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Palin: Ben Stevens should step down Alaska’s Republican governor urges former state senator and son of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens to give up national GOP position Petroleum News Staff & Wire Reports
The son of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens should give up his position as a committee member for the national Republican Party, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said.
Ben Stevens, former Senate president, and his father are both under federal investigation. Both names also have surfaced in the federal corruption trial being conducted in Anchorage for former House Speaker Pete Kott, also a Republican.
Former VECO Corp. CEO Bill Allen, who has pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska lawmakers, testified during Kott’s trial in mid-September that he had assigned one to four employees for up to six months to work on Ted Stevens’ home.
Allen also testified that his bribery conviction included allegations of payments to Ben Stevens, an Anchorage Republican, through a consulting contract.
Neither man has been charged. Ben Stevens has denied any wrongdoing through his attorney. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history, is not commenting on the case so it doesn’t look like he’s trying to influence it, his aide has said.
“When I’m looking at the political party in which I’m registered and I see the national committee man is Ben Stevens, I’m free there to state my opinion and that’s he shouldn’t be our national committee man,” Palin said.
Ruedrich: no process to remove member There is no process to remove a sitting committee member, said Alaska Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich.
“Senator Stevens was elected to serve a four-year term under the national rules of the Republican National Committee. He will serve through the March 2008 convention. We look forward to electing a new committee man at that time,” Ruedrich said.
Stevens hasn’t attended a national committee meeting in over two years, Ruedrich said.
It isn’t the first time Palin and Ruedrich have disagreed on an ethics issue.
Ruedrich resigned from his job as a state oil and gas regulator in late 2003 following criticism from Palin and other prominent Republicans. At the time both she and Ruedrich were commissioners on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, a quasi-judicial state agency that regulates oil and gas development.
GOP leaders demanded Ruedrich be removed from either the party chairmanship or commission, saying to stay in both constituted a conflict of interest, since Ruedrich was active in Republican Party fundraising from the industries he was regulating.
Ruedrich said he did nothing wrong, but decided it was best to step down from the commission.
The day before Ruedrich stepped down Palin had said she might resign her job if the situation with Ruedrich was not resolved soon.
“It’s distracting, it’s confusing, it’s frustrating,” Palin said. “It’s not fair to Alaskans to have these questions about a possible conflict hanging over the head of this agency.”
When Murkowski appointed Ruedrich to the commission in 2002, he had said he would take himself out of state fund raising, and focus on federal issues. But he remained involved in state politics.
In September 2003, for example, he joined with oil executives to co-host a fundraiser for Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Rhonda Boyles’ bid for re-election.
The clamor for Ruedrich to resign or to be fired swelled after his name showed up as party chairman and co-host for a fundraiser for the state House Republican Majority Fund. He said later that he had not realized it was a fundraiser.
A national campaign finance reform law forbids members of the Republican National Committee — Ruedrich was and is a member — from raising funds for candidates for state office.
Cowdery takes heat from Palin In the current situation, Stevens isn’t Gov. Palin’s only target. Another lawmaker, Anchorage Republican Sen. John Cowdery, also has been named during Kott’s trial as allegedly pushing VECO’s interests in the Legislature.
He also hasn’t been charged, but Palin has said the Senate majority should remove him as chairman of the powerful Senate Rules Committee.
On Sept. 18, Cowdery issued a statement also denying any wrongdoing, but said he would not take part in October’s special session, which will be held to review the state’s oil and gas production tax and how it was passed in 2006.
The tax is at the heart of the federal corruption trials of Kott and two other lawmakers, who face trial later.
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