Don Young
Since 1973, Don Young (R-AK) has served as Alaska's only House Representative. He chairs the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and is vice chair of the House Resources Committee (the former chairman). Young has attracted media scrutiny for his role in the infamous $10 million Coconut Road earmark in Congress' 2005 transportation bill, his dealings with the Veco Corp. (an Alaska oil services company), his acceptance of suspect campaign contributions, and his alleged connections to Jack Abramoff. One of Young’s former aides, Mark Zachares, has pleaded guilty to conspiring with Abramoff to buy influence in Washington. McClatchy reported in August 2007 that a Justice Department corruption task force is looking into the Coconut Road earmark and the Wall Street Journal reported in July 2007 that Young is under investigation for his ties to Veco. In the last quarter Young's campaign has spent $262,000 on legal fees.
Key Points:
Young, or someone on his staff, made “extra-constitutional” alterations to a 2005 federal transportation bill (to include the Coconut Road Earmark)
In 2005, after the House and Senate passed a transportation bill but before the president signed it into law, Young, or someone from his office, rewrote an earmark in the bill that intended to grant $10 million for an interstate in Florida. The changes made by Young’s office targeted the money to a more specific project to connect Coconut Road to that interstate. This revised earmark, which could prove extremely lucrative to the real estate developer Daniel Aronoff, followed an Aronoff sponsored fundraiser in Florida that fetched Young $40,000 in campaign contributions. According to McClatchy, investigators are looking into whether the $10 million Coconut Road earmark was part of a quid pro quo arrangement between Young and Aronoff, who owns land along the road and who has made substantial donations to Young. Young has repeatedly refused to comment on the changed earmark.
Young has ties to Veco and its former CEO Bill Allen, and has already returned suspect campaign contributions from Veco.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Young is presently under federal investigation to determine if he accepted bribes, illegal gratuities or unreported gifts from Veco and its former CEO Bill Allen. Young has already returned $38,000 in donations to Veco. Allen recently testified in a corruption trial of a state official in Alaska that he spent more than $400,000 to bribe state legislators and for work at Senator Ted Stevens' house in the ski resort town of Girdwood.
Young has a history of receiving other suspect campaign contributions.
Young has acknowledged accepting more than $5,500 in illegal campaign contributions from Pacific Seafood Processors Assoc. He eventually returned all of this money, as well as a $2,602 contribution from the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort and Spa. During the spring and summer of 2005, Young raised $37,862 from Alaskans for his re-election campaign but he managed to bring in $90,000 from Floridians, $22,000 from Wisconsites, $174,000 from Arkansans, and $30,000 from New Jerseyans. Many of these contributions have raised suspicion because the have come areas that received large federal transportation earmarks. Indicted Wisconsin businessman Dennis Troha, who also allegedly gave his support to Young in exchange for another measure in the transportation bill, is reportedly cooperating with investigators regarding his contributions to Young.
Evidence strongly suggests a relationship between Young and Abramoff.
There is a multitude of evidence reflecting a relationship between Young and Jack Abramoff, including the fact that the House Resources Committee was significant to Abramoff's clients because it oversees tribal affairs and the U.S. territories. Mark Zachares, a former senior aide on the House Transportation Committee during Young's tenure as chair, pleaded guilty in the spring of 2007 to conspiring with Jack Abramoff to buy influence in Washington. Another of Young's former aides, Duane Gibson, went to work for Abramoff at Greenberg, Traurig LLP. and has since been named in grand jury subpoenas of documents relating to "agents and associates" of Abramoff.
Young, as chair of the Resources Committee in 1997, has a record of helping Abramoff's clients.
Young sponsored legislation to hold a Puerto Rican vote for statehood. At the same time, Abramoff had been hired by a group called Future of Puerto Rico, Inc. to lobby for the same cause. Young also also blocked a bill to make the Mariana Islands a U.S. commonwealth; the bill would have required the islands to comply with U.S. labor laws. Abramoff had been hired by Marianas garment manufacturers and the local government to maintain its labor laws, such as its $3.05 minimum wage. Young has made at least one trip to the Mariana Islands. And at the same time that Young helped block efforts to make the Mariana Islands a U.S. commonwealth, Zachares was a Mariana Islands’ official while Abramoff was the Mariana Islands' lobbyist. Abramoff spent $11 million in his efforts to ensure that Congress didn't interfere with wages or immigration -- the two areas under Zachares' domain.
Young, in February 1999, led a congressional delegation to the Republic of the Marshall Islands The trip was organized by Jack Abramoff.
Abramoff's record of helping Young is clear.
In 2000, Abramoff's firm (Preston, Gates LLP) held a held a tribute to Young during the Republican Convention and between 1999 and 2006, Young's PAC, Midnight Sun, received $19,708 from Abramoff's tribal clients. Five weeks after Young sent a letter on behalf of Abramoff's tribal clients, he received $7,000 from them. Young also held fundraisers in Abramoff's skybox.
Research by Peter Sheehy and Josh Hudelson
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