By Suzanne Downing 
A detailed complaint filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) accuses Rep. Louise Stutes of Kodiak of years of campaign finance violations and misuse of political funds as she seeks to move from the House to the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Gary Stevens.
The complaint comes just as she is planning a major fundraising event in Homer on Friday event.
The complaint, submitted by former Alaska Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich, spans more than a dozen pages and alleges that Stutes, a veteran lawmaker and former Speaker of the House, failed to properly disclose donors, misstated expenditures, and used campaign funds for personal benefit in violation of Alaska’s campaign finance statutes and administrative code.
Ruedrich’s filing points to repeated errors and amendments across Stutes’s 2020, 2022, and 2024 APOC reports, claiming the violations show a “flagrant disregard” for the state’s disclosure laws. He contends that Stutes’s reports “cannot be certified correct” as required under AS 15.13.040 because her campaign bank account balances do not match her reported income and expenditures.
Alleged misreporting of donors and expenditures
Among the violations cited, Ruedrich says Stutes falsely identified the online fundraising processor Democracy Engine LLC as a political action committee (PAC) in her 2022 campaign filings to conceal the true identities of her contributors. Democracy Engine, a payment platform used by campaigns nationwide, is not a registered PAC and is required by its own policies to provide donor names to recipients for regulatory compliance.
By labeling Democracy Engine as a PAC, Ruedrich claims, Stutes hid the real contributors and exceeded the state’s $1,000 annual contribution limit from a single PAC. He estimates multiple violations for each undisclosed donor.
The complaint also accuses Stutes of misreporting payments to Hackney & Hackney and Hackney Communications, entities not known to provide printing or campaign services. In 2022 and 2024, Stutes reported thousands of dollars in expenditures to those firms for “flyers” and “campaign literature,” but Ruedrich alleges that these were either inaccurately described or possibly unauthorized.
Pattern of reporting failures
The complaint details a series of alleged false or late filings dating back to Stutes’s 2020 campaign. In that cycle, Ruedrich says, she filed her year-end report three times in February 2021 before reaching the zero balance required by law, with two of those reports filed after the statutory deadline.
In 2024, according to the complaint, Stutes’s campaign filings became “extremely troubling.” Her 30-day and 7-day pre-election reports allegedly failed to reconcile with her campaign bank account and omitted previously reported income and expenses. Several reimbursements to herself, including a $736 payment in September and a $453 payment in October, were reportedly made outside the three-day repayment window permitted under 2 AAC 50.990, requiring forfeiture of those funds.
The complaint identifies at least 15 post-election expenditures that Ruedrich says were personal and not authorized under AS 15.13.116, which bars the conversion of campaign funds to personal use. He estimates a minimum of 50 distinct violations, with potential daily civil penalties exceeding $1 million if APOC confirms the infractions and applies maximum fines.
Request for APOC action
Ruedrich has asked the commission to open a formal investigation under AS 15.13.380, compel the production of receipts, invoices, and travel records, and refer the matter to the Alaska Attorney General if willful violations are confirmed.
He further requests that APOC audit Stutes’s campaign bank accounts to reconcile deposits and expenditures and determine whether campaign funds were improperly used or unreported.
While Stutes’s 2022 and 2024 House races were not highly contested, Ruedrich says her 2026 Senate campaign raises the stakes for accountability. “The larger Senate district population must have a clear understanding of the integrity of all Senate candidates,” his filing concludes.
APOC will now determine whether to initiate a formal investigation into the allegations.
PFD thief is also a campaign fund cheat and thief shocking , isn’t it??
All of this will be explained away in true communist fashion.
These politicians who have served multiple terms they have served so many years in an elected office that they get forget what it means to had held a Real job
Just as many pastors today who only work like two days of the week but don’t put a full week in doing any actually meaningful work but still get paid a corporate officer’s salary
Both politician and pastor forget the money they recieved was never their’s but being in position too long that relatively does nothing most of the years goes to their head and in laziness they get decieved
“An idle brain is the devil’s tool”
Laziness leads to negative consequences, ruin, and neglect.
That’s what it’s like staying in any field of work too long where you aren’t growing and you barely do any work. Corruption seeps into an idle brain.
Good thoughts. Yes, Justice will be served I’m waiting for the outcome and it will be there no matter how long it takes. “What goes around, comes around.”
A smart leader today in a leadership position stays long enough they are still admired before shortly leaving for private life before the public starts thinking ill of them because he was there too long
Just like some actors placed time limits acting in tv sitcoms or movies because they don’t want to be forever known as that character he played, elected leaders shouldn’t want to be in elected office like forever. There is more to do in life there than going to Juneau for 121 days to which 90 day work is drawn out then convened to where 60 legislators are out of work the rest of the year
Sounds like she will fit in great with the rest of the cheaters and thieves Wow!
Be on the lookout::
It is the beginning of the 2026 election season and it begins.
“Political hack jobs” to discredit candidates using innuendo and speculation. Usually this is done by or for an “undisclosed” 3rd party. It is unfortunate that Randy Ruedrich is being used for someone’ elses political gain.
APOC is probably being “swamped” with this type of “swamp trash talk”.
She a RiNO, a liar = Liar!
How can anyone trust her ever.