ALR’s 60 Years Later: The Alaska Constitution Symposium, History in Context was held Friday October 12, 2018, at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. The symposium was co-sponsored by the UAA Justice Center and the Alaska Law Review in cooperation with the Historians Committee of the Alaska Bar Association.
The following represents the schedule of the symposium’s events:
| 8:30 | Introduction Ryan Fortson University of Alaska Anchorage |
| 8:40 | Keynote Address Erwin Chemerinsky Dean; Berkeley Law |
| 9:30 | “A Comparative Perspective of the Alaska Constitution” Professor G. Alan Tarr Rutgers University; Center for State Constitution Studies & Professor Robert Williams Rutgers School of Law; Center for State Constitution Studies |
| 10:15 | Break |
| 10:30 | “The Alaska Judicial Council and Merit Selection of Judges” Susie Mason Dosik Administrative Attorney, Alaska Judicial Council & Brett Frazer; Walter Carpeneti Latham & Watkins; Alaska Supreme Court ret. |
| 11:15 | “A Native Perspective of Alaska’s Constitution” John “Sky” Starkey Landye Bennett Blumstein LLP & Willie Hensley University of Alaska Anchorage |
| 12:00 | Lunch |
| 12:15 | Lunch Presentation Mike Schwaiger Alaska Bar Association, Historians Committee |
| 12:30 | Lunch Conversation Vic Fischer Member of the Alaska Constitutional Convention & Hon. Sen Tan Alaska Superior Court, ret. |
By: Erwin Chemerinsky
Mr. Chemerinsky’s Keynote Address focused on the implications of the changes in the composition of the Supreme Court, that civil rights litigants increasingly will be turning to state constitutional law. Alaska has been a leader in developing a robust use of state constitutional law to protect rights and liberties. How has it done this? What are the lessons for the rest of the country?
A video recording of Mr. Chemerinsky’s Keynote Address can be found here.
Erwin Chemerinsky became the 13th Dean of Berkeley Law on July 1, 2017, when he joined the faculty as the Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law.
Prior to assuming this position, from 2008-2017, he was the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science. Before that he was the Alston and Bird Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University from 2004-2008, and from 1983-2004 was a professor at the University of Southern California Law School, including as the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science. He also has taught at DePaul College of Law and UCLA Law School. He teaches Constitutional Law, First Amendment Law, Federal Courts, Criminal Procedure, and Appellate Litigation.
He is the author of ten books, including The Case Against the Supreme Court, published by Viking in 2014, and two books published by Yale University Press in 2017, Closing the Courthouse Doors: How Your Constitutional Rights Became Unenforceable and Free Speech on Campus (with Howard Gillman). He also is the author of more than 200 law review articles. He writes a weekly column for the Sacramento Bee, monthly columns for the ABA Journal and the Daily Journal, and frequent op-eds in newspapers across the country. He frequently argues appellate cases, including in the United States Supreme Court.
In 2016, he was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In January 2017, National Jurist magazine again named Dean Chemerinsky as the most influential person in legal education in the United States.
By Professors G. Alan Tarr and Robert F. Williams
This presentation sought to clarify what is distinctive about the Alaska Constitution by placing it in comparative perspective. This began with a review of the characteristics of state constitutions themselves, in contrast to the more familiar United States Constitution. Next, an introduction to the New Judicial Federalism, whereby state high courts may interpret, or at least consider interpreting, their own state constitutions to provide more protective rights than those under the US Constitution. This is one of the most important developments in state constitutional law, and Alaska is part of it. Finally, the presentation evaluated selected Alaska constitutional provisions and doctrines in the larger context of American state constitutional law.
A video recording of this presentation can be found here.
George Alan Tarr, Ph. D., is Board of Governors Professor Emeritus and the founder and former Director of the Center for State Constitutional Studies at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey. He is the author of several books, most recently “Without Fear or Favor: Judicial Independence and Accountability in the States” (2012), and of more than 30 articles in law reviews and other academic publications. He has served as a consultant to the National Constitution Center and the American Bar Association, and he has lectured for the U.S. Department of State in Africa, Asia, and South America.
Robert F. Williams is an expert in state constitutional law and the current director of the Center for State Constitutional Studies at Rutgers. He has authored numerous articles and books, including the book “The Law of American State Constitutions” (Oxford 2009). He has also participated in a wide range of litigation and has lectured to state judges and lawyers on subjects involving state constitutional law. He teaches State Constitutional Law. Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty in 1980, Professor Williams served as a legislative assistant during the 1967 Special Constitutional Revision session of the Florida Legislature and represented clients before the 1978 Florida Constitution Revision Commission.
By Susie Mason Dosik, Brett Frazer, and Walter Carpeneti
The Alaska Judicial Council, created in Article IV, Section 8 of the State’s Constitution, carries out the duties of the merit selection system created by the Constitution. In this presentation, Dosik detailed the article by herself and Teresa W. Carns describing how the Council developed its procedures from statehood forward, and what they are at the present. Drawing on Council meeting minutes, files, and reports starting with the Council’s first meeting on May 18 and 19, 1959 in Juneau, the article covers all aspects of applying to be considered for judicial positions: the application, investigations, bar surveys, standards for nomination to the governor, interviews, voting, and transmission of results to the governor. The article includes a brief discussion of Council actions to continue to improve the process, and to increase public and bar participation in selection and retention matters, as envisioned at the Constitutional Convention.
The judicial selection and retention provisions of the Alaska Constitution, found in Article IV, achieve a delicate and remarkably successful balance between two competing interests—judicial independence and popular sovereignty. The purpose of this article, written by Brett Frazer and Walter Carpeneti and presented by Frazer, is to describe this constitutional plan, (called “merit selection” because it begins with nomination based on merit alone, as determined by a panel comprised of members of the state bar and the general public), explain why the founders adopted it, examine historical challenges to it, and assess its performance on the 60th anniversary of Alaska statehood. The authors ultimately conclude that Alaska’s merit selection system has performed well, insulating judges from the worst of politics while still allowing some democratic controls on the composition of the judiciary.
A video recording of this presentation can be found here.
Susie Dosik serves as the Administrative Attorney for the Alaska Judicial Council. She performs the judicial applicant and retention candidate investigations and evaluations, putting judicial selection procedures into practice. She has worked with the Council since 2001 and has participated in over 100 judicial selections in Alaska. She is the author of reports and articles on Alaska’s Merit Selection process and has worked on numerous procedural and bylaw revisions.
Brett Frazer is a 2012 graduate of the University of Alaska Anchorage and a December 2017 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. While attending college in Anchorage, Brett received the Truman Scholarship and was a decorated member of UAA’s world-renown debate team, twice advancing to the elimination rounds of the World University Debating Championships and finishing as the Second Overall Speaker at the 2012 United States Universities Debating Championships. In Law School, Brett was an Executive Editor for the Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative Law, and he served as a board member for numerous student organizations. Brett will begin work this Fall as an Associate at Latham & Watkins in their Chicago office, though he hopes to return to Alaska soon.
Walter Carpeneti previously served as a justice on the Alaska Supreme Court. He was appointed to the court in 1998 by Governor Tony Knowles and was retained for another 10-year term in 2002. He served as chief justice from 2009 until June 2012. He retired from the court on January 31, 2013. Carpeneti earned his undergraduate degree with distinction in history from Stanford University in 1967. He received his J.D. degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1970.
By John “Sky” Starkey and Willie Hensley
Due to the unique history of the territory and State of Alaska, and the social, political and legislative treatment of its indigenous inhabitants, Alaska’s Constitution has an extraordinary impact on the legal rights of Alaska Natives. Willie “Iggiagruk” Hensley was a young Inupiaq man living in remote rural Alaska at the time of the constitutional convention. He will present the perspective of Alaska Natives in the drafting and ratification of the Alaska Constitution. Willie served in the Alaska Legislature, was a leader in the settlement of Alaska Native aboriginal land claims and has had many other experiences which have given him a close look at how the constitution impacts the rights and lives of Alaska Natives. John M. “Sky” Starkey followed Willie’s presentation with some thoughts and legal analysis on how Alaskan courts can incorporate consideration of the near exclusion of Alaska Native representatives and perspectives in the drafting of the constitution when they consider constitutional issues with significant impact on Alaska Natives. He concentrated on the natural resource provisions of Article VIII of the constitution and issues related to Alaska Native hunting and fishing.
A video recording of this presentation can be found here.
Sky litigates in the federal district courts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Alaska Superior Courts and the Alaska Supreme Court, and appears before state and federal administrative regulatory boards and agencies. He advocates before the Alaska Legislature and the U.S. Congress and Executive Branch. He has decades of experience representing Alaska Native tribes and tribal organizations, local rural governments and Native corporations on a wide variety of issues, including tribal and subsistence rights, Indian Child Welfare Act cases, natural resource protection and allocation, state and federal political and legislative actions, Native allotments and co-management opportunities. Sky is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Tribe, Eagle Butte, South Dakota.”
Willie Hensley is the Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Business and Public Policy at UAA. He retired from Alyeska Pipeline Service Company where he served as Manager of Federal Government Relations in Washington, DC for nine years.
Hensley was born in Kotzebue, lived with his parents John and Priscilla Hensley and their large family in the Noatak delta area as a boy. He attended the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and graduated with a degree in Political Science from George Washington University in Washington, DC. He was elected to the House of Representatives just months after graduation. He then ran for the Senate and served a full four-year term, in addition to a subsequent 2-year term.
Prior to his employment with Alyeska, Mr. Hensley was appointed Commissioner of Commerce and Economic Development by Governor Tony Knowles. He also served on the Oil and Gas Policy Council, the Board of directors of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, the Alaska Railroad, and the Alaska Industrial Development Authority. Mr. Hensley served on the Board of Regents for the University of Alaska from 1984 to 1987 and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws by the University in 1980. Mr. Hensley served as a director of NANA for 20 years, became the president of NANA Development Corporation and finally President of NANA Regional Corporation. He was a founder of AFN in 1966 and served as a director, executive director, President and co-Chair.
By Mike Schwaiger
Mike Schwaiger presented unpublished materials written by the late Honorable Tom Stewart, who was the Secretary of the Alaska Constitutional Convention.
A video recording of this presentation can be found here.
Michael Schwaiger is an attorney with the Alaska Public Defender Agency in Anchorage, Alaska, and a member of the Bar Historian’s Committee of the Alaska Bar Association.
By Vic Fischer and Hon. Sen Tan
A video recording of this presentation can be found here.
Vic Fischer was one of the delegates to the Alaska Constitutional Convention in the winter of 1955-1956, and he was strongly involved in planning for the 2009 celebration of 50 years of Alaska statehood. Fischer was the first director of the University of Alaska’s Institute of Social and Economic Research, and he has studied and taken part in Alaska government and politics for over 50 years. He was a territorial legislator, a delegate to Alaska’s constitutional convention, and later a state senator. In 1974, he authored “Alaska’s Constitutional Convention” (University of Alaska Press), which was number nine of the National Municipal League’s series State Constitutional Convention Studies. Fischer is an honorary Doctor of Science via the Russian Academy of Economics (Plekhanov). He continues to be engaged in state policy, local government, and Alaska-Russia issues. In 2006 he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from UAA. In 2012 he published his autobiography, To Russia With Love.
Sen K. Tan was the presiding superior court judge for the Third Judicial District in Anchorage, Alaska. Judge Tan was appointed on December 4, 1996, by Governor Tony Knowles. He retired on July 1, 2014. He served as the presiding judge of the court from 2011 to through 2013. Judge Tan graduated from the University of Kent in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts in Law. In 1982 he graduated with his J.D. from the Northeastern University School of Law in Massachusetts.