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JOHN FUND ON THE TRAIL
Everyone seems to agree that Congress needs to clean up earmarks, the special pork projects members of Congress secure often without hearings, notice or even disclosure of the direct recipient. Rep. John Boehner, the new House majority leader, laments that Congress has "become addicted to earmarks as if it were opium." President Bush belatedly told the nation in his State of the Union address that "the federal budget has too many special-interest projects."
Fine rhetoric, but if something drastic isn't done, earmarks will largely survive the calls for reform. Alaska's Sen. Ted Stevens, who has spent 37 years in Congress raiding the federal Treasury on behalf of his state, dismisses the notion that anything should threaten Alaska's status as the No. 1 state for pork. In 2005, it hauled in $984.85 worth of pork for every resident.
Earmarks represent a looming political disaster for the GOP. Last year Congress authorized a record 13,999 earmarks. The scandals surrounding just a few of them involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham have sent reporters scurrying to find what other nuggets of news might be buried in the remainder. If just 1% of the earmarks turn out to be embarrassing, that's 140 stories. If a mere 0.1% turn out to be legally questionable, that's 14 front-page exposés between now and the November election. Because they are in charge of Congress, Republicans will take the brunt of any political fallout, even though Democrats routinely secure an estimated 45% of earmark spending.
And the stories keep coming. A major newsmagazine is working on a piece exploring the bosom-buddy relationships some lobbyists for earmarks have with key appropriators. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that House Appropriations chairman Jerry Lewis has steered hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds to clients of lobbyist Bill Lowery, a former congressman who is so close to Mr. Lewis that they have exchanged two key staff members, "making their offices so intermingled that they seem to be extensions of each other."
Sen. Stevens has clearly educated family members on the usefulness of earmarks. Bill Bittner, his brother-in-law, is a Washington lobbyist who has hauled in dozens of earmarks for his clients. "His client list reads like a Who's Who of Alaska's most important economic interests," the Los Angeles Times concluded in 2003. "So what the senator has done for the good of Alaska sometimes also has been good for his brother-in-law's business."
Mr. Bittner also has close ties with Gov. Frank Murkowski, who was Mr. Stevens's colleague in the Senate until 2002. Gov. Murkowski has arranged for the state of Alaska to spend $900 a month renting an apartment in Anchorage for his use while he is there on state business. The apartment happens to be owned by Mr. Bittner. The governor insists the arrangement came about through mere chance.
But Mr. Stevens has competition for unusual connections between earmarks and family members from his colleague Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Gov. Murkowski's daughter, who won a full term in 2004 after he appointed her to replace him. Among the 6,342 earmarks in last year's transportation bill was one pushed by both Alaska senators for $223 million to build the infamous "bridge to nowhere," a span that will unite Ketchikan, Alaska, with its local airport on nearby Gravina Island (with a population of 50 residents).
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the much-ridiculed earmark was removed from the transportation bill, although Alaska was allowed to keep the broader pot of money to spend as it saw fit. Gov. Murkowski promptly decided to build the bridge anyway, proposing a down payment of $91 million--the most he could provide under federal-state spending formulas.
Before her father stepped in to ensure the bridge would be built, Sen. Murkowski lamented it was "very difficult to stand here as an Alaskan and not take this [criticism] personally." Indeed, the issue was personal in a sense. It turns out the senator's mother, Nancy, who is also the governor's wife, is co-owner with her three siblings of a 35-acre parcel of land on Gravina Island. Critics charge that the bridge will spur development, increasing the value of the Murkowski property, which is one of the few privately held plots on the island.
The Murkowski family has taken umbrage at any suggestion of impropriety. Sen. Murkowski called her family's undeveloped Gravina parcel "a worthless piece of property." Her mother wrote the Anchorage Daily News that "we have tried to sell it a number of times but found no willing buyers. . . . As far as access to the Ketchikan Airport, forget it. It's on the wrong end of the island." But in reality, her plot is valued by local officials at $245,000 and is within three-fourths of a mile of the proposed bridge's western end. A local realtor told me the land would substantially increase in value if the bridge was built.
"A bridge would change everything," reported the Daily News. "Don Young's Way would . . . make the land much more valuable." Mr. Nelson, told the paper he did discuss his partial acquisition of the 60 acres with Mr. Young. One of the other owners of the land is fisheries lobbyist Trevor McCabe, a former legislative director for none other than Sen. Stevens. Until last October, Mr. McCabe was partners with state senator Ben Stevens, the son of Ted Stevens, in a consulting firm called Advance North that represents salmon fishermen who are regulated by the state Board of Fisheries, which is chaired by none other than Mr. Nelson, Rep. Young's son-in-law.
If you're confused, so are Alaskans, who joke that eventually all the relatives of its leading politicians will get bridges for Christmas. Some are urging the state to cut back on pork: "Though enriched by $60 a barrel oil and record levels of federal highway aid, Alaska cannot afford to fulfill the dreams of grandiose politicians and connect every dot on the state map," the Daily News editorialized last month.
Rep. Young's spokesman told me that his boss had nothing more to add other than what was already on the public record. But Gov. Murkowski has come out with all guns blazing in defense of both controversial bridges. "Alaska has been held up to public ridicule by the special-interest extremists," he said in his State of the State address last month. He proposed funding a two-year "long overdue" public relations campaign that would "accurately portray Alaska." While he didn't put a price tag on the proposal, odds are that one of Alaska's members of Congress will be standing by to propose a federal earmark to pay for it.
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Last week Mr. Stevens went so far as to chide Capitol Hill reporters for even listening to earmark critics such as Sens. John McCain and Tom Coburn. "You guys fall for it and give them publicity," he said, and no one can doubt his authority. If anyone knows about publicity, it's the man who gave his name to 
It could be Don Young's way in more senses than that. The Anchorage Daily News reports that Art Nelson, Mr. Young's son-in-law, is part owner of 60 acres of what he described as "beautiful property" on land that will be opened up to development by the bridge. 
