"I think it’s a mess at this point."

That was State Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Bob Lynn's characterization of where things stand regarding Alaska's campaign spending and disclosure laws in the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. FEC decision and after listening to an hour of discussion this morning.

Rep. Lynn's take was significantly different from Department of Law attorney Alpheus Bullard who said, "It's clear as mud."

I've got 13 pages of rough notes - too rough  for me to post right now, and I haven't had time to think this through enough and there's a meeting at 11 on funding for the Alaska Travel Industry Association (ATIA) funding which should prove to be interesting.

Basically, the committee decided to have Chair Lynn send a letter to the Governor asking the administration to draft legislation for the legislature to work from since the Dept. of Law seems to be the source of most expertise on this.  Outside the meeting, someone said that Sen. French is also drafting a bill.

This discussion was different from last week's Senate Judiciary hearing - even with the same attorneys testifying.  I'm still trying to figure out specifically why.  I think the attorneys have had more time to think things through and were more specific about where there were issues.

And the line of questioning from he committee seemed more detailed and informed.  One issue that seemed new, was looking at the issue of tax deductibility for independent expenses related to political speech.  Rep. Seaton suggested that if corporations can deduct expenses spent on political speech, but individuals couldn't, there would be a clear unfairness.

Another indicator of the difficulty, here's attorney Bullard in response to a question about what kind of disclosure can be required of corporations in political speech ads:

Rep Johnson, through the chair. [they have to address specific members through the Chair] It’s difficult [to answer your question.]  In other states, there are major requirements to have disclaimer, they might have to reveal the five largest contributors.  At a certain point, we get to the anonymous contributor of $5 who bought a raffle ticket. This is the opposite end of the continuum.  The answer to your question lies somewhere in between. 

I'll clean up the rough notes and try to summarize the key issues.  You can also listen to the whole thing on Gavel to Gavel.  (It says it's 47 minutes, but the session was close to two hours.)