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The most extensive report ever produced on the people, PACs and corporations that pay the bills for political campaigns in Alaska went on sale in bookstores around the state recently.
Open Secrets: The Price of Politics in Alaska provides never-before-published details on the state's biggest political financiers, as well as the lawmakers who receive their money.
The 50 biggest contributors to legislative campaigns in the last state elections are profiled in the book-length report, as are 63 current and former lawmakers who were elected or defeated in 1984. Also included is an extensive analysis of the patterns behind political contributions in Alaska.
The book is based on a yearlong investigation of campaign disclosure records filed by candidates and contributors with the Alaska Public Offices Commission.
It was written and published by Larry Makinson, an award-winning Anchorage freelance journalist who has reported on state and local elections for public TV station KAKM and for the Anchorage Daily News. Makinson produced and cohosted last summer's simpeachment hearings for the Public Television Network of Alaska, and moderated public TV's statewide political debates among gubernatorial and congressional candidates in 1978 and 1982.
Among the findings reported in Open Secrets:
* Alaska's 50 biggest contributors -- a collection of individuals, corporations, and political action committees -- pumped over $1.2 million into the last state elections. That's nearly as much as all other contributors combined.
* These Top 50 contributors gave two-thirds of their...