Will a Democratic Congress derail Alaska's pork train?
By Mark Thiessen
Juneau Empire
November 10, 2006
The Alaska all-Republican congressional delegation would have diminished clout and fewer opportunities to bring home the pork with Democrats in control of Congress.
Democrats took the U.S. House after Tuesday's elections and wrestled a 51-49 seat majority in the Senate on Wednesday with a close win in Virginia.
With the GOP losing the House, Alaska's lone congressman, Don Young, will give up his position as chairman of the powerful Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Young, who ranks third in seniority among House Republicans, didn't return a message left at his campaign office on Wednesday. But earlier this week, he was confident he would remain effective for Alaska as the ranking minority member of that committee.
"I don't know if I would buy that," said Gerald McBeath, a political science professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. "He would have less of an opportunity to magnify the size of Alaska grants and shift funding."
Young's support for Alaska infrastructure has included unapologetic backing for two bridges criticized nationally as pork barrel spending. One - the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere" - would link Ketchikan to the island that holds its airport. The other would link Anchorage to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough across Knik Arm and create space for manufacturing, according to Young.
The funding was earmarked for the bridges, but McBeath said a Democratic majority could radically change that system already under scrutiny. "That would have, of course, quite an impact on Alaska because we have benefited greatly from those earmarks," he said.
And Alaskans have come to expect federal money flowing back to the state.
Alaska is one of the top recipients of federal largesse. In 2003, Alaska received $1.89 in federal spending for every $1 the state paid in taxes to Washington, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research organization. The state ranked second, behind New Mexico. Alaska ranked highest in per-capita dollars received from the federal government that year, the group reported.
The losses for Alaska are compounded with Republicans losing the Senate.
U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, in office for 37 years, will lose his chairmanships of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Stevens was traveling Wednesday and not available for comment, his spokesman said.
"There would be a reduction of his ability to bring stuff back to Alaska," said McBeath. "But Stevens has been there so long and is so adept, I think even a change of majority from Republican to Democrat would not totally erase his effectiveness to bring large grants to Alaska."
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said change simply means the Alaska delegation has to work harder.
"The people expect us to govern, whether we're in the majority or the minority," she said. "There's plenty of work to be done.
"I'm hopeful that when we get back into Congress, we will have a real effort between the Republicans and the Democrats to do the business, the work that people have asked us to do," she said in a telephone interview.
McBeath said it will be essential for senators from both parties to form bipartisan coalitions, and both Murkowski and Stevens can do that.
Murkowski said President Bush struck the right chord Wednesday when he pledged to work with Democrats.
"I think people are saying the right things now," she said. "I want that to translate into real action because I think that's what the public's expectation is."
Senator Tom Coburn
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security
340 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-2254 Fax: 202-228-3796
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