Alaska's 'Stevens money'
Sen. ted stevens has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Not as a friend or colleague but as a public figure, from federal attorney in my hometown, Fairbanks, in the 1950s, to Alaska's senior senator -- and currently the nation's longest-serving Republican senator -- half a century later. As a journalist, I have written about Stevens for more than 25 years.
Last week, federal agents searched his home in Alaska as part of a public-corruption investigation. But from everything I know of Stevens, it is impossible for me to believe that he has engaged in old-fashioned favors-for-votes bribery. But it is possible that he became careless or indifferent in his legislative and personal affairs. So it's not difficult to believe that after years of having his way with the federal Treasury, he eventually became the subject of a government investigation.
A brief anecdote will illustrate why.
A couple of years ago, while working on a story about Stevens' career as a young prosecutor, I interviewed him -- or rather attempted to interview him. We met over breakfast at an Anchorage hotel. During the hour we spent together, we were interrupted by a parade of constituents who wanted to talk to Stevens about "a little project" that would benefit Alaskans. Perhaps it was a highway, a healthcare program, an airport improvement -- the "little project" lacked only one ingredient: money. If only Stevens would provide federal dollars, the project would succeed.
As a former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee (and later the ranking minority member), Stevens has delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to his constituents, sometimes through agency appropriations, sometimes through the now-vilified earmarks. In Alaska, the presence of so-called Stevens money is as prevalent as the winter snow. Everywhere you look, Stevens has left his mark.
Stevens' ability to deliver -- and his invulnerability to electoral challenge because he could deliver -- transformed him from an elected official into something of a frontier fertility god -- worshiped, propitiated, feared. Stevens answered to no one.
In a moment I will never forget from that breakfast, Stevens caught the eye of a man he knew across the room and waved to him, just as any old friend or longtime acquaintance would. The man became rigid and obviously uncomfortable, perhaps thinking, "Oh my God, Ted Stevens waved at me, now what do I do?" He quickly recovered, however, and came over to talk to Stevens -- not because he had anything to say but perhaps because he feared Stevens' disapproval if he did not.
