It must be a little strange for Alaskans these days. Their great state, widely known for it's beautiful scenery, fishing industry, and oil, is in danger of becoming known for an altogether less appealing reason - corrupt politicians.
Consider the following:
- Sen. Ted Stevens (R) is under federal investigation for a couple different situations, including allegations of accepting bribes from an energy company.
- Rep. Don Young (R) has been drawn into the same investigation. His long ties with uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff have also earned him unwanted attention.
- Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) recently came under fire for her purchase of a vacant lot from a campaign supporter for well below market value.
For those of you keeping score, these three comprise the entire Alaskan Congressional delegation. Throw in a bunch of state legislators busted for corruption recently, and it all makes for a rather embarassing situation.
How did this happen? A recent Congressional Quarterly article explores some theories.
For starters, there's the notion that Alaska, still largely isolated from the rest of the country, maintains its own values and encourages a "get it done" attitude.
"It's the dark side of the frontier mentality," said Charles Tiefer, a law professor at the University of Baltimore and a former House counsel. "There was always a disdain for dotting the i's and crossing the t's. . . . That's the way Stevens and Young stayed in power. Their constituents don't want them to turn into striped-suit Easterners."
Second, there's the fact that Stevens and Young are themselves political institutions, Stevens having taken office in 1968, and Young in 1973. Have their decades of incumbency made them feel invulnerable and less beholden to the public?
“These are classic cases, Stevens and Young, of people overstaying their welcome and becoming so arrogant that they think they can get away with anything,” said Larry J. Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia who has studied political scandals.
“They’re not just part of the system. They are the system, and they know it, and that breeds arrogance.”
There's also the fact that like it or not, the Alaskan economy depends an awful lot on government appropriations. The majority of that money does not come in the form of earmarks inserted by the likes of Stevens and Young, but the money that does come from earmarks gets a lot of attention - witness the national uproar over the $320 million "bridge to nowhere" and the Coconut Road bridge in Florida.
A contributing problem is the small world of Alaskan politics. Everyone knows everyone, and everyone gives and gets money to/from the same people. Witness VECO, who has been one of the largest donors for all three members of the delegation. The developer who sold the disputed land to Murkowski, Bob Penney, has also had real estate dealings with Stevens...and so on, and so on. Such a tight group of politically-powerful people encourages a scandal to spread out and infect a number of its members. With everyone tied to each other in so many different ways, it's hard to distance oneself from an ever-expanding scandal.
Sen. Murkowski has said she will return the land in question; this issue, for one, seems to have stalled before it really got started (perhaps if the scandal had broke at a time when it wasn't overshadowed by Stevens and Young, it might have gotten more attention). But the investigations into Stevens and Young are continuing, and seem to be growing in scope by the day. So, yeah, it's not a great time right now to be an elected official from Alaska.
