Mike Gravel - State Legislator

State Legislator

With the support of Alaska wholesale grocer Barney Gottstein and supermarket builder Larry Carr, Gravel ran for the Alaska House of Representatives representing Anchorage in 1962 and won.

Gravel served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1963 to 1966, winning re-election in 1964. In his first term, he served as a minority member on two House committees: Commerce, and Labor and Management.

He coauthored and sponsored the act that created the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights. Gravel was the chief architect of the law that created a regional high school system for rural Alaska; this allowed Alaska Natives to attend schools near where they lived, instead of having to go to schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the lower 48 states.

During the half-years that the legislature was not in session, Gravel resumed his real estate work. With Gottstein and Carr's backing, he became quite successful as a property developer on the Kenai Peninsula.

During 1965 and 1966, he served as the Speaker of the House, surprising observers by winning that post. Gravel convinced former Speaker Warren A. Taylor to not try for the position against him by promising Taylor chairmanship of the Rules Committee, then reneged on the promise. (Gravel denied later press charges that he had promised but not delivered on other committee chairmanships.) As Speaker he antagonized fellow lawmakers by imposing his will on the legislature's committees and feuded with Alaska State Senate president Robert J. McNealy.

Gravel did not run for re-election in 1966, instead choosing to run for Alaska's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, losing in a primary to four-term incumbent Democrat Ralph Rivers by 1,300 votes and splitting the Democratic party in the process. Rivers lost the general election that year to Republican state Senator Howard Wallace Pollock.

Following his defeat, Gravel returned to the real estate business in Anchorage.