5th Alaska State Legislature

The Fifth Alaska State Legislature served from January 23, 1967, to January 26, 1969.

The Alaska Legislature had largely been controlled by the Democratic Party since statehood took effect in 1959, as was the case with most territorial legislatures stretching as far back as the early 1930s. In the 1966 elections, Alaska followed the rest of the nation and voted Republican: incumbent governor William A. Egan and incumbent U.S. Representative Ralph J. Rivers both lost reelection to Republican challengers (Walter J. Hickel and Howard W. Pollock, respectively). Republicans also wound up with control of both houses of the legislature, though many of the Republicans newly elected in 1966 only served in this legislature.

This Senate saw major changes in its composition. In response to the "one man, one vote" decision of the United States Supreme Court in Reynolds v. Sims, the area-based apportionment scheme established for the Senate in the state constitution was abandoned, and the Senate was apportioned strictly on a population basis like the House. Jay Hammond, who served in the House in the first three legislatures before returning home to Naknek to serve as manager of the Bristol Bay Borough, was newly elected as a senator from a district which stretched as far north as Bettles and as far south as the Alaska Peninsula. In the 1966 election, Hammond defeated Democratic incumbent Grant Pearson, who lived in Nenana, 480 miles (770 km) from Naknek. Under population-based apportionment, many future legislative districts in rural Alaska would also cover vast amounts of the state.