Ted Stevens — and Senate GOP — In Trouble
Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is in big trouble.
And when Stevens is in trouble, so are Senate Republicans.
In a high-profile raid on the senator’s home, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service agents raided the home of 83-year-old senatorial schemer Monday, as part of an investigation into his relationship with an oil field services contractor jailed in a public corruption investigation.
Bill Allen, the contractor who is suspected of providing expensive favors such as a massive home renovation to Stevens, has already pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska state legislators.
Allen’s VECO Corp., an oil field services and engineering company, has reaped tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts during the years when Stevens chaired the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and a fellow Alaska Republican, Congressman Don Young, chaired the Resources Committee and then the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the House.
Young is reportedly the subject of a federal investigation relating to Allen’s campaign fund-raising on behalf of Alaska Republicans.
Young is the third most senior Republican in the House, which Stevens is the senior Republican in the Senate.
Both Young and Stevens face reelection in 2008.
If Young is beat, it will just be another case of a Republican seat falling to the House Democrats, who are unlikely to lose the relatively comfortable majority they secured in 2006.
If Stevens is beat, it is a different story.
Democrats won a narrow majority in the Senate in 2006. With the support of independents Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, and the lamentable-but-still-slightly-in-the-tent-for-caucus-purposes Joe Lieberman, of Connecticut, Majority Leader Harry Reid heads a caucus with 51 members to 49 for the Republicans. The Republicans desperately want to retake the Senate. But the task, which already looked tough, is lookin even tougher with each new revelation regarding Stevens.
The problem for Senate Republicans in 2008 is that, because they won so many seats in the GOP-friendly post 9-11 election of 2002, they now must defend far more vulnerable seats than the Democrats in 2008.
The last thing the Senate GOP leadership needed was trouble in Alaska, a Republican-leaning state that has elected Democrats to statewide office in recent years and that maintains an edgy maverick streak. But with the Stevens investigation expanding, they’ve got that trouble.
At a time when many of Alaska’s prominent Republicans have been linked to scandals, there are a number of “clean” and popular Democrats waiting to move up. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, the son of popular former Democratic Congressman Nick Begich, heads the list. But it also includes Democratic legislators Eric Croft, an able reformer who garnered a good deal of attention when he sought the governorship a few years back, and Ethan Berkowitz, who was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2006. State Senators Hollis French and Johnny Ellis are also on the list of Democratic prospects.
And then there is former Governor Tony Knowles, a Democrat who served in Alaska’s top job from 1995 to 2003. Knowles narrowly lost bids for the Senate in 2004 and for another term as governor in 2006, but he retains a following statewide and he has great name recognition and an image as something rare in Alaska: an ethical statewide official.
Stevens said before the FBI raids began that he planned to seek an 7th full term. Recent developments may cause a change in plan.
But whether Stevens seeks reelection in 2008, or whether he steps down and creates an open-field race, Knowles would be an extremely viable contender — with strong statewide name recognition and a solid reputation.
For Senate Republicans, the idea of a battered octogenarian senator who is plagued by scandal struggling to cover up his shame in a race with Knowles or a younger Democrat such as Begich, is a nightmare scenario.
For Senate Democrats, 2008 is suddenly shaping up as what could be one of their best election years in decades.
John Nichols’ new book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson hails it as a “nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the ‘heroic medicine’ that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to ‘reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.’”
Copyright © 2007 The Nation
Using campaign spending limits to get America better politicians is the only way to solve America’s problems enough. If you think “clean money” public financing of our campaigns will do the job, you’re sadly mistaken.
Ted Stevens is arguably the most corrupt senator in the current House, but he is good because he has escaped being caught since he came to office in 1968. Big Oil is his bed-buddy. I suspect Ted will continue to prevail, as indeed does any criminal with enough money to pay for top lawyers.
Maybe VECO was upgrading Senator Steven’s home internet tubes
A great argument for term limits
Are people corrupt before they are elected or does the system corrupt them? It is done immediately after being sworn into office or does it take a while to sort out the very best offers. With no accountability in our government and no Ethics Committee to set the standard for decent behavior it must just be every man for himself. Dirty campaigning, dirty politics, dirty bedfellows and dirty government. No one appears to be immune from the forces of lobbyists and/or big business.
Here’s a line in the sand between democrats and Republicans: the LEVEL of greed each stoops to. I am not saying there’s HUGE differences as I think Nader was more than prescient in stating the ONLY difference was who dropped to their knees first to worship the interests of big business. In a past post KIVALS said they differed by degrees of malice, too, and I agree. Democrats retain some humanity while being opportunists who wish to retain their positions of a form of impotent power, almost sci-fi as if they go about their lives in a dreamlike state of paralysis but believe they have power. Republicans for the most part hide behind religion and/or patriotism to do dastardly deeds, and a great many have immoral skeletons in their closets (gay lovers, etc). Interesting the way they all jumped on Clinton for sexual indiscretion when the vast majority are guilty of worse. What a spectacle. I know many on this site demand and pray and expect justice, but I think it may take YEARS to manifest; and this is why I constantly make reference to the HIGHER laws which brook no mockery, but take longer to prove that they are indeed eternally in evidence.
ANNABELLE: Both options work in synch in a system such as ours now tainted by money interests to such a disgusting extent.
Oh, I meant the gay lover was “immoral” in that they POSTURE as being very conservative married men!
Ted Stevens is defending himself by stating he paid “every invoice he received” with his own money. The question that seems to be open to debate is, “who paid the invoices” he didn’t receive?
I can’t wait to see how much he paid with his own money for that major addition on his house. This investigation could be better entertainment than the $90 thousand in cash found in Jefferson’s freezer.
Ted Stevens has long been one of the most offensive pieces of Republican shit in the Senate IMHO.
I live in Alabama but I promise to donate to any Non-Republican candidate that runs the sorry old bastard out of office.
all the best
Don’t worry. They always have Lieberman.
Ted Stevens has been ” in trouble ” but now the top guns are also republickasses, so do not expect much from this “trouble”. Sad part is that he will be white washed then claim he is the victim. He should be buried under snake shit.
Do not vote ANY OF THEM back in office on 2008. ANYONE who is currently in office - Dem or Repug, should be tossed out on their keisters. THAT IS A STRONG MESSAGE. Even if your Rep. or Senator is pushing a solid agenda - THEY ARE NOT DOING ENOUGH TO UPHOLD OUR SYSTEM OF CHECKS AND BALANCES. Forget Democrat. Forget Republican. GET THEM OUT. FIRE THEM ALL. HIRE MEAT CUTTERS FOR GOD’S SAKE. ANYONE BUT THEM.
Sincerely,
Mike the Meatcutter
Yes! Get this person out of office and use his seat to legitimatize leiberman until he can be properly purged as well. I suppose Mike Gravel couldn’t take back one of the senate seats for Alaska?
I don’t agree that everyone should be gotten rid of, ethos; you seem to forget Kucinich, who does everything he can.
One of the details that emerged on a Lehrer News Hour interview with an Alaskan journalist: Ted Stevens son, Ben (?) who is a state senator was on Bill Allen’s payroll as a “consultant”. Allen confessed he had paid Ben $250,000 because he was a state senator, not because he provided any consulting services.
On this one, I think ol’ Ted’s going down the “tubes”–so to speak.
oh great, now we can replace these Republicans career criminals with Democrats career criminals and Alaskans will think there was a real change.
Siouxrose,
Thanks for your interesting perspective on the Dems being in a dreamlike state with an illusion of possessing power. I always enjoy your originality and expression. There is definitely something to the position that they are feckless delusional ciphers, especially with regard to foreign policy and the big issues. But I would add that most of them fight quite tenaciously when their power to hand out the goodies to their corporate sponsors, quid pro quo of course, is ever threatened.
I worked for Senator Stevens in 1988 as a LEGIS Fellow. He seemed to be a decent person then, but he was in the minority. He changed while in power in the majority. I guess it is true what they say, power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely.