Founding and early history In early 1973,
Joe Vogler founded
Alaskans for Independence (AFI), originally to label a petition drive. Vogler wrote to local Alaskan newspapers and argued against the Alaskan statehood vote. In 1973, Vogler began circulating a petition seeking support for
secession of Alaska from the United States. The
Alaska magazine published a piece at that time in which Vogler claimed to have gathered 25,000 signatures in three weeks. In 1978, Vogler merged the AFI into the
Alaskan Independence Party (AIP), a political party. The party maintained its recognized status afterward, first by maintaining thresholds in gubernatorial elections, then through same with voter registration. On multiple occasions, Vogler called for violence against the federal government. For instance, Vogler once said, "God, I hate those sons of bitches. If I ever get a revolution going, I'm going to import a bunch of guillotines and lop off their lying heads." The chairmanship of the AIP came to Lynette Clark about 2004. Also joining around 2001 was anti-abortion activist and conservative public school teacher Bob Bird, who was a Pat Buchanan delegate at the 1996 GOP convention. Bird had run against Ted Stevens in the 1990 primary, when he first met Vogler. Bird's strong showing against Stevens, coupled with his friendship with one of statehood founders Jack Coghill, encouraged Hickel and Coghill to join the AIP. Bird assumed the role of Acting Chairman until he was confirmed at a Wasilla convention that fall, and continued as chairman at the Kenai convention in 2022. The Alaskan Independence Party sued the state of Alaska in 2020, seeking to overturn the results from a
referendum where
ranked-choice voting was implemented in Alaska's general elections. The AIP embraced a "traditional family" message in the early 21st-century. the Alaska State Supreme Court ruled any attempt at secession to be unconstitutional and the initiative was not approved to appear on the fall ballot.
Dissolution On December 7, 2025, the AIP's three member board, led by party chair John Wayne Howe, voted to dissolve the party. Party leadership felt that the party had "for some time been legally alive yet spiritually dead,” mentioning Hickel's involvement in the party and Vogler's death as factors that had caused the party to lose sight of its mission. They also cited a lack of interest or involvement from the party's roughly 19,000 members, stating that many members had registered with the party by mistake while attempting to register as
independents. ==Registered members==