Young: There’s life after lawmaking

When Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) visited then-Speaker Dennis Hastert’s (R-Ill.) Washington office several years ago, the former wrestling coach greeted him with a big hug.

“What was that all about?” Young asked.

{mosads}Hastert told him he thought Young had died, saying, “I was down at the White House and an aide came in and announced you had died of a heart attack.”

The same day, two men walked into Young’s office and began looking around the spacious blue-walled interior. They explained to Young’s wife, Lu, that they were checking out the office space in the wake of her husband’s death.

During an interview with The Hill, Young cited the stories as an important lesson: Politicians have a short shelf life.

The 18-term lawmaker said, “The world doesn’t revolve around you when you are no longer alive or when you are no longer the chairman.”

It was not long ago that many activities in the House revolved around Young. As the chairman of the Resources Committee and later the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, members of Congress and their staffs were well-aware that Young alone made the final decisions on what projects would be included in legislation under his jurisdiction.

But times have changed, and Young is in a very different position today.

Now the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, the 75–year-old lawmaker has been cast by Democrats and some members of his own party as the lead abuser of what they say is the broken system of congressional earmarks. SAFETEA-LU, a bill Young has cited as one of his proudest achievements (the “Lu” is an homage to Young’s wife), has come under scrutiny as a result of his involvement with the so-called “Coconut Road” earmark.

The House and Senate voted in April to support a Department of Justice investigation into the controversial way in which the earmark made it into law.

Back home in Alaska, Young faces his first serious primary challenge since 1992 as his legal fees mount as a result of allegations of illegal campaign donations. He is also reportedly under investigation by the FBI. And to top it all off, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) regularly mocks Young’s earmarks on the presidential campaign trail.

But despite all that, Young appears unfazed.

Throughout the interview, Young appeared strikingly calm and confident, leaning back in a leather armchair surrounded by 36 years of hunting trophies and framed pictures chronicling the nearly four decades he has served in the lower chamber.

His hostility toward the press has been well-chronicled, most notably when he made an obscene gesture at a New York Times reporter who was pressing him on the Coconut Road earmark.Yet Young does not dwell on the idea of getting “fair” treatment — from the media, his congressional colleagues or anyone else.

“You can’t think of being fair and not fair … You can’t and survive,” he said. “If you keep saying, ‘Well, this is not fair,’ you start feeling sorry for yourself, you can’t go forward.”

Young described his transition into the minority as relatively easy. He explained that, given that his first 22 years were spent in the minority, the win in 1994 was more jarring than the loss in 2006.

He doesn’t dwell on his loss of power and acknowledged that fair-weather friends have fallen by the wayside.

“My good friends are still with me and those that are ne’er-do-wells … those that needed me and smiled, and asked me, and received [the request] 90 percent of the time, I knew that they would not be there when I was no longer chairman.

“This is a very cold-blooded business,” he said.

{mospagebreak}Young listed a host of Democratic chairmen as some of his good friends, including Reps. John Dingell (Mich.), Jim Oberstar (Minn.), Nick Rahall (W.Va.) and Collin Peterson (Minn.).

“So, I am not [frustrated in] the minority because I took care of the minority when I was in the majority; they are taking care of me now. And some people don’t understand that,” Young said.

He is a commanding speaker who sputters occasionally when it seems he can’t express a thought quickly enough. He frequently cited reports, articles and books, expressing disappointment that others do not take the time to study history and reflect on how it affects the future.

{mosads}Young is the eighth-longest serving current member of the House and the third in his party, ranking behind Rep. Bill Young (Fla.) and retiring Rep. Ralph Regula (Ohio). His career has spanned the terms of seven presidents, each of whom he has met.

His tone softens as he fondly recalls the old days when members put aside their differences at the end of the day over a glass of brandy. The softer voice remains and a smile spreads across his face as Lu enters the office to bring him a half-cup of coffee (“You are only getting half a cup,” she says before exiting).

Young was raised in California, served in the Army and captained his tugboat, according to the Almanac of American Politics.

The larger-than-life character attracts attention. Last week, an “intern survival guide” was leaked to a government watchdog group and then made public.

Young says it is true that he doesn’t like ear piercings and hands in pockets — as detailed in the intern guide. But, Young adds, “I’m a good boss.”

Unlike many in the House, Young is not an extremist. He likes to broker deals and enact laws.

He bemoans incremental legislating, saying partisanship yields power to the executive branch.

Young learned early that fostering bipartisan relationships and nurturing friendships over time would be crucial to his ability to function as the sole representative from Alaska — a large part of which, for Young, meant securing earmarks.

“That’s what I’m elected for. What other reason is a congressman here to do? To do what?” he said.

Young has clashed with more than a few on his side of the aisle. He engaged in a fierce debate with Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) on the floor in 2007 over education. Young went toe-to-toe with then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) in 2004 on a proposed gas tax increase he had pushed for. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.) has said that she has “never had a man talk to me the way Mr. Young talked to me.”

He does have friends in the GOP, some of whom have donated to his campaign, including Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska) and Reps. Dave Camp (Mich.), David Dreier (Calif.), Jim Saxton (N.J), Bill Shuster (Pa.), George Radanovich (Calif.), James Walsh (N.Y.) and Dave Weldon (Fla.), according to CQ MoneyLine.

 Asked whether the Bridge to Nowhere criticism stings, Young responded emphatically, “No,” calling it a “badge of honor.”

“People talk about the bridges to nowhere. That never came out of the budget. It was money raised — dollars — tax dollars from gasoline from uses of automobiles and trucks, so it didn’t hurt too much, but people don’t understand that,” he said.

Young said the earmark moratorium advocated by the House GOP conference was driven by the right wing of the party. He also had some sharp words for the White House.

“The president has huge amounts of earmarks in his budget. What gives him the right to decide [on earmarks] … when an earmark is made by a member of Congress elected by the people and those earmarks are requested by the people?” he said. “What I don’t want is to centralize the power in the executive branch.”

He said earmark opponents “ought to read the Constitution.”

Should Young survive his GOP primary in August, the Democrats will be waiting; they are targeting his seat this cycle. “I don’t plan on losing,” says Young.

But, Young adds, “Life doesn’t stop because you don’t get reelected.”