Ted Stevens is toast; Hawaii is the Big Kahuna; and K Street says hello and goodbye. Today’s news round-up below:

Down the tubes. Sen. Ted Stevens did not become the first convicted felon to win election to the Senate, as was previously thought. After counting all the votes (that’s always a good idea), Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich became the first Democrat to win election to the United States Senate in 30 years (the previous Democrat being Mike Gravel). Stevens was the longest serving Republican in Senate history and not only shaped modern Alaska, but helped it to win statehood when he worked in the Eisenhower administration. The Alaska Daily News has an article on “The rise and fall of Sen. Ted Stevens.” I suggest you read it.

With Stevens out and Sen. Robert Byrd stepping down as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Hawaii is poised to become the Big Kahuna in Washington. Chief among the reasons that Hawaii is set to high-jump over the competition is that the frail 90 year old Byrd is being replaced as Appropriations Chair by the spry 84 year old Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye. Hawaii already gets its fair share of federal money, including huge sums from earmarks.

With Democrats ascendent in Washington, K Street is kicking their GOP lobbyists to the curb or leaving them lonely in their offices with little to do. Meanwhile, frosh Democratic lawmakers are being introduced to business lobbyists in process not too different from an arranged marriage. Two young calves for a vote on the farm bill. “‘Introductions are being made to the business community of key moderates coming into Congress, so we can get an early start building relationships,’ one Democratic lobbyist said.”

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In some ways it is unbelievable to think that a candidate for the United States Senate, fresh off of seven felony convictions, could win reelection. Never underestimate the power of resentment and incumbency. At the moment it appears that felonious Sen. Ted Stevens will be reelected to an eighth term. Sen. Stevens joins a few other scandal plagued lawmakers winning reelection.

Stevens’ congressional partner, Rep. Don Young, under investigation by the Justice Department for various earmark schemes, appears headed back to Congress. Also, Rep. William Jefferson, facing a 16 count indictment on corruption charges, won handily in his New Orleans district.

Two Florida lawmakers embroiled in scandals did fail to win reelection. Rep. Tom Feeney, one of the last of the Abramoffian congressmen, lost badly. Feeney had to cut a commercial during the campaign in which he apologized for going on a golfing trip to Scotland that was secretly paid for by Jack Abramoff. Freshman Florida Rep. Tim Mahoney, caught in a TMZ style adultery scandal, was crushed in his attempted reelection.

Despite his likely victory, Sen. Stevens will be expelled, or forced to retire, from the U.S. Senate. As Yoda might say, “Convictions on felony counts do not a Senator make.” Speeding up the process may be the desire for Republicans to finally purge their ranks of the members tainted by corruption. Republican Sen. John Ensign has already expressed the likely position of the Republican caucus, stating that expulsion would not wait until after Sen. Stevens’ appeal process is complete.

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Not much news today. A Chicago congressman gets caught up in a widening local investigation into the political fixing of zoning by developers. Sen. Ted Stevens is still fighting back as more rats jump ship.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez is catching flack in the Chicago Tribune for lobbying Mayor Richard Daley to support a “controversial multimillion-dollar development for a campaign contributor who had just lent the congressman $200,000 in a real estate deal.” This all has to do with a development project spearheaded by Calvin Boender, who was involved in the Galewood Yards project. The project that Rep. Gutierrez lobbied in support of was not located in his congressional district. Over the years, Rep. Gutierrez received at least $5,000 in campaign contributions from Boender. The information regarding the congressman’s lobbying of Mayor Daley, a letter written on U.S. House stationary dated July 7, 2004,  was obtained as part of a federal grand jury investigation into potential pay-to-play politics in the city’s zoning decisions.

Sen. Ted Stevens is doing all he can to fight back against his seven convictions for making false statements on his personal financial disclosures. Today, the Alaska senator asked the Justice Department to begin an investigation into the conduct of the prosecution in his case. Stevens is asking Attorney General Michael Mukasey to appoint an impartial investigator to look into the “numerous, serious constitutional violations” by the prosecution. Meanwhile, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and South Carolina’s two Republican senators called for Sen. Stevens to resign his seat.

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Sen. Ted Stevens may have been convicted yesterday, but his saga continues. Which occupation saw a 13% rise in wealth over the past year? Congressman! That and more in today’s news:

Yesterday, Sen. Ted Stevens became the first sitting senator to be convicted of a felony since Sen. Harrison Williams in 1981. Despite the seven convictions for filing false statements to the government, Sen. Stevens vowed to fight on and appeal his conviction on the grounds that the prosecution was flawed, “I am innocent. This verdict is the result of the unconscionable manner in which the Justice Department lawyers conducted this trial.” Stevens’ chances in his quest for reelection appear to have dimmed as presidential candidate John McCain, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman John Ensign all rebuked the convicted Alaska statesman. Still standing by Stevens is Alaska’s lone representative in Congress, Don Young. Young’s endorsement of Stevens’ innocence was marred by Young’s praise for and comparison of another political figure to Sen. Stevens, “I think he can win. He’s the best thing for that, for the Senate. Alaskans know this. [...] I think that’s going to be, you know, a matter of opinion. I can remember Richard Nixon, you know, his years of service, what he’s done, and everybody were ridiculing him and he ended up being the greatest president in the history of our century.” With friends like these…

Over the past year, members of Congress saw their collective wealth increase by 13%, according to personal financial disclosure data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics. McClatchy reports that 2 out of 3 senators are millionaires, while 39% of the entire body of 535 members are also worth more than $1 million. As the paper points out, “Only 1 percent of all Americans are considered millionaires.”

MAPLight.org released a study looking at in-state vs. out-of-state campaign contributions to members of the House of Representatives. The findings are noteworthy, “Virtually all House members, 97%, raised more than half of their funds from out-of-district (408 out of 421 members).” Check out the report and this graphic below (which is interactive at the MAPLight site):

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Sen. Ted Stevens found guilty on all seven counts against him.

Contrary to rational thought, Sen. Stevens will not have to resign his seat in the Senate. On Nov. 4th, he will face the voters in his bid for reelection to an eighth term. They will decide his fate.

If Stevens were elected to an eighth-term, his future would still be in doubt. The last senator to be convicted of a felony was Sen. Harrison Williams. Michael Stern, in responding to a question I posed that, in light of the conviction, is no longer relevant, provides some excellent background on Williams’ case:

The most difficult issue is what happens if Stevens is convicted and re-elected. While the principle of respecting the decision of the voters would weigh heavily against expulsion, there would also be a countervailing tradition that Members of Congress, when convicted, normally resign their offices. If Stevens were not to follow that tradition, the Committee would have to face a serious question of whether to expel him.

The most relevant precedent would seem to be the case of Senator Harrison Williams, who was convicted on bribery charges in 1980 after being videotaped agreeing to accept a bribe during the Abscam investigation. The Senate allowed Williams to remain in the Senate for more than a year while he pursued post-trial remedies. Some Senators thought expulsion was too harsh a remedy for Williams’s conduct. Eventually, however, the Senate scheduled a vote on expulsion; Williams chose to resign before the vote. As Dennis Thompson notes, “even in a case of almost pure individual corruption, it took unusually explicit evidence and confirmation provided by a criminal conviction to bring the Senate to the point of imposing its ultimate sanction. In most cases the accused’s motives are less evident and his colleagues’ judgment less severe.” D. Thompson, Ethics in Congress 105 (1995).

Based on the Williams precedent, it seems likely that Stevens would not be expelled at least until he had exhausted his post-trial options. If he was at the point of actually going to prison, however, the Senate would presumably expect him to resign. If he failed to do so, at that point the Senate would most likely proceed to expel him.

The last senator to be expelled from the Senate was Sen. Jesse Bright of Indiana. Bright was expelled from the Senate for Confederate sympathy, recognizing Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy, and sending letters to Davis regarding the acquisition of munitions.

I’ll have more about Stevens in another post.

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There is only one lobbying game in town: grabbing for bailout bucks. Changes at the Stevens trial, while more stories unfold regarding the Alaska senator’s earmarking. Earmark disclosure in the Senate is still woefully inadequate. All of that in today’s news:

What’s bad for the goose, is good for the gander. Crisis in business tends to mean profits for lobbyists, especially when the private sector is seeking direct payments from the government. The AP reports that the quest for a piece of the $700 billion bailout pie is currently the only lobbying game in town. I can see the scene now, blue power suits swarming past Albert Gallatin as they enter the Treasury Department building on Pennsylvania Ave. to beg for their clients like so many street corner hobos. I can’t wait for those 4th quarter lobbying disclosures.

The judge hearing the charges against Sen. Ted Stevens replaced a juror after attempts to contact a juror on leave for the death of her father failed. The judge instructed the jury to begin deliberations anew today. Meanwhile, the AP reports on another questionable earmark Sen. Stevens sought and received for a campaign contributor Bob Persons. Persons, an Alaska restauranteur, is also the provider of the nearly $3,000 massage chair that is at the center of one of the seven charges filed against the senator. The new earmark revelations show that after seeking $10 million for road projects in Girdwood, Alaska, Sen. Stevens pushed hard for the state transportation agency to use $2.7 million in funds to pave a road connecting directly to the Double Musky Inn, a Cajun restaurant owned by Persons. Stevens insisted that the road paving project be priority number one, despite it ranking sixth in importance on a list of road projects.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Sen. Bob Bennett finally released a list of his defense earmark recipients, but only due to confusion between his office and the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Unlike in the House, senators are not required to reveal the recipients of earmarks. Instead, they operate on a voluntary disclosure agreement, with 50% of senators revealing who they earmark funds to. Sen. Bennett has not been one of those 50% until now after the subcommittee told his staff that they were going to make the information public also. The subcommittee never did release the earmark information, but Bennett did. The Senate should scrap voluntary disclosure and institute mandatory earmark disclosure requirements as the House has done.

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Jury deliberations continue in the Stevens ethics case. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart faces questions about an earmark to a company doing business with Venezuela. Today’s news:

Yesterday, the Stevens jury deliberated for the first time and decided to call it a day after 4 hours of what they termed “stressful” negotiations. Today, the jury has already sent three notes to the presiding judge. One note asked for the specifics in the law requiring the reporting of liabilities on financial disclosures. The judge wanted to tell the jury that liabilities with a value of more than $10,000 must be disclosed, but the defense team said that was too specific and asked the jury simply be handed a copy of the requirements. Another note was more serious and could lead to a juror’s removal from the trial. A female juror is identified as “being rude, disrespectful and unreasonable” and engaging in “violent outbursts with other jurors”. If the juror is removed she will be replaced by an alternate, likely a man in his 20s. The Alaska Daily News covers another aspect of the trial: what happens if Sen. Stevens is found guilty and then wins reelection? I have another question, what does the Senate Ethics Committee do if Sen. Stevens is acquitted?

Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart earmarked funds to a defense firm that previously shipped surveillance equipment to Venezuela, not exactly the best friend of the United States. Phoenix Worldwide Industries President Esquivel Shuler called the pursuit of the earmark, “a shot in the dark for us.” Diaz-Balart has faced a number of questions regarding earmarks he sought for large campaign contributors.

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Third quarter lobbying disclosure reports tell the story behind financial services lobbying in the lead up to the Panic of ‘08 and the ultimate bailout. Jurors now get to decide Sen. Ted Stevens’ fate. That and more in today’s news round-up:

Two competing articles from The Hill and Congressional Quarterly wind up telling the same story. The Hill’s article is titled, “K Street earnings fall.” The CQ article’s opening sentence states, “K Street emerged from the third quarter of 2008 looking substantially better off than Wall Street.” Both are certainly true; I have yet to hear of a lobbying firm being nationalized. The main thrust is that, despite falling lobbying expenses, financial services companies, in particular, can no longer afford to look at lobbying expenses as “discretionary expenses.” While I’m not sure that they ever did - the return on investment in lobbying is usually in the tens of billions for these companies - it is certainly true that lobbying is a lifeline for some companies right now. Lobbying was also a part of what got the financial services and housing industry into this mess, consistently opposing any oversight or regulation that could have prevented the precipitous slide into panic. As lobbying will be so important to these companies in the future, Congress should impose new disclosure requirements on lobbyists, especially those operating for companies receiving bailout bucks. I think something like this would be more than fair.

After a bipolar performance by the Stevens defense and a repetitious pounding from the prosecution during closing statements the jury will finally get to decide whether the Alaska Senator falsely concealed gifts he received when filing his financial disclosure forms. We await their decision. This is how I’m imagining the scene in the jury room right now.

Sunlight’s Nancy Watzman takes a look at Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s fundraising parties over at Party Time, “The deep connections that Dole enjoys thanks to her extensive GOP pedigree–she served in two cabinet posts and of course is married to former Senator Bob Dole (R-KS)–is evident when you dig into the meat of the invitations.”

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AIG says it won’t spend bailout funds on lobbying, as other financial services welfare recipients acknowledge that lobbying expenses will need to be scaled back. That and Sen. Stevens does himself a disservice on the stand.

The Wall Street Journal and the Politico report that AIG, in the face of withering criticism, will suspend all lobbying activities while it is majority owned by the federal government. AIG initially refused to halt lobbying even after it had received a $120 billion bailout from the government. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Mel Martinez sent a letter to AIG demanding that they not spend taxpayer dollars on lobbying activities. Sen. Feinstein also told the Politico that she will introduce legislation that would ban all bailout recipients from using taxpayer money on lobbying expenses. Feinstein’s efforts signal of new lobbying backlash in Congress. Perhaps, instead of this targeted, temporary response Congress insisted that all lobbyists file full disclosures that list the official lobbied, the issue or bill lobbied on, and all other activities related to lobbying within 24 hours of any contact. If we are trying to get to the root of the problem in the economic crisis, we need to get to the root of the governmental crisis that prevented action from being taken earlier.

Up until yesterday, the trial of Sen. Ted Stevens had been wholly unremarkable, except for the apparently pathetic effort by the prosecution. Yesterday, however, Sen. Stevens did himself no favors by redefining words in the dictionary that are key to his trial - words like “gift.” On the stand, Stevens insisted that a $2,695 chair given to him by Alaska restauranteur Bob Persons and that he has kept at his Virginia residence for seven years was not a gift. Stevens told the jury, “He bought that chair as a gift, but I refused it as a gift. He put it there and said it was my chair. I told him I would not accept it as a gift.” The prosecutor asked Stevens where the chair is now, to which the senator replied, “In our house. We have lots of things in our house that don’t belong to us, ma’am.” This trial was probably headed towards acquital before Stevens took the stand and said this. A gift isn’t a gift if you say it isn’t a gift; and we sure do have a lot of those at our home. That is not what the defense was hoping for. Also troubling for Sen. Stevens is the apparent admission that he misused Senate staff by having them handle his and his wife’s finances.

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Sen. McCain, can you hear me now? Sen. Stevens pays for his own lunch like a big boy. And Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah continues his annual tradition of earmarking funds for his biggest campaign contributors. That and more in today’s news:

The Atlantic’s Joshua Green takes a look at the Verizon and AT&T cell phone tower plans for Sen. John McCain’s ranch and determines that the defenses offered by the companies and the McCains are simply not sufficient. The excuse for the now-derailed permanent installation of cell phone towers at the McCain ranch in Sedona was that Cindy McCain had made an independent request for cell service. Of course, the rapid and costly effort undertaken by the two companies had nothing to do with her husband’s public role as a United States Senator and possible presidential candidate. Except that Verizon referred to the Sedona ranch, not as Cindy McCain’s ranch, but as “John McCain’s cabin.” Green writes, “So while Cindy McCain may indeed have requested the tower over the web like an ordinary millionaire rancher with spotty phone reception, Verizon was well aware that she was anything but that.”

Sen. Ted Stevens emphatically denied any wrongdoing as he took the stand yesterday in a federal corruption trial in which the senator is accused of filing false statements on his personal financial disclosure reports. Sen. Stevens stated outright that, “I don’t allow people to buy my lunch or buy my dinner; wherever I am, I pay my bills.” Prosecutors have sought to show that the Alaska oil company VECO, headed by Stevens friend Bill Allen, paid for renovations to Stevens’ house in Girdwood, Alaska and Stevens and Allen colluded to hide the expenses by filing false disclosures. Stevens’ examination continues today.

Utah Rep. Rob Bishop has an annual tradition: earmark hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in earmarks to ES3, a company operating at Hill Air Force Base and then attend an August fundraiser thrown by ES3 after the earmarks are secured. This year, Rep. Bishop secured $800,000 in earmarks for ES3 whose employees have generously donated $22,000 in August of this year to Bishop’s reelection bid. Over the past five years, Rep. Bishop has secured $9.8 million for ES3.

Sunlight’s Nancy Watzman has the final disclosures for the party convention committees over at Party Time. Democrats raised $60,966,482 for their convention, while Republicans raised $51,229,299 for theirs.

Open Secrets now has lobbyist campaign contributions available in their lobbying database. The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 required the disclosure of lobbyist campaign contributions for the first time.

Open Congress‘ Donny Shaw continues his excellent series of posts comparing the legislative achievements of John McCain and Barack Obama by using actual data rather than stump speeches and press releases. Today, Donny is looking at the two candidates’ voting records. Hurray, factual data comparisons!

And for something slightly different, here’s a great article from Reason explaining, by way of Cindy McCain’s beer distributor fortune, how the government aids and subsidizes certain parts of the beer, wine, and liquor industry, in the process raising the price of that frothy cold one waiting for you at that happy hour around the corner.

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