Mike Gravel

**Maurice Robert** "**Mike**" **Gravel** (May 13, 1930 – June 26, 2021) was an American Democratic (later Libertarian) politician and writer who served as a U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1970 to 1979, and who later in life ran for the presidency in 2008. He was the Libertarian nominee for U.S. Senator for California in 2010, winning over eight percent of the vote and likely costing the election for Democratic nominee, U.S. Representative Xavier Becerra, who lost the election to Republican Meg Whitman by a 1-point margin. He, prior to this, served as Speaker of the Alaska State House of Representatives from 1965 to 1967 and ran for multiple state offices without success. After a messy divorce in 1980, Gravel moved out of Alaska.

## Early career

Gravel began his career working for Alaska Statehood, befriending Delegate and later U.S. Senator Bob Bartlett in the process. Gravel ran for the sole U.S. House seat upon Alaska Statehood in 1958, but he lost the Democratic primary to winner Burke Riley & former territorial Attorney General & Fairbanks Mayor Ralph Rivers, who came in a close second after being attacked on his inactivity as shadow U.S. Representative. After this, Gravel lost the 1960 campaign for Anchorage city council, and after his friend's company went bankrupt in 1962, Gravel's short pause from officeseeking came to an end when, despite the large red wave in Alaska in 1962 that propelled Alaska's Republican U.S. Representative Ted Stevens to the Senate after defeating Ernest Gruening, and brought Mike Stepovich to the Governor's office after defeating Bill Egan, Gravel was elected as a State Representative.

After the Democrats regained the State House majority in 1964, Gravel was elected as the State House's Speaker, serving for 2 years as he planned a further run for political office. Gravel was criticized for reneging on committee promises, denying press charges he had scammed other Democrats to clear the Speaker's race. In 1966, Incumbent U.S. Representative Lowell Thomas Jr. made a grab at Bartlett's Senate seat, and Lieutenant Governor Howard Pollock announced his campaign for the at-large district. Gravel won the nomination this time against Rivers once again, ending his political career, but Gravel lost the general election propelled by another red wave as Stepovich won re-election, mainly propagated by Walter Hickel's chairing of that year's campaign plans. Gravel was once again out of office, but he almost immediately upon his House loss hopped upon the Democratic nomination in 1968 against Stevens, winning easily against Willie Hensley.

The 1968 campaign was intense, with Stevens and Gravel leading at different times as the two attacked each other, with Stevens criticizing Gravel for his tenure as House speaker, and Gravel attacking Stevens on his inability to pass a Native Lands Claims settlement through the Senate. When oil was discovered in Prudhoe Bay, the election became much more Republican-leaning, with President Nelson Rockefeller and Hickel holding multiple rallies for Stevens. Other big Republican names came in late in the race, such as John Tower, Howard Baker & Vice President William Scranton, to hold more rallies for Stevens & Representative Pollock, who was in a tight re-election race himself with State Senator Nick Begich, who's campaign was run by former Governor William Egan. Gravel originally lost by 4 votes, but after multiple recounts and Gravel's lawsuits, the election was certified with Stevens winning by 114 votes by the Alaska Supreme Court on December 4th. Stevens had already won the certificate of election on November 18th via Secretary of State Jack Coghill. Gravel conceded the same night as the Supreme Court ruling.

However, Gravel, who had Bartlett's endorsement in the House race in 1966 and Senate race that year, won an opportunity after Bartlett died in office on December 11th of that year. Governor Stepovich lobbied for Jack Coghill to be appointed, but Coghill refused; even as a caretaker until the 1970 special election, wanting to stay as Secretary of State until he could run for Governor upon Stepovich's retirement. Unlikely that a Democrat would be appointed after the Republican majority in the state legislature repealed the law mandating that the Governor appoint someone of the same political party as the deceased Bartlett, Gravel sat and waited to see if a defeatable Republican would be appointed. Low and behold, little-heard-of State Senator Carl Brady was appointed to the seat as per a political favor from Hickel & Stevens. Brady worked well with Stevens but struggled to make a name for himself, and in 1970, alongside Begich winning the House Seat and Egan winning the governorship, Brady was defeated by Anchorage millionaire businessman Elmer Rasmuson in the primary, and Gravel edged out Rasmuson to win the Senate race.

## Senate career

Gravel's Senate service began controversially as he read out the Pentagon Papers in the summer of 1971, helping end the Vietnam War. Despite fears he would be expelled and sent to prison, Gravel was automatically given parliamentary immunity as per the 'Speech and Debate Clause', and as the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in his favor of the following year's winter, Gravel became an anti-war hero, joining the ranks of South Dakota's George McGovern, Montana's Mike Mansfield and the former Gruening before him.

Gravel was the runner-up for the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 1972, losing to U.S. Representative Wilbur Mills. His U.S. Senate re-election was originally expected to be close, facing Coghill, Gravel trailed in every poll. However, Coghill was defeated in the Republican primary by Clyde R. Lewis, a John Birch Society leader, and Gravel, who barely campaigned, won in a landslide against Lewis. With a full term on his hands, Gravel was free to bolt, and after assisting Stevens with passing the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act, Gravel broke with his senior senator further, stating he "wanted nothing to do with Stevens socially", despite Stevens' attempts to apologize & reconciliate.

On October 13, 1978, the last day of the 95th Congress, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, an act to protect and conserve a third of Alaska as 'America's last huge, untouched wilderness', an act which Stevens championed after providing a compromise with Mo Udall, was killed by Gravel. One theory why was that Gravel killed the bill in an attempt to spite Stevens, but it is more widely accepted that Gravel had killed the bill as part of his 1980 re-election campaign. The day before, Gravel had written to Stevens that he 'supported Stevens' and was reconsidering his opposition of any attempt of a compromise, originally wanting instead to completely kill the bill. On the day, the bill was granted an extension for a year by the House, but when the Senate debated the extension, Stevens did not present Gravel's objections to the Senate. In response, Gravel stood up and killed the extension, stating that he knew the other senators had "worked hard on the compromise. It frequently astounded me how members could meet so much on a subject that affected someone else's state." Gravel would then add that he "had been willing to rise above this and work on the compromise, even though much of it was anathema to what I thought was right and in the best interests of Alaska and the nation."

Gravel sought re-election in 1978, and his campaign against Tony Motley was noted for how, despite being regular, the race went from competitive to safely Republican based off Gravel's behavior during ANILCA. Motley proved a boring campaigner, but he gained traction with Stevens' passionate calls for Alaskan unity and, as Democrats abandoned Gravel, the election was described as a 'downward spiral not too dissimilar to a nervous breakdown' by the Anchorage Daily News. Motley berated Gravel, and as Gravel began to withdraw from the public eye, Motley won the election by a substantial margin, ending Gravel's career.

On December 4, 1978, Stevens had a meeting scheduled in Anchorage with the leaders of Citizens for the Management of Alaska's Lands, the main pro-development lobbying organization in Alaska. On the same day, Alaska's governor, Jay Hammond, would be inaugurated in Juneau for his second term. Tony Motley, the head of CMAL, arranged for a friend's private plane to pick them up in Juneau after the inauguration and fly them to Anchorage for the meeting. However, at the Anchorage airport, the plane flipped and crashed. Only Stevens survived the crash. The other six people aboard the plane, a group which included Motley and Stevens's wife of 26 years, Ann Stevens, died on impact. Motley thus never took the U.S. Senate seat.

Gravel said of his defeat that "I had lost my career. Shortly after, I lost my marriage. I was in the doldrums for twelve years after my defeat," and "Nobody wanted to hire me for anything important. I felt like I was worthless. I didn't know what I could do." By his own later description, Gravel was a womanizer, and had an affair while in the Senate, and he and his wife Rita separated in December 1980. They filed for divorce in September 1981; she later received all of his Senate pension income.