Alaska's Mining Industry: Adding Insult to Injury

March 10, 2010: It was just two short years ago during the primary election when a group calling itself Americans For Job Security (AJS) began blanketing Alaska's airwaves in support of Ballot Proposition 4, which would have effectively shut down the mining industry in Alaska.

Ballot Proposition 4 was the so-called "Clean Water Initiative" which if approved by the voters would have had arguably prohibited almost all future large mining projects in Alaska, including the current expansion at NANA's Red Dog Mine.

"The issue is not clean water; it is stopping mining," Steve Borell, the Executive Director of the Alaska Miners Association told KTUU News in an October 17, 2007 interview.

Meanwhile, the outside political group AJS was busy trying to destroy Alaska's mining industry during the 2008 election, using almost $2 million that was later found to have been laundered from local Pebble Mine opponent Bob Gillam.

During the debate over Proposition 4, many raised questions about the secretive outside group that was pumping massive amounts of cash into local media markets to kill Alaska's mining industry.

I wrote about it on July 28, 2008:

Alaskans for Clean Water, the group supporting Measure 4, raised a little less than $1 million; more than 75% came from one organization outside of Alaska. But it’s not who you think. It’s not Sierra Club or Defenders of Wildlife, both of whom have sponsored anti-mining efforts up here.

The $750,000 came to Alaskans for Clean Water from a group called Americans for Job Security, a 501(c)(6) political group in DC that does lobbying and electioneering behind the scenes. The group has no website and no visible means of identification. There are stories a plenty about how they’ve violated campaign finance laws in other states, and how they’re a stealth group that hides their money.

http://www.andrewhalcro.com/the_mystery_money_behind_ballot_measure_4

Ballot Measure 4 ended up falling short and the mining industry was spared.

But only after spending millions defending against a poorly written initiative that would have had devastating consequences on the mining industry.

Well, just when you thought it was safe...the same characters are coming back to town. 

The recent blurb posted in Sunday's Alaska Ear that Gov. Sean Parnell has retained the services of an outside consultant named Jon Lerner to help with his re-election campaign, should make every miner in Alaska realize who Parnell has invited to dinner. 

Lerner has a history of collaborating with groups like Americans for Job Security, the same group that tried to destroy Alaska's mining industry in 2008. 

According to the South Carolina political blog Fitsnews.com, "Lerner is from the Aurthur Finkelstien School of GOP consultants, whose basic campaign strategy consists of “negative repetition” – i.e. calling the opponent a “liberal” or some other derogatory term as many times as possible."

But it's Lerner's association with AJS that should cause concerns for Alaskans. 

In a current advertisement running in South Carolina, the AJS is attacking a GOP congressional candidate and Lerner's fingerprints are reportedly all over the effort.

According to fitsnews.com, "Jon Lerner was “deeply involved” in the ad, which was paid for by Virginia-based issues advocacy group Americans For Job Security (AJS). In fact, sources tell FITS that both Lerner and Sanford (South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford) made personal appeals to numerous individuals in an effort to obtain funding for the advertisement."

So why would Parnell hire a “scorched earth” style consultant who has been known to associate with groups that have a clear track record of misleading Alaskans, violating state campaign finance laws and attacking resource development in Alaska?

It's time to start digging.