US Supreme Court rejects challenge to Alaska campaign finance law

Source: msn/Reuters

9h


(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a challenge based on constitutional free speech protections to a voter-approved measure in Alaska that required greater public disclosure of certain political donations as the justices passed up a chance to further curtail campaign finance regulation.

The justices turned away an appeal by several Alaskan residents and advocacy groups, represented by a conservative legal group, of a lower court's ruling upholding the law narrowly approved as a ballot initiative in 2020.

The initiative, called Ballot Measure 2, adopted sweeping changes to the state's elections system. The plaintiffs objected to what they called some of the most stringent disclosure requirements in the United States on political donors.

The voters adopted a non-partisan open primary system, a method called ranked-choice voting for the general elections in which voters rank candidates in order of preference, and a series of changes to Alaska's campaign-finance laws to address the use of "dark money" in elections. The term "dark money" generally refers to election spending by certain organizations that do not disclose the identity of their donors, leaving voters in the dark as to who is trying to influence them.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/us-supreme-court-rejects-challenge-to-alaska-campaign-finance-law/ar-AA1uiqMM