LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH SERVICES Alaska State Legislature (907) 465‐3991 phone Division of Legal and Research Services (907) 465‐3908 fax State Capitol, Juneau, AK 99801
[email protected] Research Brief TO: Senator John Coghill FROM: Patricia Young, Manager DATE: February 13, 2015 RE: Congressional Logjam over Statehood for Alaska LRS Report 15.259 You asked about attempts before Congress—occurring prior to the 1958 passage of the Statehood Act—that would have enabled the Territory of Alaska to become a state. The movement for statehood for Alaska was long and contentious. In the last years leading up to the constitutional convention, Congress had considered a number of statehood bills with support shifting from House to Senate, but never both at once. For example, a statehood bill for Alaska was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in 1950, but it died in the Senate. During the following Congress, a bill in the Senate died on a very close vote. Subsequently, with President Eisenhower endorsing statehood for Hawaii, a Hawaii statehood bill passed the House. In order to get the Alaska bill moving, the Senate inserted the Alaska statehood language in the Hawaii bill that had passed the House.1 That bill eventually died when Congress adjourned.2 Other bills similarly attempted to tie statehood for Alaska with that for Hawaii, but none passed. Opposition to Statehood for Alaska Reliable sources at the time and since concur that several factors caused enabling legislation for Alaska’s statehood to falter and die in Congress over a span of many years.