Constitution of Alaska

The Constitution of the State of Alaska is the constitution of the U.S. state of Alaska. It was ratified in 1956 and took effect with Alaska's admission as a state on January 3, 1959.

In the 1940s, the movement for Alaska statehood was gaining momentum within the territory, but stymied by opposition from Lower 48 commercial interests and some members of Congress. Many statehood proponents felt that a well-written constitution would help advance the cause in Washington, D.C.

As a result, one of the duties the Alaska Territorial Legislature laid upon the Alaska Statehood Committee, established in 1949, was to "assemble applicable material, make studies and provide recommendations in a timely manner" preparatory to drafting a constitution.

On November 8, 1955, 55 elected delegates from across Alaska (a number chosen to echo the 55 in attendance at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787) met at the brand new student union building at the University of Alaska. The building, quickly christened Constitution Hall by the Board of Regents, was temporarily handed over to the delegates who assembled to create the new document at a constitutional convention. Fairbanks (technically, in this instance, College) was selected as the site instead of Juneau, the territorial capital, to escape the influence of lobbyists and to benefit from the academic setting. The latter consideration was largely influenced by New Jersey's choice of Rutgers University for its 1947 convention.

The convention was led by then-territorial Senator William A. Egan, who became the state's first governor. The other delegates, 49 men and six women, included territorial legislators Ralph J. Rivers, who became U.S. Representative from Alaska at-large, and Jack Coghill, who became lieutenant governor. Frank Peratrovich, the mayor of Klawock who was also a territorial legislator, was the only Alaska Native among the delegates. The oldest delegate, Earnest B. Collins, was speaker of the 1st territorial House in 1913. Collins lived in Alaska longer than any delegate except for Peratrovich, having arrived in 1904. The youngest delegate, Thomas C. Harris, had only lived in Alaska for around five years and had been elected by some 150 votes cast in and around the Valdez area. Other delegates who were notable outside of law and politics include: Fairbanks bush pilot Frank Barr; mining engineer and Fairbanks Exploration Company executive John C. Boswell; Swiss emigrant and Kachemak Bay homesteader Yule F. Kilcher; World War II era military officer Marvin R. "Muktuk" Marston; Steve McCutcheon, a photographer whose collection represents a significant documentation of mid-20th century life in Alaska; Leslie Nerland, who took his father's department store in Fairbanks and turned it into a statewide empire, even extending to Hawaii at one point; and Ada Wien, from a pioneer Alaskan and pioneer aviation family.

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