ALASKA: A Heap of Lawmaking

While Hawaiians were hula whooping over statehood news, Alaska's overwhelmingly Democratic legislature was finding out that it takes a heap of lawmaking to make a territory a state. Along with weighing a balanced $26.6 million budget and passing a reorganization bill setting up a dozen executive departments to replace 100 assorted agencies, the lawmakers found themselves blizzarded by so many minor bills, chores and diversions that the Fairbanks News-Miner accused the new legislature of "doodling, dawdling and dillydallying." Full of eager novices (only eleven members out of 40 ever served in the old territorial legislature), the house in the past...

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