George V. Hansen: The "Dragon Slayer" Repeatedly Brought Low by Financial Scandals

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On the morning of October 1, 1985, protestors gathered in Boston to hurl boxes of tea into the city's harbor. Although it clearly called to mind the Boston Tea Party, one of the events that helped kick off the American Revolution, it wasn't a historical reenactment. Rather, it marked the start of a nationwide campaign by a coalition of groups calling for reforms to the Internal Revenue Service.

George Vernon Hansen, a former Republican congressman from Idaho, was part of the effort. He had headed the political consultancy group New Continental Congress since leaving the House of Representatives, and said it planned to run advertisements on IRS abuses in a bid to raise public awareness.

"We came up to kind of kick off the other side of tax reform," said Hansen. "The President has been pushing structural change in the tax system. We're saying you're not going to have real tax reform unless you reform the IRS. They're intimidating and abusing the taxpayer in the process of collecting taxes."

While the protest took place decades before the creation of the Tea Party movement of the early 21st century, it exemplified how Hansen would be a forerunner the vocal conservative movement and what it regarded as government waste or overreach. He would remain a stubborn foe of the IRS for decades, and routinely accuse it and other federal powers of persecuting him for his beliefs.

The protest came as Hansen's political career and influence were waning. He had twice been convicted of skirting financial disclosure and ethics laws, and was fighting jail time related to the most recent charges. He would later say the difficulties he encountered from these run-ins with the law would contribute to his decision to commit another, more serious financial crime.

Early life and early political career

Hansen was born in Tetonia, Idaho, on September 14, 1930. His early life was marked by a tumultuous turnover in educational, career, and military experiences. He managed a grain elevator beginning in 1950, and would return to this work briefly in 1954. He served in the U.S. Air Force between 1951 and 1954; his military experience would also include graduation from the Army Language school and time as an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve between 1964 and 1970.

Graduating from Ricks College in 1956, Hansen completed graduate work at Idaho State University between 1956 and 1957 as well as 1962 to 1963. He also earned a degree from Grimms Business College in 1958.

Hansen balanced some of this educational work with a stint as a junior high school teacher, undertaking this profession between 1956 and 1958. He worked in the life insurance business from 1958 to 1965.

One of Hansen's children would later recall that his father entered politics for a simple reason: his community of Alameda didn't have sidewalks like the neighboring city of Pocatello. This motivation helped launch a successful campaign for the mayor of Alameda, with Hansen holding the job from 1961 to 1962. When Alameda was consolidated with Pocatello, he became a city commissioner between 1962 and 1965. He also served as the director of the Idaho Municipal League from 1961 to 1963.

Early congressional bids

After an unsuccessful bid for the Senate in 1962, Hansen turned his attention to the House of Representatives in the 1964 race. Although it was a strong year for the Democrats, who won the White House and made gains in Congress, Hansen's grassroots campaign was able to unseat incumbent Ralph Harding with 52 percent of the vote. 

Hansen distinguished himself by his strong disdain for the federal government, including opposition to President Lyndon B. Johnson's civil rights and social welfare programs. He took a hawkish stance on the turmoil in Southeast Asia, saying that Johnson's "lackadaisical prosecution" of the Vietnam War was emboldening the Communists. When the spy ship USS Pueblo was captured by North Korea in January 1968, Hansen declared it an "act of war" and called for a swift response to recover the vessel and its crew, though he also said the situation should not be handled in a way that would lead to the United States being involved in two simultaneous conflicts in the region.

While he was re-elected in 1966, he was less successful when he again tried to capture a seat in the Senate two years later. Frank Church, the Democratic incumbent, comfortably kept the position with 60 percent of the vote.

With the Republicans retaking the White House in 1968, Hansen remained in the nation's capital from 1969 to 1971 after he was appointed the deputy administrator for the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service. He would also serve as vice president of the Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corporation.  

Returning to Pocatello, Hansen resumed his work in life insurance and opened a printing and copying company, the Pocatello Copycat, with his wife Connie. He again launched a Senate campaign in 1972, but failed to earn the Republican nomination. 

In 1974, Hansen mounted another House campaign against the similarly named but unrelated incumbent Orval Hansen. Orval had filled George's seat after his unsuccessful Senate bid, and had distinguished himself as a popular moderate. Yet in an upset result, George retook the Republican nomination and went on to defeat the Democratic candidate, Max Hanson. 

"Stupid but not evil"

Hansen took office under a cloud, having become embroiled in a scandal over his financial disclosures. He admitted that he had engaged in a "freewheeling" campaign and hadn't been especially careful in tracking how money was coming in or being spent. Charged with violating a 1971 law regulating campaign financing, he pleaded guilty on February 19, 1975 to two misdemeanor counts of filing late and incomplete reports, failing to disclose $16,150 in contributions.

The charges initially resulted in a sentence of one year in jail with all but two months suspended, which would make Hansen the first congressman to be put behind bars in 19 years. However, he denied that the omissions on his disclosures were intentional. He attributed them to bookkeeping deficiencies made in error by his staff, and apologized for the trouble that had resulted.

This explanation was enough to persuade Judge George L. Hart Jr., who on April 25, 1975, opted to reconsider the punishment. "I assumed when I sentenced him to jail he was evil," said Hart. "Now, I am not so sure. Stupid, surely." He waived the prison sentence, instead imposing a $40,000 fine on the congressman.

The judge's mercy would have a mixed effect. While his statement was a rephrasing of Hansen's lawyer, who argued that the congressman was "stupid, but he wasn't evil," it was a backhanded compliment that provided easy fodder for Hansen's critics. He would later say that some of his subsequent financial woes were attributed to efforts to rehabilitate his reputation as the "stupid but not evil" moniker stuck.

The conviction prompted calls for Hansen to resign from some Democrats and Republicans in the House, but the Idaho Republican State Central Committee offered a vote of confidence. The committee chairman accused the Justice Department and House Government Operations Committee of "selective reprisal," saying that Hansen was the only person charged out of some 7,000 complaints. He also alleged that Orval Hansen had leveraged the issue for political purposes during the primary season by referring the matter to the Justice Department while he served on the committee.

Second stint in Congress

Hansen went on to win re-election four times. He would distinguish himself by his opposition to most major federal agencies and programs, though his ire was concentrated most strongly against the IRS. He asserted that the agency was planning armed raids in Idaho, and in 1985 would accuse it of singling out taxpayers for audit based on their religious or political affiliations. 

Part of this consternation likely stemmed from Hansen's own repeated run-ins with the IRS. He was reportedly late filing his taxes in every year between 1962 and 1975, although this tardiness never resulted in any legal action. In 1980, Hansen published a book entitled To Harass Our People: The IRS and Government Abuse of Power and would claim that a million copies had gone into print.

Hansen also accused the Immigration and Naturalization Service of being involved in a conspiracy to shuttle illegal immigrants across the border and then arrest the farmers who hired them. After a constituent refused to let inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration enter his electrical contracting business, Hansen launched a nationwide campaign to field complaints against the agency.

Admirers saw Hansen as someone willing to take on big government and fight for the common man, giving him the nickname "George the Dragon Slayer." Detractors suggested that Judge Hart's moniker was more appropriate, portraying Hansen as a buffoon who was more interested in grandstanding than passing meaningful legislation.

Hansen became one of the most vocal critics of the Panama Canal treaties. These agreements, signed by President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos Herrera at the end of 1977, provided that the American-controlled canal would become a neutral passageway open to all vessels, be jointly administered by the U.S. and Panama, and be transferred to Panamanian ownership in the year 2000.

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While Congress debated whether to ratify the treaties, Hansen launched a mail campaign to try to convince American citizens in the Panama Canal Zone to oppose the treaties. He also commissioned a stunt where friends in Idaho loaded up a flatbed truck with two-by-fours made to look like bars of gold and drove it to Washington, D.C. as a visual representation of the money he felt was being squandered through the agreements.

As Hansen calculated, the treaties would forfeit property worth $20 billion, incur $4 billion in transfer costs and $2 billion in contingency costs, and result in an annual expense of $200 million to taxpayers after Panama took control of the canal. A report from the House Committee on Foreign Affairs dedicated an appendix to these figures, asserting that Hansen's estimates were "enormously exaggerated."

The "big American cowboy" abroad

Hansen would spend a considerable amount of time traveling in 1978 and 1979, embarking on quixotic one-man diplomatic trips aimed at improving foreign relations. In January 1978, he traveled to Taiwan and assured the Chinese republic that they would receive the equipment they needed to pursue a nuclear program, despite Carter's opposition to such an effort. In July of that year, he visited President Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, praised the country as a "peaceful and pastoral private enterprise nation," and assured Somoza that he had American support; Somoza was overthrown by Sandinista rebels two weeks later.

Hansen's most notable mission came in November 1979, after the U.S. embassy in Tehran was taken over by student militants and dozens of American citizens were held hostage. Flying to Iran in an effort to "build some bridges and open some doors," Hansen was permitted to visit some of the captives on November 24 and reported that they were being held "in relatively comfortable circumstances." He was the first American allowed into the embassy since its fall.

Despite the virulent anti-American sentiment that had developed in Tehran, Hansen reported that he had received a surprisingly warm welcome from the militants. One, impressed by the congressman's height and bravado, dubbed him a "big American cowboy."

While many of Hansen's Republican colleagues in Congress said he was courageous for making the trip, few considered it a wise endeavor. Millicent Fenwick, a Republican from New Jersey, denounced it as "dangerous" and "irresponsible." One Democratic lawmaker described Hansen as "the last guy in the world to send on a diplomatic mission."

The trip also incensed the Carter administration, with White House officials saying it could generate confusion, inhibit official negotiations, and prolong the situation. However, at least some of irritation may have stemmed from the fact that Hansen had managed to gain access to the hostages when the presidential envoy had not been allowed such a visit. 

Hansen was unrepentant about the mission, and even threatened to introduce an impeachment resolution against Carter over his handling of the crisis. He made another trip to Tehran a month later, but made little progress in resolving the situation. The hostages would be held for 444 days before their release.

Ethics violation

The foreign travel, made at his own expense, did little to improve Hansen's financial standing. His assets had also been dinged by legal battles and campaigns seeking to defend his reputation. He also voiced a complaint commonly uttered by congressmen: maintaining residences in D.C. and in their home district was too challenging on a representative's salary, which amounted to $57,500 in 1977.

In this year, Hansen asked the Federal Election Commission if he could solicit contributions from his supporters to pay down his personal debts. While the FEC said this would be legal, the House Ethics Committee informed him that it would violate the chamber's rules.

In response, Hansen divided his assets with his wife, who also worked as his office manager. Under this arrangement, Connie would be left with the debts and could ask for contributions. She promptly established the Connie Hansen Fund and pleaded for hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay these liabilities and "save my family from financial disaster."

The syndicated newspaper columnist Jack Anderson mocked the effort, nicknaming the congressman's wife Tin Can Connie. Even supporters of the Hansens offered only tepid support. While a 1979 article reported that Connie had raised over $50,000, the couple still owed some $300,000 to nine banks two years later.

This financial shell game ultimately ran afoul of the 1978 Ethics in Government Act, which had been set up after the Watergate scandal. This legislation sought to improve the transparency of official dealings by requiring major government officials to disclose their financial holdings, transactions, and liabilities. Hansen was indicted in 1983 on four charges of violating the law.

The charges stated that Hansen had failed to disclose a total of $333,978 in personal loans and other transactions. One of the largest unreported loans, for $135,000, had come from three men, including one accused of bank fraud. Other undisclosed loans were made to Connie by billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt, and Hansen had failed to make note of $87,475 in profits his wife had made on silver investments.

Hansen angrily denounced the charges as "selective and bogus prosecution," again saying he was being targeted due to his "opposition to federal intrusion into all our lives." He claimed that he had simply filled out the form incorrectly and that the issue was being blown out of proportion.

The defense took a similar tack when the matter went to trial, focusing on the Hansens' separation of accounts and saying that the congressman's attorneys had advised him that he didn't have to report the transactions due to the arrangement. They also suggested that the $135,000 loan did not need to be reported because it did not go directly to Hansen but rather to an advocacy group he had formed, the Association of Concerned Taxpayers. Prosecutors countered that Hansen had essentially been using Connie's account as a front to conceal transactions.

In April 1984, Hansen was found guilty on all counts. He was the first congressman convicted under the 1978 ethics law and the first congressman since Thomas J. Lane, nearly three decades earlier, to be convicted on a felony charge. On June 15, he was sentenced to serve between five and 15 months in prison and pay a $40,000 fine.

Hansen with wife Connie after being sentenced in 1984 (Source)

The House of Representatives also addressed the issue on July 31, taking up the question of whether to reprimand Hansen. This was the mildest form of punishment available, falling short of a censure or expulsion. Those in favor of the action said Hansen's actions to conceal his transactions were intentional, and that a reprimand was necessary to demonstrate that the House would hold its members accountable for wrongdoing. Hansen's supporters backed his contention that he was being singled out, arguing that there were numerous examples of government officials making errors on their disclosure forms and needing to rectify them.

Speaking before the chamber, Hansen brought up several examples of current officials who faced controversy over their financial disclosures, including Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, Attorney General William French Smith, and Attorney General-designate Edwin Meese III. At one point, Hansen quipped that he should have robbed a bank since it would have yielded more money and a smaller penalty than the ethics violation. He warned that financial disclosure violations were common enough that other members would "become the victims of a similar nightmare" if the voted to punish him. The final vote was 354-52 in favor of a reprimand.

Despite the conviction, Hansen had won the Republican nomination for his office. He confidently declared that he would win re-election despite the conviction, saying his constituents would "vote for me if I were chained in the Bastille." Yet on Election Day, Hansen was bested by Democratic challenger Richard Stallings, though it was by a margin of just 170 votes out of more than 200,000 cast.

Hansen appealed his conviction, saying that his offenses should have subjected him to a civil penalty rather than a criminal one. This argument gained more traction among his colleagues, with 122 House members lending their support. However, his conviction was unanimous upheld by a three-judge appellate panel on Aug. 30, 1985. The panel, which included future Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, noted how the financial disclosure forms explicitly said that violators could be subject to either a civil or criminal penalty.

After exhausting further appeals, Hansen began his sentence in June 1986. At one point, he launched a hunger strike in protest of prison conditions, while also claiming that he usually ate as little as possible because he believed his food was tainted with urine and nasal mucus. Connie sought the Republican nomination to challenge Stallings in the 1986 election, but came in second in a five-way contest; Stallings would ultimately retain Hansen's former seat until 1992.

Hansen was paroled after six months, and released shortly before Christmas.

Short-lived freedom

After leaving Congress, Hansen had turned his attention to political lobbying. He became the chairman of the New Continental Congress, a D.C. consulting firm assisting people with complaints against the federal government. After he completed his prison term, he returned to this work.

However, Hansen predicted that his new career would likely send him back behind bars. His parole terms included stipulations that he not travel outside of Virginia without permission, complete monthly financial reports, and not associate with other ex-felons. Hansen complained that these terms would prevent him from running the firm, since he traveled frequently and worked with people who had earned criminal convictions from tax protests. He said the financial reporting requirement would also be impossible, since he received money from people who didn't want their names turned over to the federal government.

Hansen resumed his tax protests and gave speeches around the country. These activities quickly resulted in a charge of violating his parole. On April 15, 1987, he was arrested at the Omaha airport while awaiting a flight back home. Agents brought him back to Virginia in shackles aboard a chartered flight.

The conditions of the arrest won Hansen sympathy from conservatives as well as many liberals, as it was seen as an excessive response to a nonviolent offense. Critics also charged that the chartered jet was a waste of money, since Hansen had already purchased a plane ticket and could have easily been detained at his destination.

Hansen served another six months in prison. At one point, he called a press conference where he dubbed himself a political prisoner, railed against prison bureaucracy, vowed to sue the Attorney General, and denounced prison conditions, suggesting that every judge and congressman should spend some time behind bars to see what it was like. He also used the prison's pay phone to coordinate a campaign demanding presidential pardon.

Check kiting scheme

Beginning in the late 1980s, Hansen began soliciting loans from individuals to support his political advocacy efforts. He was joined in the endeavor by John Scoresby, a business associate and former regional chairman of the Idaho Republican Party. The duo used a business named Ideal Consultants to oversee the transactions.

Individuals were typically promised a high return on investment and told their money would support organizations with names like the Congressional Accountability Project and Free America Revolution. A typical promise held that investors would be repaid within 30 days at an interest rate of 10 to 20 percent, and could earn a finder's fee of 5 to 10 percent for referring Hansen and Scoresby to other people willing to invest. The duo sometimes offered $1,000 to exchange checks.

It was all an elaborate check kiting scheme, where the passing of worthless checks between individuals allowed Hansen and Scoresby to build up false bank balances and establish lines of credit. A federal indictment would charge that it had involved more than 300 checks and drawn about $29 million from five Idaho banks. 

On Oct. 31, 1990, Hansen filed for bankruptcy for Ideal Consultants as well as the Pocatello Copycat. By this point, the Ideal Consultants account at the Bank of Commerce in Idaho Falls was overdrawn by $2.1 million. Investors who had been duped by the scheme lost $18 million. On March 24, 1992, Hansen and Scoresby were charged with 49 counts of bank fraud.

Not surprisingly, Hansen again argued that the charges were part of a broad vendetta by federal officials. However, his justifications for the fraud were slim. He argued that he had not actually defrauded any of the investors because they had willingly given him money in support of his anti-government efforts. He also contended that he had been motivated by the financial struggles brought on by his previous troubles, and that he would have been able to repay the money if the operation hadn't been discovered and shut down.

Both Hansen and Scoresby were found guilty of 45 of the counts against them on December 12. Surprisingly, Hansen won considerable support among those he had swindled, bolstering his argument that he hadn't truly victimized anyone. About half of the people who had lost money in the scheme filed affidavits with the court urging leniency.

George Hansen in front of a federal courthouse in March 1993 (Source)

While prosecutors sought a 16-year prison sentence for Hansen, the affidavits persuaded Judge Edward Lodge to impose a much lighter term. At sentencing on March 16, 1993, he ordered Hansen to spend four years behind bars and pay a $12,500 fine. Scoresby was sentenced to 21 months in prison and a $6,000 fine.

During the sentencing, Lodge marveled at how many people still supported Hansen even after they were duped out of considerable sums of money.

"I've never seen people who are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars, who don't know how much they are owed, who are willing to eat those losses," he declared. "I've never seen that kind of blind allegiance. The victims are offended that the court would take them as victims."

Later life

Hansen appealed the conviction, arguing that the banks had knowingly participated in his transactions and thus were not deceived. The argument was rejected by a federal court in 1994.

While serving this latest prison sentence, Hansen received some good news. He had been continuously fighting his 1984 ethics conviction, and an obscure Supreme Court ruling in 1995 delivered a belated victory on this front. In Hubbard v. U.S., the court ruled that the 1978 ethics law applied only to members of the executive branch. This vacated Hansen's conviction, restored his federal pension, and resulted in the return of the $40,000 fine he had paid.

After 40 months, Hansen was paroled. He made some headlines in 1997, renewing his criticism of the IRS and calling for its abolition in favor of states collecting the income tax and passing it on to the federal government. He maintained that the agency had engaged in retaliatory behavior against him, including launching an audit after he fielded complaints from his constituents about their federal reimbursements following the Teton Dam disaster in 1976.

Hansen also headed the Utah-based US. Citizens Human Rights Commission, which sought an investigation into the death of federal prisoner Kenneth Trentadue in 1995. Trentadue's death was officially ruled a suicide, but there were allegations that he had been mistaken for a suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing and beaten during his interrogation, with the assault either causing his death or instigating his suicide.

Hansen was still struggling financially at this point. He discounted the idea that he would return to politics, in part because of Connie's opposition and in part because he considered politics to be "for the rich." 

Shortly after his conviction, Hansen was ordered to repay Ann and James Meyers the $299,350 he had taken as part of the check kiting scheme. A default judgement was ordered against him, but Hansen would claim that he did not remember being served in the civil suit and was unaware of the judgement until 2007. He also said he did not have the money to pay this settlement.

The issue persisted until 2009, when the Idaho Supreme Court ruled that he was still obligated to repay the couple. By this point, the interest collecting on the unpaid debt over 16 years had ballooned the sum to $723,927.

Following cardiac problems, Hansen died in Pocatello on Aug. 14, 2014. His obituary sought the last word in establishing his legacy, declaring him a "dedicated champion in fighting for the good people of Idaho and taxpayers all across the country who were subject to abusive federal agencies" whose efforts resulted in him "being on the receiving end of having to defend his good name against the retribution of federal agencies in which he waged the good fight for his constituents."

Sources

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "George V. Hansen 1930-2014" at Legacy.com, "Representative Hansen Pleads Guilty to Violation of Election Campaign Act" in the New York Times on Feb. 20 1975, "Judge Saves Hansen From Jail, Terms Representative 'Stupid'" in the New York Times on Apr. 26 1975, "Rep. Hansen Gets Vote of Confidence From Idaho GOP" in the New York Times on Apr. 28 1975, "Hansen's Tehran Trip Fits His Style" in the Washington Post on Nov. 24 1979, "Unorthodox Idaho Congressman" in the New York Times on Nov. 27 1979, "Rep. Hansen Came Here to Battle and Does - Defending Himself" in the Washington Post on Jan. 4 1983, "George Hansen is Found Guilty in Ethics Trial" in the Washington Post on Apr. 3 1984, "Hansen Gets Prison Term for Ethics Act Violation" in the New York Times on Jun. 16 1984, "Hansen Punished by House" in the Washington Post on Aug. 1 1984, "IRS Uses Religion-Politics to Single Out Audit Candidates, Hansen Says" on UPI on Jan. 29 1985, "Ex-Rep. Hansen's Conviction of Ethics Breaches Upheld" in the Washington Post on Aug. 31 1985, "Boston Tea Party Reenacted to Protest IRS" on UPI on Oct. 2 1985, "Ex-Rep. Hansen to Be Paroled" in the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Dec. 20 1986, "Jailed Former Congressman Continues Hunger Strike Over Treatment" in the Associated Press on Apr. 22 1987, "Hanson Parole Revoked" on UPI on May 12 1987, "Hansen Unchained" in the Washington Post on Dec. 13 1987, "Ex-Idaho Congressman Files for Chapter 11" in Deseret News on Nov. 26 1990, "Congressman Who Left in '85 Accused of Fraud" in the Buffalo News on Mar. 25 1992, "Former Congressman is Found Guilty" in the New York Times on Dec. 13 1992, "Hansen to Serve Four Years in Prison for Check-Kiting" in the Deseret News on Mar. 17 1993, "IRS Hasn't Forsaken Ugly Tactics, Former Idaho Congressman Says" in the Deseret News on Nov. 30 1997, "Free and Fired Up, George Hansen Back in a Scrap, Leading Group Probing Inmate's Death" in the Spokesman-Review on Dec. 7 1997, "Former Congressman George Hansen Loses Idaho Supreme Court Appeal" in the Spokesman-Review on Nov. 30 2009, "An Idaho Political Story Extraordinaire" in the Spokesman-Review on Dec. 1 2009, "Former U.S. Rep Hansen Dies" in the Idaho State Journal on Aug. 15 2014, "'George the Dragon Slayer' Dies at 83" in the Lewiston Tribune on Aug. 16 2014, "Idaho Congressman Sentenced to Federal Prison, Dies at 83" in the Washington Post on Aug. 17 2014, "George Hansen, Idaho Congressman and Convicted Swindler, Dies at 83" in the New York Times on Aug. 20 2014, Congressional Record Vol. 114 Part 1, Panama Canal Implementing Legislation, Joint Report of the Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in 1980, United States v. George v. Hansen and John F. Scoresby

Ted Stevens: you wouldn't like him when he's angry

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The crash of a Learjet as it attempted to land in Anchorage, Alaska, would link to many important parts of Senator Ted Stevens' life. Stevens was one of two people to survive the accident, which occurred on December 4, 1978. The jet lost control in crosswind conditions as it arrived from Juneau, breaking apart as it came down between two runways.

Stevens' wife of 26 years, Ann Cherrington, and four others were killed in the crash. As he recovered, Stevens said the incident would not discourage him from flying. He had served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, continued to hold a commercial pilot's license, and occasionally flew "just for the hell of it" (though he wasn't piloting the plane in the Anchorage crash). Stevens even parlayed the incident into a pitch for more funding at the airport, saying it was the second such crash in the past year and that a crosswinds runway was necessary at Anchorage.

Despite his nonchalant statements after the near-death experience, including the remark that frequent flying was necessary to get between Alaska and Washington, D.C., some of Stevens' colleagues in the United States Senate said he had been worried about this mode of travel. He had mentioned a premonition that he might die in a plane crash, and made frequent references to the 1972 disappearance of a plane traveling from Anchorage to Juneau, the opposite flight path of the ill-fated Learjet. Representative Nick Begich of Alaska, House Majority Leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana, and two others had presumably been killed when the plane went down in the remote wilderness, although the plane and its occupants were never found.

Two years after the crash, Stevens would marry Catherine Chandler, a lawyer from a well-known Democratic family. The airport where he lost his first wife would be renamed in his honor in 2000, the same year the state legislature named him the "Alaskan of the Century." He would face Nick Begich's son in a tight race in 2008, defined largely by questionable home renovations which he said his second wife had overseen. And while his premonition would not hold true in 1978, it would be fulfilled more than three decades later.

Stevens was born Theodore Fulton Stevens in Indianapolis on November 18, 1923. Early in his childhood, he moved with his family to Chicago. In the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, Stevens' father lost his job as an accountant. Stevens subsequently took a job as a newsboy to help support his parents and three siblings. Following the divorce of his parents and the death of his father, he moved to Manhattan Beach, California, to live with an aunt.

After graduating from high school, Stevens began attending Oregon State College. He was there for only one semester, in 1942, before deciding to join the war effort. He enrolled at Montana State College for cadet training in the Army Air Corps in 1943, and began flying supply missions the next year. Stevens was part of the "Flying Tigers," piloting C-46 and C-47 planes over the Himalayas from India to China. When he concluded his service in 1946, he had been awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Air Medals, and the Yuan Hai Medal from the Republic of China.

Ted Stevens during his service in World War II (Source)

After the war, Stevens returned to college. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1947 with a degree in political science. After a stint as a research assistant with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California, he attended Harvard Law School and graduated in 1950. He was admitted to the bar in California in the same year, but got the his first job at a law firm in Washington, D.C.

Stevens' long association with Alaska began in 1953, when he drove across the country to take a job at a law firm in Fairbanks. He became the U.S. Attorney in the city a year later. Stevens would later recall that two newspaper publishers were responsible for his first foray into politics, encouraging him to return to the nation's capital to work in the Eisenhower Administration and push for Alaska statehood. He became the legislative counsel for the Department of the Interior in 1956, working his way up to Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior in 1958 and Solicitor of the department in 1960. Alaska became a state in January 1959.

Stevens again returned to Alaska, opening a law firm in Anchorage in 1961. He would soon make another stab at national politics, earning the Republican nomination for Senate in 1962. He lost the race to the incumbent, Ernest Gruening. However, he was successful in a 1964 bid for the state house of representatives and was reelected two years later, serving as the speaker pro tempore and majority leader. Another attempt at the U.S. Senate in 1968 also fell short as Stevens lost the GOP primary to Anchorage mayor Elmer Rasmuson; Rasmuson subsequently lost the general election to Democratic candidate Mike Gravel.

But just months after this election, Stevens learned he would be going to the Senate after all. One of Alaska's seats in the Senate became vacant on December 11, 1968, when Democratic Senator E.L. Bartlett died during heart surgery. Governor Walter Hickel, a Republican, appointed Stevens to the post on Christmas Eve. In a special election in November of 1970, Stevens was elected in his own right to serve the remaining two years of Bartlett's term.

Stevens would remain in the Senate for almost four more decades, winning seven general elections. He chaired his first committee during the Ninety-fourth Congress, leading the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee between 1975 and 1977. He would serve as the chairman of five additional committees during his career, including those related to appropriations, ethics, governmental affairs, and commerce, science, and transportation.

Between 1977 and 1985, Stevens held the position of Republican whip, or leader of the party within the Senate. He sought to become the majority leader in 1984, but lost to Bob Dole of Kansas by three votes. Stevens was president pro tempore of the Senate from 2003 to 2007, the third person in the line of presidential succession behind the Vice President and Speaker of the House.

Throughout his career, Stevens became well-known in Alaska for his efforts to improve the state's standing in the nation. He fought for Hickel's appointment as Secretary of the Interior in 1969; the former governor's new role made him the first Alaskan to serve in a presidential cabinet. He backed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971 to resolve land claims by indigenous residents in Alaska, many of which had not been addressed since Alaska became a state. This legislation also helped clear some barriers to the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, an 800-mile project completed in 1977 to carry oil from the Prudhoe Bay fields to the port of Valdez.

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline met with plenty of objection from environmentalists, and Stevens had a mixed record when it came to the issue of conservation. He expressed opposition to "extreme environmentalists" and supported proposals to drill for oil in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, but he was particularly committed to marine environmental efforts. He co-authored the Magnuson-Stevens Act in 1976 to set a 200-mile economic exclusion zone from U.S. shores to regulate foreign fishing vessels and protect fisheries in this area. Stevens kept a close eye on this legislation in the ensuing years, contributing to the amendments and follow-ups made to it over the years. After the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Stevens led efforts to improve oil tanker designs to prevent a similar incident. In 2006, he voted against a proposed open pit mine to extract gold, molybdenum, and copper on the grounds that it would potentially threaten the salmon population in Bristol Bay.

Although formerly critical of the idea that human activities were a significant contributor to climate change, Stevens surprised environmentalists in February of 2007 by introducing a bill to improve fuel efficiency in new vehicles. Stevens said he still considered that other factors had more of an impact on the climate than humans, but he was now convinced that human activity was part of the problem. He said the altered climate was particularly noticeable in Alaska in the erosion of shorelines from rising sea levels, the disruption of salmon spawning grounds due to warmer waters, melting permafrost, and shrinking hunting grounds for polar bears and walruses.

Stevens was generally conservative in his positions, but he also had a record of more centrist or bipartisan positions as well. In June of 1971, he sponsored a bill to withdraw American troops from Vietnam within nine months; the Senate approved it on the condition that North Vietnam first free all remaining U.S. prisoners of war. He helped develop the Amateur Sports Act in 1978, which established the United States Olympic Committee as the national representative agency for the competition and set up national governing bodies and protections for individual athletes in each sport. Stevens was pro-choice in the sense that he did not believe government should intervene in the subject of abortion, saying in 1979 that it was a decision to be made by the couple and their doctor rather than "something 99 men fight over 30 times a year." Stevens also supported a ban on smoking in federal buildings, supported federal spending for public radio and Title IX legislation giving women equal opportunities in places receiving federal aid, and questioned the level of President Ronald Reagan's military spending.

The last objection was somewhat ironic, as Stevens' ability to funnel vast amounts of federal funding to Alaska became legendary. These allocations went to a variety of projects, from infrastructure to military bases to small businesses. His supporters in the state nicknamed him "Uncle Ted" for his ability to bring this money to Alaska, while critics charged him with wasting huge sums on pork-barrel projects. One out of every three jobs in Alaska was said to rely on federal funding in 2008. Taxpayers for Common Sense charged that Stevens directly sponsored or had a role in earmarks to legislation that directed $3.2 billion in federal funding to his home state between 2004 and 2008, resulting in a per capita total of $4,872 per resident of Alaska - more than 18 times the national average.

Stevens offered several defenses for his efforts to bring federal monies to Alaska. He said much of the state was federally owned anyway, and that it needed to catch up with the rest of the nation since it was one of the newer states and had spent many years as an impoverished territory. He also argued that Alaska deserved more funding due to its harsh weather, the presence of natural resources such as oil and gas, and the state's strategic importance due to its proximity to Russia.

More than any other project, Stevens was ridiculed for his commitment to a pair of transportation initiatives in 2005. A highway bill in this year requested $452 million to go toward two bridges in Alaska. One proposal, the Knik Arm Bridge, sought to link Anchorage with rural Port MacKenzie, which had a single tenant and almost no population; the final price tag of the bridge was estimated to be nearly $2 billion. The more infamous proposal would connect the small community of Ketchikan with Gravina Island, which included the local airport but was home to only 50 residents. The proposed span would have to be taller than the Brooklyn Bridge to allow cruise ships to pass under it, measure only 20 feet shorter than the Golden Gate Bridge, require a convoluted detour to access, and replace a short and reliable ferry ride. Supporters argued that the projects would help spur economic development and improve domestic security, but the request for costly crossings to benefit a handful of citizens was quickly denounced as a "Bridge to Nowhere." Taxpayers for Common Sense gave the proposal the dubious honor of the Golden Fleece Award, presented to proposals considered to be a major waste of taxpayers' money.

Stevens vehemently opposed efforts to block funding for the projects. The bill came up for consideration not long after Hurricane Katrina had devastated the Gulf Coast, and Senator Tom Coburn of Louisiana (a Republican) sought to divert funding for the Alaska bridges to repair roads damaged by the storm. Stevens threatened to end his Senate career in protest if the amendment passed.

"I will put the Senate on notice, and I don't kid people: if the Senate decides to discriminate against our state, to take money only from our state, I'll resign from this body," he warned. "This is not the Senate I came to. This is not the Senate I've devoted 37 years to, if one senator can decide he'll take all the money from one state to solve the problem of another."

Coburn's proposal was voted down, with 82 senators opposed and 15 in favor. The compromise, struck a month later, removed the earmark which dedicated the money specifically to the bridges, but still allocated the money to Alaska for use on transportation projects. This stipulation meant the funding could still potentially be used for the bridges. The envisioned spans remained controversial, however, as the "Bridge to Nowhere" came to symbolize uncontrolled federal spending and spurred efforts to rein in earmarks. While the Knik Arm Bridge remains under consideration, the Gravina Island proposal was recently scrapped. Lew Williams III, the mayor of Ketchikan, said it was more economically feasible to improve the ferry services and terminals than to build and maintain a bridge.

The debate over the bridges gave national exposure to Stevens' rancorous temper, but he had been regarded as a curmudgeon for many years by his colleagues in the Senate. "I am a mean, miserable S.O.B.," he once declared. However, Stevens still showed a sense of humor and camaraderie. He considered Daniel Inouye, the long-serving Democratic senator from the other young state of Hawaii, to be a close friend and the two worked together on a number of bipartisan efforts. Whenever he expected a tough fight on a bill, Stevens donned an Incredible Hulk tie.

Stevens, wearing an Incredible Hulk tie, poses with a figure of the superhero in 2003 (Source)

Stevens' cantankerous nature helped make him in inadvertent Internet meme after remarks he made before the Commerce Committee, which he chaired. Arguing against an amendment to prohibit Internet service providers from charging higher fees to companies that generated more traffic, Stevens said, "The Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a big truck; it's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled, and if they're filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line, it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material." Stevens also referred to an e-mail sent by his staff as "an Internet" and complained that it had been delayed by getting "tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially."

The description of the Internet as a "series of tubes" soon became the subject of a number of parodies. Some commentaries suggested that the remarks exposed the 82-year-old Stevens as being hopelessly out of touch with the subject of net neutrality, despite being the head of the committee charged with overseeing the issue. Stevens' defenders argued that he had been speaking metaphorically in trying to illustrate his concerns.

Not long after these remarks, Stevens became the longest serving Republican in the Senate. He reached this milestone in April of 2007 and was lauded by his fellow senators for his service and bipartisanship. Inouye nicknamed him "The Strom Thurmond of the Arctic Circle," a reference to the fact that Thurmond would have held the honor if he hadn't spent two terms as a Democrat before switching parties. Stevens thanked his family and staff for their support, noting how he once flew back and forth between Alaska and the nation's capital 35 times in a single year. "I am surrounded by friends on both sides of the aisle, and I am still very honored to be here," he said.

By this time, Stevens had been accused of a number of conflicts of interest during his many years in office. He was criticized for advocating a lease deal with Boeing after they hired his wife's law firm in 2003, and for helping groups that hired his son Ben as a consultant. Investigators would later look into federal funding that had been directed to Ben's company to promote efforts to trim Alaska's crab and salmon fishing fleets as well as monies that supported the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board, of which Ben was the first chairman. There had even been calls for Stevens to resign after the Los Angeles Times detailed how he had become a millionaire by investing in companies after he had secured government contracts for them. Stevens responded, "If they think I'm going to resign because of a story in the newspaper, they're crazy."

The FBI opened "Operation Polar Pen," the investigation which would eventually lead to criminal charges against Stevens, in 2004. Two years later, Governor Frank Murkowski announced that negotiations with Alaska's three main oil producers had resulted in an agreement for these companies to build a gas pipeline if the state would modify the way the producers were taxed. The VECO Corporation, an oil services engineering and construction company which was also a major financial supporter of Republican candidates in Alaska, stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars from this pipeline. Stevens was an associate of VECO's founder and chief executive officer, Bill Allen. The two men sometimes dined together, and they were part of a group of investors who owned a racehorse named So Long Birdie.

The investigation targeted VECO for its scheme to influence state legislators and other Alaska officials on matters related to the pipeline. The company sought to bribe legislators with incentives such as cash, services, and promises of future employment in exchange for votes on legislation favorable to VECO, including the construction of the pipeline, the adoption of its favored oil tax formula, and the rejection of efforts to increase this tax. Several VECO executives and Alaska legislators were charged with involvement in this corruption, and the FBI began making arrests in the spring of 2007.

In May, Allen and VECO vice president Rick Smith pleaded guilty to bribing state legislators. Allen agreed to testify against other defendants in the probe. He admitted that he had paid $243,250 to Ben Stevens, then the president of the Alaska state senate, between 2002 and 2006. Allen said the payments were ostensibly for consulting work, but were actually meant for "giving advice, lobbying colleagues, and taking official acts in matters before the Legislature." Several other witnesses said Ben had received illegal payments from Allen, but the senator's son was never charged with a crime.

At the September trial of Pete Kott, the former speaker of the Alaska house of representatives, Allen directly implicated Stevens. He testified that he had used more than $400,000 to bribe state legislators and do favors for Stevens over the years. By this point, the FBI had already started to scrutinize Stevens' finances. Several people were called before a federal grand jury in the spring and summer of 2007, including Stevens' neighbor, a financial clerk of the Commerce Committee, and a businessman who was an associate of the senator. In July, Stevens filed a financial disclosure form after getting an extension to fix what he said were technical errors. At the end of the month, FBI agents raided his home in Girdwood.

On July 29, 2008, the federal grand jury indicted Stevens on seven felony counts of violating the Ethics in Government Act by making false statements on financial disclosure forms between 1999 and 2006. Prosecutors charged that he failed to report about $250,000 in favors provided by VECO and others. It was the first time a sitting senator had been indicted in 15 years, and the charges were handed down before the Republican primary. Stevens won the party's nomination despite the indictment. He had the option of stepping down to let the Republican State Central Committee choose a candidate, but opted not to do so.

Stevens' mugshot following his indictment (Source)

The bulk of the charges against Stevens stemmed from his relationship to Allen. In the year 2000, Stevens' home went through extensive renovations which more than doubled the size of the original two-bedroom structure. The house was put up on stilts to add a new first floor, and contractors also put in a sauna, wine cellar, and wraparound porch. The workers said they billed Allen for the work and received checks from Stevens. The senator had expressed concerns about the renovations in a phone call to Allen which was recorded by the FBI, but reassured himself, "[T]he worst that can happen to us is we round up a bunch of legal fees and might lose and we might have to pay a fine, might have to serve a little jail time."

Allen had given Stevens several gifts including a Land Rover, furniture, tools, a generator, and a gas grill. None of the gifts had been reported on his financial disclosure forms. He had also received a $2,695 massage chair, $3,200 stained glass window, and husky puppy from his friend Bob Penney without reporting them. The Kenai River Sport Fishing Association had given him a bronze fish statue valued at $29,000.

The indictment was issued a little more than three months away from Election Day, which was shaping up to be a pivotal contest. The Democrats had regained majorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate in 2006. In the 2008 election, they had the potential to pursue a robust legislative agenda if they managed to recapture the White House and get enough seats in the Senate for a filibuster-proof majority. Hoping to be tried and acquitted before Election Day, Stevens asked for a speedy trial. This request was granted, but he was unable to get the proceedings transferred from Washington, D.C., to Alaska.

During the lengthy trial, Stevens spent three days on the stand. He said his wife was in charge of the renovations at the Girdwood home and that he was unaware that Allen had aided the project in any way. Stevens said they had paid every bill they received with their own money, and that he assumed the $160,000 in expenditures had covered all costs. He did express some irritation with the billing process, saying he had sometimes never received an invoice even after requesting it. "Catherine paid for the work that was done at our house," he concluded. "She paid the bills, and that's all there is to it."

The prosecution and defense had different interpretations of an October 2002 letter Stevens wrote to Allen, asking for a bill. "When I think of the many ways in which you make my life easier and more enjoyable, I lose count!" the letter read. "Thanks for all the work on the Chalet. You owe me a bill - remember Torricelli, my friend. Friendship is one thing - compliance with the ethics rules entirely different. I asked Bob P to talk to you about this, so don't get PO'd at him - it's [sic] just has to be done right." In referencing Torricelli, Stevens was recalling a former colleague, Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, whom the Senate had admonished for receiving illicit gifts from a campaign donor three months before the letter was written. Torricelli had been re-nominated by the party after the scandal, but dropped out of his race in September.

Allen alleged that the letter was simply a way for Stevens to cover his tracks, and that a friend of the senator had even urged him to ignore the request for a bill. During one exchange, Stevens testily asked prosecutor Brenda Morris, "If it was a gift, why did I ask for a bill?" Morris replied, "To cover your butt." Stevens' lawyers argued that the letter was nothing more than a friendly communication and effort to account for all costs related to the renovations.

Catherine also took the stand and testified that she had paid $160,000 to contractors other than VECO employees for the work. When it came to the unreported gifts, Stevens said he had never asked for them. The fish statue was supposedly destined for a library that would one day honor the senator. Stevens' daughter said that Allen sometimes used the Girdwood home when Stevens was in Washington, and that some of the gifts were for his own personal use as well. She also avowed that VECO had not unfairly rewarded the family; her son had been hired by the company, but subsequently fired for using drugs. Several witnesses called by the defense spoke to Stevens' character, including Inouye, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

On October 27, 2008, the jury found Stevens guilty of all seven charges against him. The verdict came down just eight days before the election, too late for the GOP to take him off the ballot and replace him with another candidate. However, Stevens was under no obligation to resign or withdraw from the race. Since there was no rule against convicted felons serving in Congress, he would be able to take his seat if he won another term and could only be removed by a two-thirds vote of the Senate.

Calls for Stevens' resignation came down from both major parties. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, declared, "It is clear that Senator Stevens has broken his trust with the American people and that he should now step down." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama also asked for Stevens to resign. Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and McCain's running mate, did not specifically ask Stevens to step down but said she was confident he would "do the right thing for the state of Alaska." She suggested that if he decided to stay in the race and won, he should resign so a new candidate could be selected in a special election.

Had Stevens decided to resign after his conviction, Alaska rules would have required a special election to take place 60 to 90 days after he vacated his seat. But Stevens remained defiant, vowing to "fight this unjust verdict with every ounce of energy I have." He also said he was determined to remain in the race against Democratic candidate Mark Begich, the mayor of Anchorage. "I am not stepping down," Stevens said. "I'm going to run through and I'm going to win this election."

While Stevens had won easy victories against Democratic opponents in his previous races, his conviction appeared to have a significant impact on the election. Stevens was popular enough to win a large share of the nearly 300,000 votes cast in the Senate race. Nevertheless, he would be ousted in the contest; Begich won the seat by less than 1 percent, or about 2,300 votes. In a farewell speech on November 30, Stevens declared, "Working to help Alaska achieve its potential has been and will continue to be my life's work." He left the Senate on January 3, 2009, with his conviction still under appeal.

The Democratic victory in Alaska would contribute to a major shift of power in the nation's capital. In addition to winning the White House, the party took five Senate seats away from Republican incumbents. After Democratic candidate Al Franken was sworn in as the winner in a close race in Minnesota and Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched parties in April of 2009, the Democrats had a filibuster-proof share of 60 seats in the Senate. This supermajority would only last until January of 2010, when Republican candidate Scott Brown won an upset victory in a special election to succeed Ted Kennedy after the longstanding senator's death in August 2009. Yet the Senate was easily able to approve the Affordable Care Act in December 2009 without the support of a single Republican senator.

Soon after the election, cracks began to appear in the prosecution's case against Stevens. The judge had rebuked prosecutors several times during the trial, and Stevens' defense team planned to question their methods as part of their appeal. In November 2008, former VECO employee David Anderson wrote to the judge to admit that he had been lying when he made the sworn statement that he did not have an immunity deal with prosecutors. In fact, he said, prosecutors had helped coach him by leaving him alone in a room with confidential documents. The Justice Department denied the claims.

On December 2, 2008, FBI agent Chad Joy filed a whistleblower report questioning the conduct of the prosecutors. He said they had tried to hide one witness and intentionally withheld evidence that would have been beneficial to the defense. In particular, they had not disclosed that Allen had formerly told FBI agents that Stevens would have paid an invoice for the work on his home; Allen had made the exact opposite statement during the trial. The information had been made known to the defense during the trial, but the disclosure had taken place right before Allen's cross-examination.

Joy also accused prosecutors of knowingly using false VECO records to help establish the argument that Stevens received an improper benefit from Allen and failed to turn over information that would have undermined Allen's credibility. The former head of VECO had been investigated by police for allegedly having sex with an underage prostitute, and he had tried to get two witnesses to perjure themselves so they would not be able to testify against him. Joy's report also suggested that another FBI agent had had an inappropriate relationship with Allen.

On April 7, 2009, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan dismissed the verdict at the request of newly appointed Attorney General Eric Holder. The alleged misconduct by the prosecutors was the reason cited for the dismissal, and the government announced that it would not seek a retrial. Stevens' attorney was enraged by the revelations, deeming the prosecutors' behavior "stomach-churning corruption." Stevens said the decision had restored his faith in the justice system, but commented, "It is unfortunate that an election was affected by proceedings now recognized as unfair."

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility began an internal inquiry into the prosecutors in Stevens' case. Sullivan also appointed a special prosecutor to look into the allegations of misconduct. The latter report was completed in March 2012, concluding that there was "systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated Senator Stevens' defense and his testimony, and seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government's key witness."

The special prosecutor specifically targeted prosecutors Joseph Bottini and James Goeke, saying they "intentionally withheld and concealed" evidence. The report noted that prosecutors had been under pressure to quickly assemble a complex case to meet Stevens' request for a speedy trial, but did not conduct an effective search for potentially exculpatory evidence. Lower level prosecutors who worked on the case were essentially exonerated, though no conclusions were made with regard to a prosecutor who had worked closely on the case and committed suicide in September 2010.

The Justice Department issued its own report in May 2012. It differed from the special prosecutor's report mainly in its conclusion that the prosecutors had not intentionally withheld evidence, suggesting that this action was a result of the confusion of several attorneys working on the case and the efforts to quickly assemble evidence against Stevens to meet the request for a speedy trial. However, it did declare that Bottini and Goeke had engaged in "reckless professional conduct." The report did not recommend that either man be fired, but instead suspended Bottini without pay for 40 days and Goeke for 15 days. Stevens' lawyers were not satisfied, saying the Justice Department's punishment "demonstrated conclusively that it is not capable of disciplining its prosecutors."

By the time these conclusions had been issued, Stevens had died in Alaska. On August 9, 2010, he was one of eight people traveling on a float plane owned by the GCI Communication Corporation. The plane was scheduled to fly from a GCI-owned lodge on Lake Nerka to a sport fishing camp on the Nushagak River. The plane crashed northeast of Aleknagik, killing Stevens and three others on board.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the cause of the crash was unclear, determining only that pilot Terry Smith (one of those killed) became temporarily incapacitated. The NTSB theorized that Smith had fallen asleep, had a seizure, or otherwise become briefly unaware of the situation and was unable to reach a safe altitude before the plane hit a hillside. The report on the accident criticized the Federal Aviation Administration for re-certifying Smith's pilot's license two years before the crash, saying their medical review had not been thorough enough.

Stevens is buried at Arlington National Cemetery (Source)

Although the verdict against Stevens was dismissed, some were not convinced that the senator's relationship with Allen was not improper. The federal investigation in Alaska had found plenty of corruption in the state government; it ended in October 2011 after seven years with the convictions of 10 people, including six state legislators. One alternate juror in Stevens' case said the determination of prosecutorial misconduct was not quite enough for him to consider the former senator to be innocent. The report had only gone into the allegations of work at Stevens' home in Girdwood, not the gifts he had received but not declared on his financial disclosure forms. The former juror also felt that Stevens' lawyers had done more to defend the senator's character than explain Stevens' cozy relationship with Allen and his questionable e-mail record regarding the renovations.

Many continue to see Stevens in a positive light, however. The Ted Stevens Foundation, established in 2001, continues to "recognize [his] career and honor his legacy of public service by working to ensure a stable and vibrant Alaska for future generations." In 2011, the Alaska Legislature deemed the fourth Saturday of every July to be Ted Stevens Day and encouraged Alaskans to "get out and play" by enjoying the outdoors. In recognition of his legislation to protect Olympic athletes, Stevens was inducted into the Olympics Hall of Fame in 2012; two years later, the U.S. Olympic Committee named a training facility in Colorado Springs in his honor.

Sources: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, The Ted Stevens Foundation, "Sponsor Withdrawal Proposal" in the Eugene Register-Guard on Jun. 23 1971, "Alaskan Jet Crash Kills Senator's Wife" in the Lodi News-Sentinel on Dec. 5 1978, "Crash Survivors Recovering" in the Bangor Daily News on Dec. 6 1978, "Despite Wife's Death in Crash, Senator Won't Give Up Flying" in the Eugene Register-Guard on Dec. 15 1978, "Clash Expected on Abortion Issue" in the Victoria Advocate on Nov. 14 1979, "Built With Steel, Perhaps, but Greased With Pork" in the New York Times on Apr. 10 2004, "Stevens Says He'll Quit if Bridge Fund Diverted" in the Anchorage Daily News on Oct. 21 2005, "Two 'Bridges to Nowhere' Tumble Down in Congress" in the New York Times on Nov. 17 2005, "Senator's New Views on Climate Surprise Foes" in the St. Petersburg Times on Feb. 24 2007, "Alaska Senator Part of Corruption Inquiry" in the Eugene Register-Guard on Jun. 8 2007, "Lawyer Says Senate Aide Testified on Stevens" in the Reading Eagle on Aug. 1 2007, "Firm Funded Work on Senator's House, Former CEO Says" in the Eugene Register-Guard on Sep. 15 2007, "FBI Investigating Ted Stevens' Fishing Bills" in the Juneau Empire on Oct. 31 2007, "Long-Serving Republican Senator Indicted" in the Herald-Journal on Jul. 30 2008, "Stevens' Indictment Deepens GOP's Woes" in The Day on Jul. 30 2008, "Alaskans Fret Loss of Stevens' Largesse" in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Jul. 31 2008, "Stevens' Trial To Be In D.C." in the Press Democrat on Aug. 21 2008, "Testimony Paints Stevens as 'Lion' of Senate" in the Bangor Daily News on Oct. 15 2008, "Ted Stevens Angrily Jousts With Prosecutor" in the Tuscaloosa News on Oct. 18 2008, "Defense Closes With Stevens' Testimony" in the Seattle Times on Oct. 21 2008, "Stevens Convicted, Says He'll Stay in Senate Race" on NBC News on Oct. 27 2008, "Sen. Stevens Guilty on All Counts" in the Victoria Advocate on Oct. 28 2008, "McCain Joins Those Urging Ted Stevens to Resign From Senate" in the Tuscaloosa News on Oct. 29 2008, "Republican Ted Stevens Loses Alaska Senate Race After Corruption Conviction" in the Lodi News-Sentinel on Nov. 19 2008, "A Cautionary Tale: The Ted Stevens Prosecution" in the Washington Lawyer in October 2009, "Ted Stevens, Longtime Alaska Senator, Dies at 86" in the New York Times on Aug. 10 2010, "As a Senator, 'Uncle Ted' Stevens Helped Move Sparsely Populated Alaska Into The Future" in the Times-Picayune on Aug. 10 2010, "Investigators Find No Clear Cause For Crash That Killed Ted Stevens" in the Alaska Dispatch News on May 24 2011, "Ben Stevens Told He Won't Face Federal Corruption Charges" in the Alaska Dispatch News on Aug. 10 2011, "Guilty Pleas End Alaska Corruption Probe" in the Alaska Dispatch News on Oct. 21 2011, "Report Details Inner Workings of Senator's Troubled Trial" in the New York Times on Mar. 15 2012, "Was Stevens Guilty? Question Likely Won't Be Answered" in the Alaska Dispatch News on Apr. 21 2012, "2 Prosecutors Face Penalty in '08 Trial of a Senator" in the New York Times on May 24 2012, "A Remembrance and Defense of Ted Stevens' 'Series of Tubes'" in PC Magazine on Jun. 5 2014, "Alaska's 'Bridge to Nowhere' Shelved" in the Columbus Dispatch, Congressional Record (Senate) Vol. 145, Congressional Record (Senate) Vol. 153

Melba Till Allen: We are not amused

Image from the Tuscaloosa News

Working to root out corruption at the state level early in her career, Melba Till Allen is credited with helping win adoption of a ethics law for Alabama in 1973. Five years later, she and her lawyers were scrambling to show that the law was unconstitutional in order to keep her out of jail.

The daughter of a farmer, Allen was born in March of 1933 in Friendship Community, Alabama. She lived in Hope Hull and Grady before marrying in December of 1950, at the age of 17, to Marvin E. Allen. From a young age she had dreamed of achieving political office, and finally did so in 1966. That year, she was elected state auditor on the Democratic ticket. It was a banner year for women in Alabama politics; Hull replaced Republican Alice Hudson, and five other women were also elected to high office. Hull held the job from 1967 to 1975, and became known as a crusader against state employees with padded expense accounts. It earned her the nickname "Melba 'Watching the Till' Allen."

Allen's first high-profile scuffle came in the years of 1969 and 1970. After Allen made allegations of violations of law in some contracts and purchases at the state docks in Mobile, Governor Albert Brewer ordered an investigation into the matter. The two were soon at loggerheads over the issue. When the governor's probe cleared docks director Houston Feaster of any wrongdoing, Allen accused him of incompetence. "I doubt the competence of his investigators. I believe they were deliberately trying to whitewash the situation or just doing a poor job," she said. Events continued to seesaw in favor of Allen's contentions and against. Brewer fired Feaster in July of 1970 after he failed to appear before a grand jury, reasoning that it was his right as a private citizen but conflicted with the gubernatorial administration. When the grand jury also cleared Feaster, however, Brewer had harsh words for Allen: "We have reached a sad state of affairs when an an elected official, for political expediency, will engage in character assassination and even attack a grand jury and court." Allen contended that the grand jury had been pressured into an early decision. Finally, in January of 1972, Feaster was convicted of one count of tax evasion charging $14,000 in under-reported income in 1966. The trial included testimony by Marvin Massengale, who testified under immunity and said his firm received $93,000 in kickbacks for construction projects at the docks. Though Feaster was accused of seven other counts of tax evasion charging failure to pay taxes on ill-gotten gains between 1965 and 1968, he was acquitted of all of them.

In the midst of these events, Allen announced that she would be running for the Senate. In December of 1971, she said she would be a candidate in 1972, declaring, "I believe that I could better serve my fellow Alabamians in this capacity." Commenting on the decision, Florence Times and Tri-Cities Daily staff reporter Mel Newman wrote, "Despite the imposing sound of her title and its constitutional prerogatives, the state auditor has been left without great power to ferret out mishandling of public funds, by lack of support from the governor's office, the legislature, and the general public." However, he said, Allen"can be expected to keep the contest a lively one." She kept the promise, but fell short in the primary. She began serving as state treasurer in 1975, and in April of 1977 said she intended to run for governor in the next year's election.

Five months later, the Birmingham News began printing a series of articles accusing Allen of failing to report to the State Ethics Commission a series of loans in 1975 and 1976. These loans were meant to finance the construction of Stars Over Alabama, an amusement park in northern Alabama which never got off the ground; the site itself was destroyed in a suspicious 1977 fire. The newspaper said a number of loans also aimed to boost other, mostly personal business ventures. By law, the state funds (as much as $550 million) had to be deposited in the 300 banks in Alabama; bankers were willing to play along with Allen, realizing they could get the state as a customer if they made personal loans to Allen. In the end, Allen had taken a total of $2.9 million from 58 banks. These included $400,000 in land investments, $378,000 to expand her husband's trucking business, $281,000 for Stars Over Alabama, $75,000 for a movie distribution company, and $14,165 in a wicker distribution company run by her two children. The loans, or rather Allen's failure to report them, attracted the attention of the State Ethics Commission as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission, Internal Revenue Service, and Federal Deposit Insurance Company. The Montgomery County district attorney, Jimmy Evans, said investigators would probe the allegations against Allen and her assistant.

Allen denied any wrongdoing, saying, "My only mistake has been in putting too much trust in some of my business friends." Her tactic was clearly that the best defense was a good offense. She asked state and federal attorneys to look into whether elements in organized crime were trying to discredit her. She also criticized the February 1978 arrest of her financial adviser and University of Tennessee at Nashville professor John Byron Pennington, who was caught in a sting operation while trying to buy information on grand jury proceedings against her. Allen found out what the grand jury had been doing soon enough. The next month, she was indicted on four counts. These charged her with soliciting or accepting the use of an airplane from Florida financier E.A. Gregory (who was associated with one of the Alabama banks during the time of the alleged offenses); two counts of depositing state funds in the American Bank of Geneva in exchange for loans; and demanding a fee, reward, or compensation from the bank for depositing money. One month later, she was indicted again on a charge of violating the State Ethics Act by failing to disclose her banking activity to the State Ethics Commission, reporting only 12 of 36 loans. Allen pleaded innocent to all counts, declaring she would "fight for what is right. I will never give up." She also announced that she wanted to avoid a "trial by newspapers" and that she still intended to run for governor later in the year.

At her trial in May, one banker testified that Allen deposited $100,000 in their institution. In return, Allen borrowed $175,000 and granted the banker 10,000 shares in Stars Over Alabama stock. Another banker said Allen deposited $775,000 in state funds after he granted a $50,000 loan. The defense tried to throw the case out by arguing that the 1973 ethics law was unconstitutional, but when that failed they could only rely on a string of character witnesses, including Governor George Wallace. After only 45 minutes, the jury found Allen guilty of two counts of using her office to gain loans, a violation of the State Ethics Act. She was the first person convicted in Alabama under the law.

In June of 1978, Allen was sentenced to three years in prison. Her attorneys argued that no one in the state lost money by her actions, and that Alabama had made a net gain due to her cost-saving measures. When asked if she had anything to say, she responded, "So help me God, I am not guilty." A new element was thrown into the mix when a legal argument came up regarding her status as treasurer. Though state law declared that public officials sentenced to prison or hard labor automatically forfeited their office, it was unclear whether it applied to the treasurer since that position and other constitutional officers were normally removed by impeachment. Her attorneys vowed that Allen would stay firmly seated in the treasurer's chair until the issue was cleared up.

In response, the state supreme court returned a decision almost immediately saying that the law was different from an impeachment process, and that Allen was out of the job. Governor Wallace replaced her with Annie Laurie Gunter, director of the State Office of Consumer Protection, to fill the remainder of her term. Meanwhile, Allen tried for a new trial, alleging that one juror said several months before the trial that he thought the treasurer guilty based on news accounts. Right on the heels of the first trial, Allen returned to court on the second indictment. She was quickly convicted and sentenced to serve a year, concurrent with the three-year sentence already pending. The judge also dismissed the remaining counts against her. At the latest sentence, she again proclaimed innocence, saying, "I am absolutely not guilty."

Allen kept up a dogged resistance. In August of 1978, she held a press conference to allege that there had been a conspiracy to oust her from office and asked state attorney general Bill Baxley to investigate while both convictions went to trial. She remained free in February of 1979 and proclaimed, "I know I serve the same God Daniel did and God saved him in the lion's den. I will take whatever I have to take." In March of 1980, an attempt to pardon her died in the state house of representatives' rules committee. Seven months later, Allen had won some stays in the execution of her sentence, but had reached the end of the line with the United States Supreme Court's refusal to hear her appeal. The same month, a circuit court judge finally ordered her to serve six months of the sentence. The judge, Perry Hooper, thought she had suffered enough "humiliation and embarrassment" and felt that the county jail was a more fitting lockup than the state penitentiary. Hooper said Allen had led an exemplary life prior to conviction and was "pulled from the pinnacle of political success" with the conviction. The remaining two and a half years were to be served as probation.

Allen finally began her term of incarceration in November of 1980. The reduced time, along with other perks, led to some editorials charging that her station had helped to get her more leniency than would otherwise be found in similar cases. Allen was not only allowed to visit her family for Thanksgiving, but spent the remainder of her prison term after that time working as a bookkeeper at a retirement home under the supervision of a nun.

In January of 1986, Allen again entered the political fray by putting her name up for consideration in the lieutenant governor's race. She had to again argue that she had been wrongly convicted, and mustered less than 2,000 votes at the June primary. The next April, she opened The Little Red Hen Restaurant in Wadsworth. Allen died of cancer in Montgomery in October of 1989.

Sources: The Political Graveyard, "The Petticoat's Place in Alabama Politics Assured" in the Sumter Daily Item on Nov. 17 1966, "Brewer Orders Probe of Docks" in the Tuscaloosa News on Feb. 13 1969, "Docks Probe Called Whitewash" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jun. 17 1969, "Ala.'s Dock Director is Fired" in the Ocala Star-Banner on Jul. 27 1970, "Brewer Charges State Auditor With 'Witch Hunt' at State Docks" in the Gadsden Times on Aug. 1 1970, "Reporter's Notebook" in the Florence Times and Tri-Cities Daily on Dec. 5 1971, "In Alabama" in the Florence Times and Tri-Cities Daily on Dec. 6 1971, "Feaster Denied A New Trial" in the Tuscaloosa News on Apr. 19 1972, "Allen Has Eye on the Governorship" in the Tuscaloosa News on Apr. 21 1977, "Melba Till Allen Denies Charges" in the Tuscaloosa News on Sep. 24 1977, "Melba Till Allen Challenges Reports" in the Tuscaloosa News on Oct. 17 1977, "Ethics Probe on Allen" in the Tuscaloosa News on Oct. 22 1977, "Allen Says Crime Tied to Probes" in the Tuscaloosa News on Dec. 1 1977, "DA To Probe Allen Affair" in the Florence Times and Tri-Cities Daily on Dec. 9 1977, "Mrs. Allen Raps Arrest" in the Tuscaloosa News on Feb. 24 1978, "Melba Till Pleads Innocent" in the Gadsden Times on Mar. 30 1978, "Mrs. Allen is Indicted a Fifth Time" in the Tuscaloosa News on Apr. 12 1978, "Mrs. Allen is Candidate for Governor" in the Tuscaloosa News on Apr. 30 1978, "Melba Convicted on Two Counts" in the Gadsden Times on May 25 1978, "Melba Till Fights Ouster From Job" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jun. 9 1978, "Nation: Too Much Trust" in Time on Jun. 11 1978, "Alabama Treasurer Lost Her Job On Conviction" in the Lewiston Evening Journal on Jun. 10 1978, "Mrs. Allen Loses Bid For New Trial" in the Florence Times and Tri-Cities Daily on Jun. 11 1978, "Governor Wallace Replaces Melba Till As State Treasurer" in the Gadsden Times on Jun. 13 1978, "Melba Till Sentenced to One Year" in the Gadsden Times on Jun. 28 1978, "Conspiracy is Charged" in the Tuscaloosa News on Aug. 25 1978, "Melba Till Allen Faces Jail" in the Tuscaloosa News on Feb. 22 1980, "Allen Pardon Proposal Dies in House Committee" in the Florence Times and Tri-Cities Daily on Mar. 20 1980, "No Hearing, Melba Till Told" in the Gadsden Times on Oct. 7 1980, "Melba Till Gets 6 Months in Jail" in the Tuscaloosa News on Oct. 29 1980, "Melba Till Allen Goes to Jail" in the Gadsden Times on Nov. 3 1980, "Justice: Holiday at Home For Some" in the Tuscaloosa News on Nov. 30 1980, "Melba Till Allen Kicks Off Her Political Drive" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jan. 5 1986, "Official Vote Tally Reflects Only 'Minor' Changes" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jun. 5 1986, "Former State Treasurer Opens Restaurant" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jul. 31 1987