Victor Fischer, who was the last surviving member of the Alaska Constitution Convention, died on Sunday evening at his home in Anchorage after a long life and more recently, extended hospice care.
Fischer, who was 99, was born May 4, 1924, in Berlin, Germany and raised in Russia. His father was American and his mother was Russian. After slipping out of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, his family came to America in 1939, and he eventually moved to the territory of Alaska, where he was elected to the Constitutional Convention when he was just 31 years old.
Along the way, he had earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering at the University of Wisconsin, and an advanced degree from MIT.
Fischer was the University of Alaska’s first director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research, and actively participated in Alaska government and politics for over 50 years.
He was a territorial legislator, and after taking part in the creation of the state as a delegate in 1955 to the Constitutional Convention, was elected as a state senator. He remained engaged in state policy, local government, and Alaska-Russia issues and was a committed member of the Democratic Party. He earned his masters in public administration from Harvard University in the 1960s and in 2006 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from University of Alaska Anchorage. In 2012 he published his autobiography, To Russia With Love, co-authored by Charles Wohlforth.
Fischer is the last of a generation of statehood founders. Before he died, Katie Hurley, chief clerk to the Alaska Constitutional Convention, died Feb. 21, 2021 at the age of 99. Prior to her death, Lt. Gov. Jack Coghill, a delegate like Vic Fisher, died at age 93 in 2019.
“Vic Fischer’s life story reads like a real-life Forrest Gump, with appearances by Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Saul Alinsky and many more, together with everyone in the whole history of Alaska from statehood to the present day,” say the liner notes to The Great Alaska Show interview with Fischer in 2022. It can be heard at this link.
Indeed, Fischer was a committed politico of the Left. Just last year he believed that Rep. David Eastman, of Wasilla, should not be allowed to serve in the Legislature because he attended a rally in Washington. D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021 and stood outside holding a Trump flag. Eastman was put on trial in Alaska in 2022 due to his passive membership in the group called “Oathkeepers.” He prevailed, but the spectacle put a chill on Alaskans’ perception of First Amendment protections and whether they, too, could be hauled up in front of a judge just for expressing their beliefs.
“It’s so basic,” Fischer told Politico. “If somebody comes along and wants to destroy the constitutional structure of Alaska, they should not be elected to the Legislature.”
Our family’s condolences to Jane and their family. Vic was a really great guy. It was a honor to know him. ❤️
I wonder where he’s at now? One of Alaska’s leaders (even while we think he was wrong) he used to be walking among us and now he no more with us. He in Heaven? or the ugly place I don’t like saying nor thinking its name (*shudder) ?
When you reach the infernal regions after your passing, you’ll know for sure.
Like they used to say…Here come da judge…
I respect the man, but good riddance.
You say you respect the man but then say good riddance? What a joke, but its about what I expect out of your Christian hypocrisy.
No kidding. Thorne a flaming hypocrite.
There’s that good Christian.
Saul Alinsky? That pretty well gives away Vic Fischer’s personal political agenda.
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But the real question I have is what kind of logic does an alleged framer of Alaska’s statehood use to form an opinion that David Eastman should not hold elected office because he presented himself at the election protest in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021? What evidence does Vic Fischer have that David Eastman should not serve in the Legislature because he was “destroying the constitutional structure of Alaska?” That comment is absurd and has no relevance or logical construction as to how the free will and free exercise to protest an election outcome destroys the structure of the constitution. An exact opposite statement would actually be logical and support the notion that a constitution’s structure and construction is buttressed by the will of the public to protest against their government.
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I knew Vic Fischer. I do not know David Eastman.
But as an American recognizing the freedoms instilled in our Constitution, Mr Eastman has the superior ground. Not Vic Fischer.
No truer words. Mr. Fischer is way underground.
That dig to put down David Eastman belongs to Suzanne Downing, not Vic Fischer. There never was a published anything about David Eastman by Mr. Fisher while he, Vic Fisher, was alive. So, Downing is using the time and space to put her opinion on a dead man. Is Vic Fisher going to come out of the grave and argue? Where is the proof that a man 99 years old was still writing articles of that nature? None. More than likely he was barely living and hanging on to life with assistance of family and nursing care. What could have been a tribute to Vic Fisher became garbage by Suzanne Downing with the dig to David Eastman!!!
More poppycock by DK. Good try! It’s Suzanne Downing that shines the light on sophists like DK.
Forrest Gump wasn’t dangerous to our constitutional republic, far left progressives, communists and marxist are. Ideologies Vic was supportive of and should have known better.
Thank you sir, for your honorable service to Alaska. Rest in peace and God Bless🇮🇱🇺🇸
Like all Leftists, Vic was devoted to gov’t power, and it only got worse as he grew older. His lifelong influence demonstrates that he was likely a Chosen Tool of the Deep State. You can’t go through those educational institutions without being noticed and groomed. A personable and gracious man, yes, but they were merely practiced courtesies. His groundless ruthlessness in the Eastman case showed what is behind that style of politics. Now, to his credit, in the ’55 con-con, Vic was the only delegate to notice that Alaska’s guarantee to Freedom of Speech was worded in a very dangerous way. Read Art. 1, Sec. 5. He was likely worried about protecting Leftist speech, which was being hounded by the Red Scare of the time. But it is amazing how he was willing to ACT OUT the suppression of free speech that he did not like, e.g. David Eastman.
I believe that SCO 1993 destroyed the constitutional structure, Article I Sec. 8 Grand Jury. Our constitutional right to remedy wrong concerning the public safety and welfare should never have been severed.
It is imperative to the public safety and well-being that the Alaska Legislature start an investigation that shall protect our constitutional right to go before a grand jury.
It is imperative to the best interest and safety of every Alaskan that we too are given free legal counsel like that of the new regulation that goes into effect November 12 for the Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General.
Equality and justice for all!
Condolences to Jane. Vic was a gentleman, who loved Alaska. I’ll miss him.
Fischer loved Marxists more than Alaska. He never had a good thing to say about Conservatives or lovers of liberty.
By Liberty you mean as long as they agree with your ideology right.
In the reflection of the Alaska Statehood Generation passed ( death of Vic Fischer ) , I question what was unrealized to date that should have changed at the request of those 55 Delegates one of which is
Ernest Gruening’s speech of Dec.9th 1955 I quote below being a omnipresent concern of today’s woes , no different than that of yesteryear! If this sparks your interests read Bob Bartlett’s speech also on Alaska’s Resources.
Are we Alaskans still being Discriminated by policy & law this day? How would Alaska look if this “Jones Act of 1920 ” had changed, and how would our Landscape Environments & Free Enterprise Opportunity’s in this Great State, could have had progressed?
Does our current Governors ” Energy Plan ” reflect this detail into our future?
May I quote Vic’s recent statement ” “It’s so basic,” Fischer told Politico. “If somebody comes along and wants to destroy the constitutional structure of Alaska, they should not be elected to the Legislature.”
Please read the Plan to see what is at loss in that Plan.
‘https://www.akenergyauthority.org/Portals/0/Alaska%20Energy%20Security%20Task%20Force/DRAFT%20Plan/Alaska_Statewide_Energy_Master_Plan_Draft%20_100223%20(1).pdf?ver=dULWXvyXrpO9ubohsVi_Bw%3d%3d
Is this Plan just a reflection of “Bidenomics” which could be both a pie in the sky & even less than that minus the Government’s subsidies into the Green new deal & ESG into our future ? Does this Plan have sunset dates or exit or built into it just incase we find ourselves hoodwinked?
A Quote from Ernest’s Speech
First, let us scrutinize sea-borne transportation. It was, for seventy-three years, until 1940, the only form of transportation between Alaska and the states. Alaska suffers a unique discrimination in maritime law.
Thirty-five years ago the Congress passed a merchant marine act which is known officially as the Maritime Act of 1920. In Alaska it is referred to as the “Jones Act,” after its sponsor, the late Senator Wesley L. Jones of the state of Washington. The act embodied a substantial modification of existing maritime law. It provided that goods shipped across the United States, destined either for the coastal ports of the Atlantic or Pacific or for shipment across those oceans to Europe or to Asia, could use either American or foreign carriers. The foreign carriers principally involved were Canadian.
And when these goods arrived at their Coast destination, he could send them across the Pacific in either American or foreign vessels, or southward in either. But at that point in the legislation, creating this new beneficial arrangement, two words had been inserted in Article 27 of the Act. Those two words were, “excluding Alaska”.
Are we still being” Excluded ” Governor, in your Plan?
People can say whatever they want to about Vic Fischer, but I know this from his time as a state senator in Juneau:
He was c.r.e.e.p.y.
REAL creepy!
I’d like to tighten Alaska’s Constitution with compliance with guaranteed processes due expectations of such in nationhood founding documents and jettison inexplicable drift from required process. Judges nor congresses may tamper with process that is due. Only assembled people have that expressed personal and subject matter jurisdiction today in our nation.
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