Hello Fellow Alaskans! 

This petition was started to constitutionally protect your Permanent Fund Dividend and to ensure every eligible Alaska resident receives their annual Permanent Fund Dividend as required by Alaska statute, AS37.13.145(b).

This petition coincides with the efforts of Alaska State Senators Bill Wielechowski and Mike Dunleavy. Senator Bill Wielechowski has pre-filed a bill  to constitutionally protect the Permanent Fund Dividend. If the bill passes both the House and Senate with a 2/3 vote or, in other words, if 66% of the legislators vote in favor of the legislation then the people of Alaska will get the opportunity, by way of a statewide ballot, to constitutionally protect the Permanent Fund Dividend.  Senator Mike Dunleavy pre-filed a bill to restore half of the Permanent Fund Dividend that Governor Walker line item vetoed in June. 

If Alaska Residents stop whining and start signing, this petition will SUCCEED. It will succeed because your legislators know they can not ignore the will of the people without consequence. 

"The voters created the Permanent Fund (by constitutional amendment in 1976) but they don't seem to have a strong perception that it belongs to them". Governor Hammond Republican 1982

"Even more significantly, its (the PFD) existence is an admission, be it ever so humble, by the legislator that this money does in fact belong to the people". Former Representative Dick Randolph Libertarian 1983

When lawmakers were considering repealing the PFD program, Hugh Malone, one of the originators of the PFD program said, "you need to consider the human element". Representative Hugh Malone Democrat 1983

Rachel Waldholz interviewed Gunnar Knapp for akpublic.org. Knapp estimated cutting the PFD in half could cost more than 6,000 jobs statewide and pull about a billion dollars of income out of the state economy. And, 

For the twenty percent of Alaska households whose incomes average $35,000 a year or less, the PFD is a major chunk of change. For a family of four, last year's checks added up to more than $8000. Knapp said that's one reason Alaska has one of the most equal- or least- unequal distributions of wealth in the U.S.