More Alaska corruption news

[Blue_In_AK]

From this morning's Anchorage Daily News...

http://www.adn.com/news/politics/fbi/young/story/9335591p-9249642c.html

Senate panel asked to take new look at Young's Florida earmark
FLORIDA: Highway money may be unconstitutional, critics say.

By GREG GORDON
McClatchy Newspapers

Published: September 27, 2007
Last Modified: September 27, 2007 at 03:01 AM

WASHINGTON -- A watchdog group asked the House ethics committee on Wednesday to investigate how a $10 million earmark for a Florida highway interchange, which was backed by Alaska Rep. Don Young, was inserted into a bill that already had won final congressional approval.

In a letter to the committee's leaders, Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, called "the actions taken by Young's staff ... an apparent violation" of the Constitution that undermined the integrity of the House of Representatives.

"In the absence of an accounting and explanation, the public is left to assume the worst, further degrading the already low public regard for Congress," Alexander wrote the committee chairwoman, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, and the ranking Republican, Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington. The committee is scheduled to meet Friday.

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On Feb. 19, 2005, three weeks before the House passed a massive, six-year transportation bill, Young visited the site of the proposed interchange along Interstate 75, which was sought by real estate developer Daniel Aronoff. Young also attended a political fundraiser, netting more than $40,000 in donations from builders and developers, including Aronoff, whose land would soar in value if linked to I-75.

The bill that won final passage later that summer earmarked $10 million for "widening and improvements for I-75" in Collier and Lee counties. But on Aug. 10, the language was altered to read: "Coconut Rd. Interchange I-75/Lee County."

Alexander noted in his letter that the earmark was the only one of 6,371 allocations for congressional pet projects to be substantially changed during the "bill enrollment process," in which the House clerk makes technical corrections.

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and another one:

http://www.adn.com/news/politics/veco/story/9335588p-9249637c.html

State on sidelines of FBI investigation into Veco
TAKING NOTES: The attorney general's office won't interfere with the federal investigation.

By SEAN COCKERHAM
[e-mail]

Published: September 27, 2007
Last Modified: September 27, 2007 at 05:38 AM

Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg said his office assigned lawyers to closely watch former-state Rep. Pete Kott's trial in federal court over the past two weeks as it revealed other possible criminal acts by politicians and Veco Corp. executives.

Colberg said the attorney general's office isn't ignoring the revelations. But he said the state has to proceed carefully before pursuing its own criminal charges. The broad federal investigation into corruption in Alaska politics doesn't appear to be close to finished. (My emphasis) The feds don't want interference from the state, according to Colberg.

<snip>

A pair of Democratic legislators from Anchorage, Les Gara and Harry Crawford, wrote APOC and the state attorney general this week to urge action. They said the state must investigate the polls and other apparent criminal acts that came up in Kott's trial and related federal indictments.

"The scope of this misconduct is unprecedented, and taking no action simply condones this conduct," their letter said.

Gara and Crawford said the illegal acts weren't limited to polls. They pointed to federal indictments in which Veco executives Bill Allen and Rick Smith pleaded guilty to paying "more than $10,000" in expenses for candidate fundraisers, knowing the money would be ultimately recorded as legitimate corporate expenses.

That violates the ban in state law on corporate contributions to candidates, Gara and Crawford said.

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[maddezmom]

1. hope all these clowns will be going down soon

K&R :hi: