By SUZANNE DOWNING
June 29, 2026 – The Alaska Supreme Court’s decision to allow Daniel J. Sullivan—better known as “Decoy Dan”—to remain on the ballot may frustrate many Alaskans who see his candidacy as an obvious attempt to confuse voters. It certainly frustrates me. But the ruling also reflects something much larger happening in American jurisprudence.
In many ways, this decision resembles the reasoning behind the US Supreme Court’s landmark 2024 ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the case that overturned four decades of Chevron deference. Different courts. Different facts. Different areas of law. But the same judicial instinct.
That instinct is simple: Courts are claiming their constitutional role of interpreting the law, rather than allowing executive agencies to fill in statutory gaps with standards, when the law is not clear.
For years, the federal Chevron doctrine instructed judges to defer to federal agencies whenever Congress had left ambiguity in a statute. If an agency’s interpretation was merely “reasonable,” courts generally upheld it. In Loper Bright, the Supreme Court rejected that approach, holding that judges—not agencies—must independently determine what statutes mean. The Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to decide questions of law, not outsource those questions to bureaucrats.
The Alaska Supreme Court’s ruling follows a remarkably similar path.
The Division of Elections concluded that Decoy Dan (Daniel J. Sullivan) was attempting to deceive voters by, first trying to game the voters by using the senator’s middle initial rather than his own, and suddenly switching to the Republican Party shortly before filing. Then he modeling the look and feel of his campaign after incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan’s. Looking strictly at the facts, it is difficult to argue anything but he is pulling a big scam.
Further proof: Those protesting in front of the Division of Elections last week, holding signs favoring the Petersburg Poser Dan Sullivan, have a solid track record of donating to Mary Peltola. We looked them up at the FEC:
The legal question was a bit different.
The question before the Alaska Supreme Court was whether Alaska law authorizes the Division of Elections to deny ballot access because election officials believe a candidate is acting in bad faith.
The answer, according to both the Superior Court and now the Alaska Supreme Court, is no.
There is no statute requiring candidates to file in “good faith.” There is no regulation authorizing election officials to examine subjective motives. There is no constitutional provision allowing the Division to become the referee of candidate truth in filing. Without that legal authority, the agency cannot resort to common sense.
Courts are increasingly signaling that agencies cannot improvise rules that legislatures never granted them. If lawmakers want election officials to reject sham candidacies based on deceptive intent, they will have to write such a law. Until then, Alaska judges will not permit agencies to create sensible standards.
Legislatures write the laws. Agencies enforce them. Courts are supposed to interpret them.
When any branch crosses into another’s lane, the constitutional balance begins to erode.
None of this means Alaska’s election laws are adequate. Quite the opposite. They are wholly inadequate for the shenanigans being wrought by Democrats in this day and age.
The Decoy Dan episode exposed a glaring weakness in Alaska’s elections. Anyone can change their name and run under their new name. Joe Blow could change his name to Ted Stevens or Wally Hickel, file as a Republican, and clean up at the ballot box. If lawmakers believe intentional name-confusion campaigns undermine election integrity, they will need to amend the election code before another candidate exploits the same loophole. But this Legislature will not do that because it is now run by the very team that is attempting to fool the voters.
The Legislature has every authority to establish objective standards that prohibit fraudulent or intentionally deceptive candidacies while protecting legitimate ballot access.
The Alaska Supreme Court concluded that under the law as currently written, the Division of Elections lacked the authority to disqualify one.
For those of us who believe Decoy Dan’s candidacy was designed to mislead voters, it is an unsatisfying outcome. Now, the senator will need to expend vast sums of campaign resources just to distinguish himself from the poser from Petersburg. That gives Mary Peltola a glide path to November, not having to take part in the fray that she created.
Democrats have poured poison into Alaska’s election system. It can only get worse from here as they look for more loopholes to exploit. These are dark times for our state.
Suzanne Downing is founder and editor of The Alaska Story and is a longtime Alaskan.
2 thoughts on “Suzanne Downing: What does the Supreme Court’s Decoy Dan decision mean for Alaska elections in the future?”
I wonder how many Lisa Murkowski’s will be on the 2028 ballot, assuming SCOTUS doesn’t intervene.
It will be interesting to see if the AK Supreme Court sidesteps the obvious Article I, Section 4 argument.
I rather doubt that Mary Peltola is on any “glide path” to victory. Not all of us are quite that stupid. Decoy Dan has made enough stink that people will be on the lookout for his name, and vote accordingly. Mary’s lying ads notwithstanding, I doubt the real Senator will be defeated. This does, however, expose the leftists for the slimy greasy grifting jerks they generally are. They know they can’t win fairly, or honorably, so they cheat, scheme and steal. Good luck with that when you meet your Maker.