Alaska's GOP Congressmen Are Bridge to Nowhere

It's Time for the State to Toss Out Its Ethically Suspect Bullies.

King Salmon, Alaska

An albatross Republicans must haul around this year is that voters no longer clearly see them as the party best able to control government spending and taxes. GOP pork-barrel kings such as Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young are a big reason. Now allegations of corruption are swirling around both men as they face stiff challenges in Alaska's Aug. 26 Republican primary.

Stevens and Young have done enormous damage nationally to the Republican brand. They were champions of the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere," a $223 million span to Gravina Island with 50 people on it, that became the butt of late-night comedians. But the jokes have been replaced with anger: Stevens was indicted last month on seven felony counts of lying about $250,000 in gifts he received from the head of the oil services company VECO, Bill Allen, who was seeking earmarks from the senator. Young has spent over $1 million in legal fees fighting a federal investigation of his ties to VECO.

Yet both may win nomination from fellow Republicans, in part because of their long incumbency -- decades in Congress -- and because of all the pork they've dragged home. Alaskans have long justified their raids on the U.S. Treasury because the feds have locked up so many of the state's natural resources (the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge being the most famous example). In what some called "compensation," the state made sure it became No. 1 in the nation in pork per person -- $984.85 for each Alaskan in 2005.

Alaska has come to be dominated by welfare-state conservatives. An oil-revenue fund that this year will dish out $2,100 to every resident; now $1,200 in state-issued debit cards is being handed out to help residents pay for higher gas prices.

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But voters are voicing dissent. Gov. Sarah Palin swept into office in 2006 by winning a GOP primary over incumbent Frank Murkowski, a former colleague of Stevens and Young in Congress. "I want Alaska to be known for more than FBI sting operations," she has declared. Palin openly encouraged Sean Parnell, her lieutenant governor, to mount a primary challenge to Young and has not endorsed Mr. Stevens against his primary challenger, Anchorage banker David Cuddy.

Both challengers talk about the need for a new model of economic development. "We cannot wholly rely on the federal government," Lt. Gov. Parnell says. "Alaska is 50 years old, we've got a surplus. It's time for us to step up and use some of that." Cuddy is equally adamant. "Earmarks have bred corruption and that should signal it's time to return to constitutional limits on runaway spending." Even former Gov. Wally Hickel, who appointed Mr. Stevens to his seat in 1968, now says "his time is over."

Alaska's Old Bulls are fighting back. Young has collected boatloads of cash from out-of-state unions who admire his pork-barrel ways and his support for "card check" legislation, which would permit unions to organize without holding secret ballot elections. His ads tout the claim that Young does "too much" for Alaska.

Stevens cites advice from his lawyers in refusing to discuss his indictment beyond claiming it's "not some extreme felony." He will learn this Monday if his Sept. 24 trial will be moved from Washington, D.C., to Alaska and a potentially more friendly jury pool. The odds are strongly against him winning a change of venue, leading many to think he will then seek a postponement of his trial.

Still, even tarnished incumbents can win if challengers divide up the vote against them. That may happen in Alaska, where Stevens faces not only Cuddy, but Vic Vickers, who moved back to the state in January after decades in Florida, and who is spending $750,000 of his own money.

Vickers's unusual policy stands -- he favors withdrawing U.S. troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan -- preclude him from winning the nomination. But he could enable Stevens to win with a plurality.

Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Parnell must share anti-incumbent sentiment against Young with Gabrielle LeDoux, a state legislator who is pumping $350,000 of her own money into the primary.

All of this puts the GOP in a pickle if either incumbent wins. "Anyone who thinks Stevens or Young will be re-elected if they survive their primaries is living in Fantasyland," says Frank Bickford, a government affairs consultant in Anchorage. Indeed, polls show both men trailing their Democratic opponents by double digits -- a remarkable feat, given that Alaska has sent only Republicans to Congress since 1980.

"I tell Republicans to find the courage to take on the old guard," says Dan Fagan, a popular talk-show host and columnist at the Anchorage Daily News. "Don't let the Stevens, Young, Murkowski dynasty intimidate you."

Indeed, it was the power of the purse that Stevens and Young wielded for so long that helped entrench the earmark culture among Congressional Republicans. Few dared risk their wrath. When he became chairman of the Appropriations Committee in 1997, Mr. Stevens proclaimed, "I'm a mean, miserable SOB." When his "Bridge to Nowhere" was challenged in 2005, Mr. Stevens warned fellow senators "if we start cutting funding for individual projects, your project may be next."

In the House, Rep. Young -- the former Transportation Committee chair who stuffed the last highway bill with 6,371 earmarks -- played a similar intimidation game. "Those who bite me will be bitten back," Mr. Young warned Rep. Scott Garrett last year. Garrett, a New Jersey Republican, had tried to kill a $34 million earmark sponsored by Mr. Young.

The ethically suspect bullies who have represented Alaskans for decades are passing from the scene. Voters now have a choice between electing reform Republicans who want to break that mold or Democrats, who are at least up front about their beliefs.

Reprinted from the Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2008

Comments

[LaBob]

Let me get this straight. Alaska receives more federal aid than just
about any state in the country, they have billions of dollars in surplus
money because of high oil prices and.......why are they receiving federal
aid? Why in the hell do I want my tax money going to Alaska? It's so corrupt
and that's who John McCain wants as his VP? Are you kidding me?
What a joke!

[rwt1138]

You have it backwards: Stevens and Young are not damaging the Republican brand, it's the other way around. The real story here is that the Republican brand is so tarnished that there is a serious chance that not just one but two incumbents will be voted out of office in Alaskan elections.

That just doesn't happen.

Alaskan politicians leave office either:
a) to take another office or position
b) by retiring
c) in a plane crash (sounds funny but it's not--the state capitol is not accessible via road, nor are many districts and towns)

The closest call came several years back when Don Young was nearly beaten by an unknown challenger who spent a 5th of the money. That was because that year Young had spent less than 5 weeks in his home state (all of it on hunting excursions with lobbyists), had missed every single vote in the House significant to Alaska, and it had been discovered that his official residence was actually an unheated shack outside Nome. And he STILL won the election.

Blaming the Republican tarnish on these guys for doing what they have been doing for 30 years is a convenient way to scapegoat them, but if the Republicans want a real lesson here they should see this sea change for the serious warning light that it really is.

[yoshi]

I'd like to make the correction that Dan Fagan, is not a "popular" radio show host, but a Rush wannabe radio host / newspaper columnist. I think most of us would rather listen to dead air.

[JennyJay]

The Old Guard - the good ole boys network - has the capability to bring down this country. When
Phil Gramm changed all the regulations to destroy the stability of home mortgages and gas prices
HE WAS ABLE TO DO IT BECAUSE CONGRESS AND THE SENATE - - - HELPED HIM DO IT.
We have to vote in a new president, new congress and new senate as fast as is possible.
And NEVER AGAIN let these power-corrupted-people stay in office year after year destoying this
country to line their own evil pockets.

[fact finder]

What is wrong with helping those less fortunate than others.?

[swift goat pet for truth]

Congress's $billion buddies are not among the less fortunate.

[JTyroler]

The gangsters of the Great Depression were rank amateurs compared to some politicians - the gangsters usually stole from the people who had money. Politicians usually steal from those who don't.

[unitron]

To my knowledge no one except for one of the Sunday paper insert magazines (either Parade or the other one) ever reported that that was really a bridge to making property owned by Murkowski and daughter more accessible and therefore more valuable.

[Mildmannered]

I wonder what percentage of the national budget is ear-mark "pork"?

[swift goat pet for truth]

About $16.5 Bil for 2008.
http://earmarks.omb.gov/2008_appropriations_home.html

Basically, that is a rounding error for the Fed Budget.
Additionally, at least some of those projects are things you actually want, but are too small for their own bill, such as infrastructure maintenance, school projects, etc.

Contrast that number with the THIRD largest item on our Fed Budget, interest on the national debt,
Over $400 bil in 2006, when the debt was $8.5 tril. It is now $9.5 Tril. The interest would be about $446 bil this year.

Of that amount, about $150 bil is INTEREST ONLY, from W. Bush and the GOP ONLY.
So ALL the earmarks add up to 11% of the INTEREST ONLY due to W. Bush ONLY.

Pork Barrel spending? Earmarks?
BFD. (Big F******* Deal).

[wolfgangmo]

And as long as we are budgeting we should also look at the military [hey - spend money, but on the soldiers and NOT Haliburton] and the Wars.