Colleagues won’t judge Ted Stevens

Despite pressure to remove Ted Stevens from the powerful Appropriations panel, Senate leaders of both parties closed ranks behind the Alaska Republican Tuesday and refused to follow the House’s example of removing members under investigation from key committees.

As the GOP corruption scandals that rocked the 2006 elections continue to simmer, Senate Republicans courted political risk in backing the influential Alaskan, the longest-serving Republican senator in history and former Appropriations chairman. To counter charges of ethical laxity, they attacked a lobbying overhaul bill drafted behind closed doors by
Democrats, calling it weak and leaving open the possibility of attempting to derail it by week’s end.    

{mosads}The FBI and the IRS raided the senator’s Alaska home Monday in a growing corruption probe that also has snared Alaska’s lone congressman, Don Young (R). The state’s junior GOP senator, Lisa Murkowski, is facing a separate ethics complaint from a government watchdog group regarding a land sale struck with a business partner of Stevens’s.

Stevens would not comment Tuesday, but his office said in a statement that the senator has done nothing wrong.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) both said Tuesday that Stevens could continue serving on his Senate panels, since charges have not been brought against him.

“My personal feeling is that we have to be very careful about punishing people during an investigation,” Reid, a former longtime appropriator, said Tuesday. “I don’t know anything about the Stevens investigation, but I’m not going to be in a position where just because someone’s under investigation they’re punished here in the Senate.”

That position differs markedly from the House, where leaders of both parties have removed members from key panels in the wake of corruption investigations, including Reps. William Jefferson (D-La.), John Doolittle (R-Calif.) and Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.).

Senate Republicans had a difficult time Tuesday explaining the apparent discrepancy between the two chambers.

“I think it’s hard to draw parallels because the circumstances were different in the House,” said Chief Republican Deputy Whip John Thune (S.D.). “I just don’t know.”

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), another House veteran and strong advocate for earmark reform, acknowledged his disappointment at Stevens’s predicament.

“But the point, either way, whether he’s guilty or not, is that the way we throw money around makes us all look guilty,” DeMint said, turning the focus to the new Democratic earmark provisions that he has blasted as watered-down.

McConnell, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, was decidedly mum on Stevens, signaling that he has no plans at this time to remove the senator from any of his five committee positions. Those include the ranking GOP seat on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

“I’ll certainly be discussing the matter with my conference, but I don’t have any announcements today to make with regard to that,” McConnell said after a GOP luncheon. Senators said the Stevens raid was not brought up.

McConnell’s statements came after Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) issued a strong statement of support for Stevens.
Watchdogs described Lott’s move as a concerted GOP strategy to respond to the ethics cloud.

“They can say, ‘Lott the whip stands by him 110 percent,’ and if there’s blowback, McConnell can say, ‘Stevens has agreed to step down.’ It’s a political trial balloon as much as it is a statement of support,” said Steve Ellis of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Critics said Tuesday that the cloud of suspicion would dog Republicans unless McConnell tells Stevens to step aside — at least from the Appropriations panel. The senator’s well-known earmarking has fueled the investigation of his ties to Veco, an oil-field services company and leading player in Alaska state politics.

Resigned Veco CEO Bill Allen, who has pleaded guilty to fraud and bribery in a massive sting that netted several state legislators, reportedly received the bills for the 2000 remodeling of the Stevens home that was searched this week. It is unclear what investigators believe Veco may have received from Stevens, but the company has won more than $30 million in federal contracts since 2000.

This Congress, Stevens has secured at least $275 million in congressional earmarks.

“They have to be thinking that if they sweep this under the rug, then the public is going to make a judgment that it’s business as usual, and both parties are corrupt up to their eyeballs,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of the right-leaning watchdog group National Legal and Policy Center, which filed the ethics complaint against Murkowski.

Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), chairman of the Republican National Committee, declined to comment on Stevens’s predicament, as did Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a strong earmark-reform advocate. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said
simply: “I have confidence in Ted Stevens.”

Democrats largely echoed that cautious sentiment.

Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) chairman, declined to comment on Stevens. Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a senior appropriator himself, said he hopes the home raid will inspire Republicans to “think twice” about opposing the ethics bill this week, but he withheld judgment of the Alaskan.

In Alaska, the unthinkable sight of the state’s once-beloved “Uncle Ted” under an ethical cloud leaves the 2008 political landscape in flux. Young already has drawn a challenger in Jake Metcalfe, the former state Democratic chairman, and Democrats are courting Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich to challenge Stevens.

“To say that Ted Stevens is vulnerable is an understatement,” DSCC spokesman Matt Miller said. He declined to echo the watchdogs’ calls for Stevens to leave the Appropriations panel, but did not rule out doing so eventually.

Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore said that while both Stevens and Young are in serious trouble, there is a greater chance of a primary challenger in the House than the Senate.

“As of this point, Ted’s additional godlike aura would prevent someone from contemplating a primary challenge against him,” Moore forecasted. But Moore added that his most recent poll showed Stevens at his most politically endangered, a situation that may only worsen.

In interviews, both Metcalfe and Begich expressed concern that the ethics minefield would distract Stevens and Young from their everyday duties and impede the state’s standing in Washington. But Begich dismissed the prospect that the rapidly escalating Stevens probe would help push him into the Senate race.

“What I look at is whether I can offer something better than the [incumbent],” Begich said. “Alaska is changing; people are looking for different things in their elected officials. They’re not just looking for a person who can bring back projects.”

Begich offered no prediction on when he would enter the race, but he described support from voters of both parties.
Walking through Anchorage hours after the Stevens raid, he said, a local resident called out, “Hope you run!”

Metcalfe advised Stevens to “talk to the people of Alaska” and explain how he would function as a legislator if forced to step down from committees.

But several groups said whatever Congress does, it will not be enough to restore shaky public confidence in the institution.
Several groups have called for Stevens to recuse himself from at least the Appropriations Committee, including Taxpayers for Common Sense, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and the Citizens Against Government Waste.

Meanwhile, conservative commentators called on the Republican leader to take a hard line against Stevens as well. Larry Kudlow, writing on The National Review’s blog, cited White House political adviser Karl Rove’s assessment that corruption was the main driver of the party’s 2006 defeat.

“So this Stevens business has to be swept away,” Kudlow said. “The GOP should not defend him if he is guilty. Just clean house.”

 
Patrick Fitzgerald contributed to this article.