Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to clear the title to three small parcels of land owned by the Municipality of Anchorage, in Alaska, my home State, so that the land can be put to more productive uses in the future. At different times between 1922 and 1982, these three parcels of land, located in downtown Anchorage, comprising 2.65 acres in total, were conveyed to either the former ``City of Anchorage'' or more recently the ``Municipality of Anchorage.'' They were transferred by the Federal government to the local government for a wide variety of specific purposes, but all were transferred for the overarching purpose of helping the then nascent City of Anchorage, which was, and largely still is, surrounded by Federal lands, have sufficient land resources to provide municipal services to the growing community. For reasons that made sense decades ago, all of the deeds for these properties contain reversionary clauses, that should the land not be used for various general ``municipal purposes'' their ownership would revert to the Federal Government.…”