Alaska Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom on Friday approved two ballot measures and disqualified a third from advancing into the signature-gathering phase.

would impose new financial restrictions on political campaigns and grant an array of rights to workers, including mandatory sick leave, a higher minimum wage and the ability to opt out from employer-mandated political and religious instruction.

The rejected measure would have barred the state from paying for party-specific primary elections, as the state did before voters installed Alaska’s ranked choice voting system in 2020.

To qualify for next year’s elections, sponsors of the two approved measures must now gather signatures from at least 26,000 Alaskans in at least three-quarters of Alaska House districts before the Alaska Legislature convenes in January.

Open-primary ‘backstop’ fails legal test

Sponsors of the rejected measure intended that it serve as a backstop to guarantee nonpartisan primary elections in case Alaska’s current election system is repealed, but in , the Alaska Department of Law said that the measure would have violated Alaska’s constitutional ban on ballot measures that allocate money or resources.

“It would limit the Legislature’s ability to appropriate funds for partisan primaries or similar processes in the future,” the analysis said, “so it makes an appropriation in violation of the subject-matter restrictions on initiatives.”

This is the second ballot measure to be disqualified this year on legal...

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