Digital Bob Archive

A unicameral legislature for Alaska has been discussed more than once, and it almost came about back in 1912. And Alaska women very nearly got the vote in time for the 1912 election instead of having to wait until 1914. Apparently the two items were a trade-off when a conference committee of the 62nd Congress took up what Alaskans came to call the Home Rule Bill.

The bill, as drafted by Alaska Delegate James Wickersham, started as a measure to make Alaska territory equal to earlier western territories of the Nation, but in response to objections in various committee hearings, Wickersham deleted county governments, a court system, control of fish and game and other things that other territories had had. The main thing that was left when the Wickersham bill came to the floor of the House of Representatives on April 24, 1912, was the territorial Legislature with a total of 24 members in House and Senate.

A number of amendments were offered from the floor of the House. One by Rep. James R. Mann of Illinois, the minority (Republican) leader, would have specifically permitted the Alaska Legislature to enact a women's suffrage law. It failed twice on tie votes. Later in the day Rep. Franklin W. Mondell offered an amendment not only giving Alaska women the vote but the right to hold elective office as well. Mondell was from Wyoming, which had given women the vote in 1869. His amendment was adopted by an 81-35 vote, seven years before Congress passed the 19th Amendment. The House then passed the Alaska bill.

Senator Wesley L. Jones of Washington (yes, the Jones Act man) worked with Wickersham and steered his Alaska bill through the Senate where it passed on July 24 after several amendments. One amendment provided for a one-house Alaska Legislature.

The bill went to a conference committee which did not take it up until August 16. Congress was getting ready to adjourn until December. In Juneau and elsewhere both friends and foes of the bill eagerly awaited news from Washington. There was plenty of political activity making news that summer: Wilson nominated on the 46th ballot; Taft nominated over Roosevelt who then bolted the party to run as a Progressive or Bull Moose candidate; a very hot five-way race in Alaska for Delegate in Congress.

When the Alaska bill emerged on August 21 the franchise for Alaska women had disappeared, but so had the unicameral Legislature, which was said to have been the last stumbling block. President Taft signed the bill on August 24, which happened to be Delegate Wickersham's birthday. The President probably was not aware of that; he and Wickersham were far from being friends and Wickersham had rather virulently attacked the President in print.

It was probably the April 24 vote of the House of Representatives that inspired the Alaska Legislature to pass a women's suffrage bill in 1913. But Alaska had come awfully close to having a single house Legislature.