulator to exempt him from a law that requires he disclose who is renting apartments in several Anchorage buildings he owns.
Treg Taylor and his wife Jodi Taylor own the Inlet View Tower in Anchorage as well as two other apartment complexes in South Anchorage and near Midtown.
Under state law, public officials must file an annual financial disclosure form that lists the sources of their income, including rental income, if it is above $1,000. The Alaska Public Offices Commission, which collects and publishes that information, can waive the requirement that a public official provide the identities of his or her renters.
Taylor filed a request for an exemption in March, but that request came after the deadline to submit his 2024 disclosure form.
The Public Offices Commission is perennially underfunded and understaffed, and its electronic submission process doesn’t work properly with rental income, according to a staff report.
Only 15 out of roughly 1,200 filers have rental income, commission staff said in a written report, and of those 15, only four have more than 20 tenants. The Taylors claim to have 234 renters.
In a Wednesday hearing, Jodi Taylor asked commissioners to grant the Taylors the waiver, saying that people have tried to talk to their tenants about them.
“I felt like, in this case, people are trolling,” Jodi Taylor said.
She said one of her employees had been threatened with a gun, and that she believed disclosure could pose a safety risk.
Treg Taylor did not participate in the hearing on Wednesday.
Commissioners, who have not yet ruled on the request for a waiver, appeared skeptical of Jodi Taylor’s arguments.
Heather Hebdon, director of the commission, said there was “no legal justification” to exempt disclosure and that there was a substantial public interest in the information.
“The purposes of public official financial disclosures in part are to assure that public officials and their official acts are free from the influence of undisclosed business interests and to allow the public to have access to the information necessary to judge the public officials’ credentials or performance in office,” she said.
Taylor resigned as Alaska Attorney General last month, a position he held since 2021. His last day in office was Aug. 29, and his public appearances both before and after his resignation resemble those of currently registered candidates for the 2026 governor’s race.
• James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
