The Alaska Chamber and five other industry trade groups are suing the backers of a ballot initiative that would raise taxes on the state’s largest oil fields.
The groups claim that many of the signatures gathered to get the initiative on a statewide ballot are invalid. An attorney for the groups, Matt Singer, is arguing that some signature gatherers were paid more than one dollar per signature collected — a violation of state law.
“It looks like these ballot sponsors cut corners to try to gather sufficient signatures,” said Singer. “And, specifically, they hired this Las Vegas outfit that offered to pay signature gatherers well in advance of the legal limit of one dollar per signature.”
The complaint was filed in Superior Court in Anchorage on Friday, April 10.
The group backing the oil tax initiative is called Vote Yes for Alaska’s Fair Share. And its chair, Robin Brena, is an oil and gas attorney. Brena describes the lawsuit as baseless, ridiculous and a “sign of desperation by companies that don’t want Alaskans to have a voice” on oil taxes.
“There’s no violation of the law,” Brena said. “They don’t understand the law. They’re misquoting it. They don’t understand the scope of it. They have their facts wrong.”
He says the consultant hired by his group did not pay any signature gatherers on a per-name basis.
The oil tax initiative would raise the minimum tax and eliminate oil tax credits for Alaska’s largest legacy fields: Prudhoe Bay, Kuparuk and Alpine. It would also require oil companies to publicly report their revenues and costs from those fields.
The other defendants named in the suit are Lieutenant Governor Kevin Meyer, the state division of elections and its director.
Last month, Meyer notified the backers of the oil tax initiative that their petition was properly filed and they had gathered enough signatures to get on a statewide ballot. They collected nearly 40,000 qualifying signatures from across Alaska.
Singer, the attorney for the trade groups, is arguing to have many of those signatures thrown out.
