Anti-RCV group turns to Soros conspiracy theories
In short, per Rosenberg: Criticizing George Soros is not inherently anti-Semitic. But casting him as an avatar of evil is.
Good afternoon, Alaska.
In this edition: Faced with allegations that they’re running a big sloppy grift, the proponents of the effort to repeal Alaska’s open primary and ranked-choice voting system today responded with their own accusations: That the allegations are part of a George Soros-backed plot to silence Christians. Also, they’ve got disgraced former Attorney General Kevin Clarkson to handle the complaint. Also, the reading list.
Current mood: 😕
Anti-RCV group resorts to blaming favorite far-right boogeyman: George Soros
Faced with allegations that they’re running a big sloppy grift, the proponents of the effort to repeal Alaska’s open primary and ranked-choice voting system today responded with their own accusations: That the allegations are part of a George Soros-backed plot to silence Christians.
“The local Soros-funded attorney that filed this complaint is attempting to weaponize APOC with his many intentionally inaccurate and inflammatory statements,” said Art Mathias, one of the key figures accused of flouting Alaska’s campaign laws with a sprawling campaign that includes several churches. “He is attacking me, my church, Christians and our initiative to replace his Marxist voting system.”
Mathias was specifically referring to prolific attorney Scott Kendall, the lead attorney behind the complaint filed earlier this month with the Alaska Public Offices Commission. Kendall is working with Alaskans for Better Elections, the group that supported the passage of open primaries and ranked-choice voting through a voter initiative in 2020 and opposes its repeal but has fielded several campaign finance complaints in recent years that have put him on the opposite side of far-right conservatives.
The complaint by Kendall and Alaskans for Better Elections accuses Mathias, Alaskans for Honest Elections, Wellspring Ministries and the Ranked Choice Education Association of a myriad of campaign violations that include failing to properly register to campaign and failing to report campaign contributions and expenses in a timely fashion. While outside Alaska’s campaign finance laws, the allegations also raise the issue of tax-exempt faith groups—Wellspring Ministries and the Ranked Choice Education Association, which is incorporated as a faith-based group—getting directly involved in political activity, potentially getting them in hot water with the IRS.
While dueling public statements about campaign complaints are nothing new to Alaska politics, the mention of Soros is worth highlighting. The notion that Soros is the Big Bad Guy behind all things progressive is frequently called out as an anti-Semitic dog whistle.
Both Soros and Kendall are Jewish.
To better understand the danger of painting Soros as an all-powerful evil boogeyman, here’s what Yair Rosenberg wrote in The Atlantic when Elon Musk claimed that Soros “wants to erode the very fabric of civilization” and “hates humanity” on Twitter earlier this year:
Criticizing George Soros is not inherently anti-Semitic. He is one of the world’s richest men and most influential philanthropists, as well as the Democratic Party’s largest single donor, and his views undoubtedly warrant scrutiny and debate. But Musk was not taking issue with a particular statement or position put forward by Soros; he was presenting him as an avatar of evil. He painted Soros as a literal comic-book villain.
This is the language of anti-Semitism through the ages, which perpetually casts powerful Jewish actors as the embodiment of social and political ill. Rather than treat Jews like humans, who are fallible and often mistaken, this mindset refashions them into sinister superhumans who intentionally impose their malign designs on the masses. In recent years, Soros has been a particular target of this treatment, but any Jew or Jewish institution that accumulates some measure of wealth or status tends to attract it, whether the Rothschilds or the state of Israel. In such cases, legitimate criticism is overtaken by conspiracy; the issue is no longer the conduct of the Jewish actor but their very essence.
In short, per Rosenberg: Criticizing George Soros is not inherently anti-Semitic. But casting him as an avatar of evil is.
I reached out to Kendall for his response, and he pointed me to his thread on Twitter/X that accused Mathias of making “thinly veiled anti-Semitic attacks.”
“Here’s what he has right,” Kendall tweeted/xeet’d. “I am a Jew. End of list.”
He also noted, “I never received a dime from Soros or any of his organizations” and that “I’m not a ‘Marxist. Actually, I like capitalism” before admonishing Mathias for invoking Soros in the first place.
“I take comfort in knowing my many Christian friends & family members would never engage in such anti-Semitic tropes, & also that they’d never abuse their faith for political purposes as this man apparently continues to do,” Kendall continued. “To be clear, Mr. Mathias has every right to disagree with election reforms, & every right to defend himself from alleged campaign finance violations. But he should do so without forming fake churches or resorting to wild anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about his opponents.”
The underlying response
Mathias’ news release doesn’t make a note of the other notable attorney joining the fight: Disgraced former Attorney General Kevin Clarkson is representing Alaskans for Honest Elections. Clarkson had long been involved in far-right legal cases in Alaska before becoming Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s first attorney general. Clarkson then abruptly resigned in 2020 after an investigation by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica revealed he had harassed a younger state employee through hundreds of "uncomfortable" texts.
In a five-page response to initial questions raised by APOC investigators, Clarkson argues that Alaskans for Better Elections’ complaint is based on a bunch of misunderstandings and that everything that Mathias and company have been doing is entirely within the law or, more specifically, completely outside the laws that APOC is concerned with.
“With all due respect to you and to APOC, RCEA’s tax-exempt status is not within APOC’s jurisdiction, and it is not within your or APOC's purview to investigate or question,” wrote Clarkson, later adding, “Other than making the donations to Alaskans for Honest Elections that were reported to APOC, RCEA is not involved in the efforts to introduce and/or promote (the initiative to repeal RCV) in Alaska.”
The letter then claims that neither RCEA nor Wellspring Ministries are subject to APOC rules. In doing so, he rejects much of the APOC investigator’s requests for information regarding the nature of RCEA or Wellspring Ministries’ banking records.
“Both WM and RCEA have First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion, free speech, and free association that APOC’s requests burden and threaten to impinge,” Clarkson argues. “Nothing about WM’s and RCEA’s relationship subjects them to APOC’s jurisdiction.”
Clarkson’s letter does, however, concede a couple of curious points:
That Mathias did give money to RCEA that RCEA turned around and gave to Alaskans for Honest Elections. He doesn’t explain why Mathias chose to funnel his money through such an unusual route but rejects the notion that it was to provide donors with a tax break for their contributions.
RCEA and Wellspring Ministries do share an address, but that’s only because “RCEA merely rents a modicum of an office presence and a mail depository in WM’s building.”
Why it matters: In essence, APOC’s request for more information is an attempt at understanding how the Ranked Choice Education Association—which is incorporated as a faith-based group under Wellspring Fellowship (different from Wellspring Ministries)—is related to the others and whether it was directly involved in advocating for the repeal of ranked-choice voting, which would bring it under the purview of APOC regulators. While the organization’s website is said to have never directly advocated for the system’s repeal, it is accused of hosting much of the campaign materials developed by Alaskans for Honest Elections and another anti-RCV group. While Clarkson’s letter seems to frame APOC as already having made its mind up, it appears to me that APOC is trying to get to the bottom of what is one of the more complex and convoluted complaints they’ve received.
Whether, as Kendall initially argued, the bizarre structure of the anti-RCV campaign came “by design or through sheer incompetence” will be up to APOC to decide in the coming weeks.
Stay tuned.