Alaska Constitution signer dies

Alaska state flags were lowered to half-staff last Thursday, June 6, in memory of James J. "Jim" Hurley. Hurley died at home in Hilo, Hawaii, on May 30. He was 87.

Hurley was one of 55 elected delegates to the Alaska constitutional convention in 1955 and was elected again by Valley voters in 1958 as the first representative to the Alaska state house from the district that included Palmer, Wasilla and Talkeetna.

The constitutional convention took place over 76 days at the University of Alaska campus at College, Alaska, the site of today's University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. The convention is seen by historians -- and Alaskans -- as a tipping-point in Alaska's decades long pursuit of statehood.

Then, as now, much of the Alaskan economy was based on exporting resources through corporations based out-of-state. The major difference was that Alaska's territorial government was seen by many as having little power to balance the interests of the people of Alaska with Outside interests. The territory had no control over fisheries, relied solely on federal courts for justice, and its ability to raise funds to run a government were limited by federal legislation.

"There were concerns about control, and I think Jim got caught up in that, as did a lot of people," said former state senator Jalmar Kertula of Palmer. "There was an enthusiasm for managing our own affairs," Kertula said. "All the capital came from outside and out of the country."

Hurley came to the Valley in 1948 to work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and in 1949 he became manager of the Palmer-based Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation (ARRC). Anchorage attorney Warren Cuddy was a member of the ARRC board of directors at the time, and Hurley studied law under Cuddy. It was common practice in those days to study under an attorney as an alternative to law school. Hurley never became a lawyer, but he did apply his law background at the Constitutional convention.

"Jim was one of the more serious, constructive, people at the convention," Anchorage attorney and fellow delegate Victor Fischer said.

"He had a law background, he had management experience and he knew Alaska."

Hurley and Fischer served together on the style and drafting committee at the convention. Part of the style and drafting committee's job was to bring together the various articles of the constitution written by other committees and make sure the final document didn't contradict itself, according to Fischer.

"[Hurley] was one of the people who made sure that logic prevailed," Fischer said.

Nine of the 55 delegates were also members of the territorial legislature. But the delegates had a full range of private sector experience. There were pilots, fisherman, merchants, attorneys and a photographer. Dora Sweeney, a member of the territorial legislature from Juneau, listed her occupation as "housewife" according to Fischer's book "Alaska's Constitutional Convention."

All of the delegates had experience in local civic involvement such as service on school boards, city councils or chamber of commerce boards regardless of where they were from or the kind of work they did. That variety of experience was a strength at the convention, as was the urge not to turn the constitution into a document that favored one political orientation over another, according to Fischer.

"One of the strengths of the convention was that it was non-partisan," Fischer said. There was also a lack of lobbying on the part of industries such as insurance, banking or fishing concerns, according to Fischer, who said that lobbyists familiar with the territorial government might not have thought the convention required immediate attention. The delegates were writing a document for a government that didn't exist yet.

"It was viewed by some as an academic exercise -- as sort of not quite real," Fischer said.

Hurley's second wife, Katy Hurley of Wasilla, served as the convention's recording clerk. Over the course of the 76 days many of the delegates put aside regional and political differences, according to Katy Hurley.

"[Jim Hurley's] feeling was that he was elected from here, but he was looking at the whole territory," Katy said. "I think that was the feeling of most of the delegates. They may have gone there thinking that they were going to represent the interests of mining or of fishing, but by the time they got to the final document that had changed."