Opinions

Political consequences: If you think this Alaska Legislature is bad, try 1947's

The shenanigans of the current Alaska Legislature prompted a number of people this week to remember Governor Ernest Gruening's account of the 1947 territorial Legislature, which, if his characterization can be fully credited, was one of the worst in the territory's history. While its offenses were many, perhaps most egregious was passing a budget that was 40 percent out of balance, committing $11 million in expenditures against revenues of only $7 million.

After a brief period of uncertainty following World War II, when Alaskans worried that heavy, federal wartime spending might cease, in fact spending continued at wartime levels and actually began to increase, a function of the ensuing and costly Cold War. Because of Alaska's proximity to the Soviet Union and its critical location as world air crossroads, military construction of strategic air bases, radar and communication systems, and eventually missile emplacements brought both new population and more federal dollars here. New population meant new territorial expenses in education, public safety and transportation, outside the federal largesse. To meet the demand for services, the Legislature passed numerous expenditure measures. But the Senate turned down bill after bill intended to raise the necessary income stream, including a three-to-one match from Congress for airfield and highway construction. The reason was the legislative irritation with the governor, whose support for returning veterans, Senate leaders claimed, added up to unsupportable commitments.

Gruening was particularly incensed that the Senate blocked any budget increase for the University of Alaska, where new veterans significantly expanded the student body. As a result, to prevent the university closing, the governor borrowed the necessary money, hoping the next Legislature would be more reasonable. The president of Alaska Airlines started with a $25,000 loan, and not to be shamed, other companies followed suit.

Gruening had other reasons to be annoyed with the Senate leadership. A New Deal Democrat, the governor could be undiplomatic and uncompromising when pursuing his policy objectives, a political style that did not endear him to his opponents. Early in the 1947 session, some of those opponents attempted to pass several measures intended to isolate him and strip away much of his power.

First, they tried to create a new officer, an administrator-general, on whom they would convey all functions previous legislatures had granted the governor. When that failed, they sought to remove the governor from the territorial Board of Administration, which functioned as a kind of executive cabinet. Unsuccessful at that, they tried to eliminate the territorial Development Board, which worked to attract new population and investment to Alaska, a body Gruening had lobbied through the Legislature several years earlier. That, too, failed. Not stopping there, the legislative opposition, with help from other territorial leaders, traveled to Washington, D.C., to urge the secretary of the Interior Department to tell the president to replace Gruening. Again they came away empty-handed.

To give them their due, those who voted for the unbalanced budget were done in partly by failure of two revenue streams they might reasonably have expected to produce money. One was a tax on salmon. It was based on the volume of salmon caught, not the price paid for them, and in 1947 the number of fish harvested fell off badly, as it would continue to do over the next decade. Another potential revenue source was a minimal tax on gold mining, from which the Legislature hoped the federal government would remove wartime restrictions, but which the government did not. The Legislature met then only every other year, and by the end of 1948, the Territory of Alaska was fully bankrupt.

Gruening's brazen and stubborn opponents paid a heavy electoral price for their belligerence. In the 1948 election a number lost their seats to candidates receptive to more moderate and even progressive measures, paving the way for the truly reform-oriented Legislature of 1949, which enacted an income tax and required lobbyists to register, disclose their employers, and pay an enabling fee, among other items. Among the losers was Norman Walker, a Democrat from Ketchikan, who had orchestrated the campaign against Gruening.

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While history does not repeat, circumstances always being unique, it does nonetheless carry pointed lessons and highly cautionary tales for those with the wit to notice.

Steve Haycox is professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.

Steve Haycox

Steve Haycox is professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

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