Materials related to the writing of the proposed Hammond Amendment to Article IX, Section 15, of the Alaska State Constitution, regarding the treatment of income from the Alaska Permanent Fund. Includes two letters, three telegrams, 13 drafts, and an exegesis article. Some material was published in the Juneau Empire.

Jay Sterner Hammond (July 21, 1922 – August 2, 2005) was an American politician of the Republican Party, who served as the fourth governor of Alaska from 1974 to 1982. Hammond was born in Troy, New York and served as a Marine Corps fighter pilot in World War II with the Black Sheep Squadron. In 1946, he moved to Alaska where he worked as a bush pilot. Hammond served as a state representative from 1959 to 1965 and as a state senator from 1967 to 1973. From 1972 until 1974 he was the mayor of the Bristol Bay Borough. Then, in 1974, he was elected governor of Alaska. He oversaw the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund in 1976, which, since the early 1980s, has paid annual dividends to Alaska residents. He advocated for fiscal responsibility. When his tenure as governor was over, he continued to be active in public life. He advocated for environmentally and fiscally responsible government and individual civic responsibility. From 1985 to 1992 he hosted a television series called Jay Hammond's Alaska. He wrote three autobiographies.

Hammond was elected governor in 1974 in a close result over incumbent William A. Egan. The race was complicated by two major factors, amongst others. One was a reversal of roles of sorts, where Hammond and his running mate Lowell Thomas Jr. were identified as conservationists, confusing and splitting the traditional party base. The other was the appearance, for the first time, of a substantial third-party candidate, Fairbanks miner and real estate developer Joe Vogler. Vogler's open contempt for the environmental movement created a further voter rift which no doubt helped Hammond.

As governor during the biggest economic boom in Alaska's history, the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, Hammond oversaw the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund. The concept of the Permanent Fund, originally championed in 1969 by then-governor Keith Miller and Anchorage Times publisher and editor Robert Atwood on the eve of the Prudhoe Bay oil lease sale, lay dormant for years as a result of the legislature spending the proceeds of the lease sale and construction delays associated with the pipeline. During his first term as governor, Hammond, along with a young state representative from Kenai named Hugh Malone, conceived a program to invest oil royalties to cover future state budget shortfalls as well as create a long-term savings account. Alaska voters approved a constitutional amendment establishing the Permanent Fund in 1976, one of the rare exceptions to the constitutional intent of not dedicating funds for a specific purpose. When Hammond defeated Egan for the governorship in 1974, he recruited a number of legislators to serve in his cabinet and in the governor's office. From left: senator W. I. "Bob" Palmer (R-Ninilchik; chief of staff and later policy advisor), representative Andy Warwick (R-Fairbanks; commissioner of administration) and representative-elect Ed Orbeck (D-Fairbanks; commissioner of labor) joined the Hammond administration at the onset. Representatives Helen Dittman Beirne (R-Anchorage; commissioner of health and social services) and Keith Specking (R-Hope; policy advisor) both left the legislature to join the administration two years later.

Since the early 1980s, the Permanent Fund has paid annual dividends to Alaska residents, under a program in which credit has been variously given to, or taken by, Hammond, Malone, Libertarian state representative Dick Randolph and numerous other Alaskan politicians of the day. At around the same time, Alaska eliminated its state income tax. Hammond is often erroneously credited for this; in fact, he was actually staunchly opposed to the idea.[1] The elimination of the income tax was actually championed by Randolph, who persuaded his fellow legislators to pass the bill after mounting an initiative to force a public vote should the legislature not act. A 1980 episode of the public television program Alaska Review (currently held in the collections of the Alaska Film Archives) prominently featured an edited "debate" between Hammond and Randolph on the subject, centered on the fact that Alaska faced a one-billion-dollar budget surplus that year.

As governor, Hammond advocated for fiscal responsibility, and introduced an amendment to the Alaska Constitution limiting state spending. This was mocked by one legislator as "Spendy Limitation," with an accompanying elegant and obfuscatory statement mimicking Hammond's unique way with the English language. He advocated for another constitutional amendment providing for governors to serve a single 6-year term without possibility of further service. He felt it would allow governors a free hand in accomplishing their goals. He also championed a program which opened large amounts of state-owned lands near Delta Junction for agricultural use. While greater aspects of the program have been variously condemned as a "boondoggle" over the years, Delta Junction has managed to emerge as one of the larger agricultural producing communities in Alaska. He also vigorously fought with the legislature over power struggles between the two branches of government, culminating with four proposed constitutional amendments on the 1980 ballot, all of which failed by large margins.

From Wikipedia, accessed 3/4/2022

George Rogers, 4/15/1917-10/3/2010

Born in San Francisco, Calif., on April 15, 1917, to Mary Jane (May) Smith (Australian) and George Thomas Rogers ("Tom") (Welsh), he was raised there in the Potrero district.

George Rogers received his education in economics at the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University. It was at Berkeley that he met his wife, Jean, in 1941. George and Jean were married on Nov. 27, 1942.

The couple arrived in Juneau in 1945, when the U.S. Office of Price Administration sent George to Alaska to help roll back unregulated raw fish prices. World War II terminated this impossible task. He went on to serve as an adviser to a number of territorial governors. First among them was Ernest Gruening, followed by Frank Heintzleman, who championed the development of a wood pulp industry in Southeast Alaska.

George Rogers was instrumental in guiding Alaska to statehood, serving in 1955-56 as consultant to the Alaska Constitutional Convention and managing it when the convention secretary, Tom Stewart, was absent.

In 1961, soon after Alaska became a state, Dr. Rogers and two colleagues persuaded the state Legislature to establish an institute at the University of Alaska to undertake research and provide information on Alaska's economy, business, demography and other topics. He was the guiding light and inspiration for the faculty and staff of what is now known as the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER). In recognition of his decades of contribution to the institute and the state, ISER is dedicating the celebration of its 50th anniversary in 2011 to George Rogers.

Dr. Rogers' cutting-edge professional career covered a wide range of Alaska topics, including fisheries, timber, oil, and the Alaska Permanent Fund, to name a few, as well as circumpolar research. He wrote seven books on Alaska policy and economics, several ultimately becoming used as educational textbooks. Many of his observations about Alaska's people, economy and politics stand true to this day.

In Juneau, Dr. Rogers was a member of the Juneau Rotary and the city and borough of Juneau Assembly (before and after statehood). He was also on committees for 25 Alaska programs dealing with natural resource topics, statehood, and mental health issues, among others.

From the Anchorage Daily News obituary, published 11/7-8/2010

Dr. Robert E. Newton was a publicist on legal and state governmental issues. A Phi Beta Kappa laureate freom Iowa University (1956), he served in the legislature of that state in 1969-70. He earned a Ph.D. in political science from the Catholic University of America in 1965. He has resided in Juneau for the...seventeen years [prior to 1987].

From The Hammond Amendment article in the collection.