The cruise ship industry's battle against a voter initiative to increase taxes and environmental scrutiny on Alaska's cruise lines intensified Jan. 18 when 14 tourism groups filed a lawsuit to block the initiative from the 2006 ballot.
The lawsuit filed against the state in Anchorage's Superior Court accuses the Alaska Division of Elections of inadequately scrutinizing signatures collected during the cruise ship initiative drive last year.
The initiative proposes new taxes for the cruise ship industry, including a $50 head tax on cruise ship passengers. It also would require environmental observers on cruise ships.
At present, the city of Juneau is the only community in Alaska that charges a head tax on cruise ship passengers.
One of the plaintiffs in the suit - the North West Cruiseship Association, representing nine major cruise lines claims the new taxes and regulation would damage tourism in Alaska. Shortly before filing suit, the group hired a former Secret Service agent to review the petition's signatures.
"This appears to be a prophylactic lawsuit attempting to usurp the initiative process," said Joe Geldhof, a Juneau maritime attorney and one of the original petitioners for the voter initiative.
Geldhof said the initiative includes a "reasonable" tax rate that would provide new revenue for Alaska communities to improve their harbors.
The state Division of Elections published its final report approving the voter initiative Jan. 13.
The division has 40 days to review and respond to the legal complaint, said John Hansen, Vancouver, British Columbia-based president of the cruise ship association.
"I presume they could clarify some of the signatures ... whether they were all OK," Hansen said.
Two Juneau-based groups, the Alaska Steamship Association and Alaska Travel Adventures, joined the suit. The others are the Alaska Hotel and Lodging Association, the Alaska Travel Industry Association, Chilkat River Adventures, Chilkoot Gardens, Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska, Skagway tourism booster Robert Donahue, the Greater Sitka Chamber of Commerce, the Ketchikan Visitors Bureau, Mahay's Riverboat Service, the Resource Development Council for Alaska, Seibu Alaska and the Skagway Street Car Co.
Hansen claimed the major problem with the state-approved initiative is that it didn't indicate whether people who signed the petition were legitimate voters when they signed it.
"It's hard to determine whether they were registered on that date," Hansen said.
Geldhof responded, "What's interesting about this is they admit they don't know if there are invalid signatures. This is an attempt to file a suit and see if they can dig up some facts in support of their notion."
According to The Associated Press, the state of Alaska plans to vigorously defend itself against a lawsuit lodged by the cruise ship industry over a ballot measure to tax cruise ship passengers. The state has until the end of February to respond.
Assistant Attorney General Sarah Felix said challengers typically argue that state officials are too strict and disqualify too many signatures. She said this is the first time to her knowledge that the argument is that the state is too lax.
Laura Glaiser, director of the Division of Elections, said she's confident that the 23,460 signatures certified as valid are indeed those of qualified voters. That's 174 more than the minimum number required to place the initiative on the 2006 ballot.
"We met all of our legal requirements," Glaiser said.
But Holland America Line's top executive in Alaska doesn't think so.
"We're not convinced that the state's review is thorough enough," said John Shively, Holland America's vice president of government and community relations in Anchorage.
Shively noted that people who sign the petition booklets aren't required to show identification as they do before heading into a polling station to vote. That leaves open the possibility of fraud, he said.
He also said initiative signers don't have to put a date next to their name or say when they became registered voters. That's problematic because it doesn't allow the state to determine whether they were registered voters at the time of signing, Shively said.
The cruise association hired Robert Motznik, an Anchorage document examiner, to run the names on the petition booklets and compare them with the state's list of registered voters, Shively said. Motznik determined that for more than 1,200 people who signed the initiative, it's impossible to tell whether they registered before or after the booklets went into circulation.
Glaiser noted that Alaska law doesn't require initiative signers to date their entry or indicate when they became registered voters. If that's something that needs correcting, it'll be up to a judge to decide, she said. The Legislature also could pass a law requiring changes to the initiative process.
- The Associated Press contributed to this report
