Ted Stevens
From Freepedia
| Office: | Senior Senator, Alaska |
| Political party: | Republican |
| Term of office: | December, 1968–Present |
| Preceded by: | Bob Bartlett |
| Succeeded by: | Incumbent (2009) |
| Date of birth: | November 18, 1923 |
| Place of birth: | Indianapolis, Indiana |
| Spouse: | (1) Ann Cherrington, deceased (2) Catherine Ann Chandler |
Theodore Fulton "Ted" Stevens (born November 18, 1923) is an American politician from Alaska. He is currently the longest serving Republican in the U.S. Senate and, because of this, is the current president pro tempore. Stevens is renowned for his ability to bring home pork barrel projects to the state of Alaska, which was most recently highlighted by the intense scrutiny of the two "bridges to nowhere" that were included in the recent Transportation Bill.
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Biography
Ted Stevens was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1923. During World War II, he was a pilot in China with the "Flying Tigers" of the Fourteenth Air Force from 1943 to 1946, holding the rank of First Lieutenant. There he received two Distinguished Flying Crosses and two Air Medals, as well as the Yuan Hai medal of Taiwan.
After the war ended, Stevens attended UCLA and Harvard Law School. In the early 1950s he moved to Alaska, then a territory. In Fairbanks Stevens practiced law, and he was appointed U.S. Attorney for Fairbanks in 1953.
In 1956 Stevens was transferred to Washington, D.C.. There he worked as legislative counsel and assistant to Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton. He also pushed for the statehood of Alaska and Hawaii, which occurred in 1959. In 1960, then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower promoted Stevens to solicitor of the Interior Department.
After returning to Alaska, Stevens practiced law in Anchorage. He was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives in 1964, and House majority leader in his second term. In December 1968, Governor Walter Joseph Hickel appointed Stevens to the U.S. Senate after the death of Bob Bartlett. In 1970, Stevens was elected to finish the term in a special election, and has been reelected six times since, in 1972, 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996 and 2002. His current term will expire in 2008.
Stevens served as the Assistant Republican Whip from 1977 to 1985. In 1994, Stevens was appointed Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee. Stevens became the Senate's president pro tempore when Republicans regained control of the chamber in 2003. He has been Chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee since 1996 and is a former chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. In the past, Stevens also has served as Chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, the Arms Control Observer Group, and the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress.
Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport in Anchorage is named after him. In December 1978, Stevens survived the crash of a lear jet at the airport, which killed five people, including his first wife, Ann.
Stevens' son, Ben Stevens, was appointed to the Alaska Senate in 2001 by Governor Tony Knowles, and is currently the Senate President.
Stevens' current home in Alaska is in Girdwood. His campaign political action committee is called the "Northern Lights PAC."
In a humorous moment Stevens was caught by The Tonight Show with Jay Leno picking his nose on the Senate Floor.
On October 20th 2005 Stevens claimed he would resign from the Senate if they tried to strip money from an appropriations bill for two bridges to be built in Alaska. He also screamed, "No!" at the top of his lungs after posing the question to himself of whether he would go along with diverting the funding to hurricane victims. [1]
Ethics questions
In 2003, The Los Angeles Times published charges that Stevens had gotten rich through influence peddling, steering government contracts to his associates, and insider trading, all of which Stevens denied.
The details of the case are as follows. In 1997, Stevens invested $50,000 with developer Jonathan B. Rubini. In 2002 Rubini and his partner bought back the senator's interests in their deals for $872,000. During the time that Stevens had money invested with Rubini, Stevens steered a $450 million contract to Rubini to build and own housing at Elmendorf Air Force Base.
In 2005, The Anchorage Daily News published reports that Stevens' son Ben Stevens held a secret option to buy into an Alaska seafood company at the same time Stevens, was creating a special Aleutian Islands fishery that would supply the company with pollock worth millions of dollars a year.
References
- Chuck Neubauer and Richard T. Cooper. "Senator's Way to Wealth Was Paved With Favors." The Los Angeles Times. December 17, 2003, [2]. A1.
External links
| Preceded by: Bob Bartlett | U.S. Senator (Class 2) from Alaska 1968–present | Succeeded by: — |
| Preceded by: Robert C. Byrd | President pro tempore of the United States Senate 2003–present | Succeeded by: — |
| Preceded by: Robert P. Griffin | Senate Minority Whip 1977-1981 | Succeeded by: Alan Cranston |
| Preceded by: J. Dennis Hastert | United States Presidential Line of Succession | Succeeded by: Condoleezza Rice |
| Image:Flag of Alaska.svg | Alaska Congressional Delegation serving in the 109th United States Congress |
|---|---|
| Senators | Ted Stevens (R), Lisa Murkowski (R) |
| Representative(s) | Don Young (R) |
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Categories: 1923 births | Episcopalians | American lawyers | American World War II veterans | U.S. Air Force officers | Delta Kappa Epsilon brothers | Harvard Law School graduates | People from Indiana | United States Senators from Alaska | Rotary Club members
