Alaska Senator Defends Record and Investments

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), reacting to a story in Wednesday’s Times about his personal finances, said Friday that he had never used his official position to enrich himself or members of his family.

The article reported on how Stevens had built a personal fortune of more than $1 million in recent years, chiefly through comparatively modest investments with businessmen and companies he helped in Washington. Stevens is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, chairman of its defense subcommittee, as well as a senior member of the Commerce Committee and president pro tempore of the Senate.

“I have not helped anyone to achieve financial gain for myself or my family,” he said at a news conference in Anchorage. “I have helped Alaskans without regard to race, religion, sex, party, financial circumstances, where they lived -- literally without qualification.”

Stevens said the Senate should review its ethics rules to adjust for changing conditions. “As a former chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, I believe we should review our rules and ethical concepts,” he said, noting that the committee had done so under his chairmanship.

Under current rules, there is no explicit ban on senators having business dealings with individuals or interests that benefit from their official actions. The rules contain a general injunction against actions that bring shame on the Senate.

Since The Times article appeared, one Washington government watchdog group called for Stevens’ resignation, and another called on him to give up his committee chairmanship.

“If they think I am going to resign because of a story in a newspaper, they’re crazy,” Stevens said at the news conference.

Stevens is widely credited with securing billions of dollars in federal funds for Alaska, which has received as much as 70% more federal dollars than the national average for states on a per capita basis.

Concerning his investments with Anchorage real estate developer Jonathan B. Rubini and others, Stevens said, “I know this state and I believe in our future. This is where I want to invest when I have money to do so.”

Stevens repeatedly said he had never been motivated by personal interest. “The implications of the L.A. Times story to the contrary are not true,” he said.

The Times article detailed several cases in which Stevens’ official actions benefited his business partners.

Armed with the influence that his committee posts give him with the Pentagon, for example, Stevens helped Rubini secure a $450-million housing contract at Elmendorf Air Force Base outside Anchorage, records and interviews with participants showed. The developer was Stevens’ partner in a series of unrelated real estate deals that turned the senator’s $50,000 investment into between $750,000 and $1.5 million over the last six years, according to public records.

Rubini sought Stevens’ help after the Air Force, in a last minute reversal, blocked him from receiving the Elmendorf housing contract. “When I heard that, I went ballistic,” Stevens said Friday.

In another venture, one of the Alaska Native corporations Stevens played a key role in creating got millions of dollars in defense contracts on a non-competitive basis through preferences he wrote into law. The company now pays $6 million a year in rent on an Anchorage office building owned by Stevens and his partners, according to interviews.

And the senator’s wife, Catherine Bittner Stevens, made more than $47,000 in profits on a stock deal involving an Alaskan telecommunications company Stevens had helped, according to public records.

Anchorage lawyer and lobbyist William H. Bittner, Stevens’ brother-in-law, played a pivotal role in many of the investments. Stevens often helped firms and interests represented by Bittner.

In an interview with Associated Press, Bittner said Stevens, who has served in the Senate for 35 years, had been asked for help at one time or another by “almost every Alaskan.”

As for his lobbying the senator, Bittner said, “You have to sell your case for your client on its merits. More times than not, he says no rather than yes.

“I think the [Times] reporters wanted to write a certain kind of story, and they wrote it to insinuate that Stevens became wealthy doing favors for friends. If you read it carefully, the facts don’t point to that at all.”

During The Times inquiry, Bittner did not respond to requests for interviews.

In Washington, three watchdog groups criticized Stevens’ conduct.

“This story is the most blatant example in recent history of a government official profiting from his power in public office,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan group that monitors the role of money in politics and government.

“We do not have confidence in any formal congressional proceedings, given Sen. Stevens’ particularly powerful position. POGO therefore calls on Sen. Stevens to take the honorable step and resign from office in an attempt to restore the integrity of the Senate,” Brian said in a statement released Friday.

Citizens Against Government Waste called for Stevens to give up the chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee. And it urged the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate possible conflicts of interest.

“The case highlights the lax ethics rules surrounding the business dealings that members of Congress and their families have with special interests at the taxpayers’ expense,” the group said.

Mary Boyle, spokeswoman for the liberal group Common Cause, told Associated Press that “what this whole thing points to is the need for both chambers of Congress to have stronger ethics laws and do a better job of policing themselves.”

Times researcher Mark Madden contributed to this report.