In 2000, the State Legislature named Mr. Stevens the Alaskan of the Century, saying he “represents Alaska’s finest contribution to our national leadership.” In his farewell speech on Nov. 20, 2008, he told the Senate, “Working to help Alaska achieve its potential has been and will continue to be my life’s work.”

But he was roundly and repeatedly criticized for the billions he funneled to his state. The watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste said Mr. Stevens regularly got Alaska more dollars per capita than any other state, often through earmarks, the pet projects that lawmakers attach to legislation.

“Ted Stevens was a prolific procurer of pork-barrel projects,” said Tom Schatz, the group’s president, when Mr. Stevens left the Senate. “While his friend Senator Robert Byrd was called ‘the king of pork,’ Ted Stevens was the emperor of earmarks. Since we started counting in 1991, Senator Stevens has accumulated 1,452 projects worth $3.4 billion. That is a record amount.”

Mr. Stevens fiercely defended earmarks, saying Alaska had special needs because the federal government owned much of its land; because the state’s rugged terrain and severe weather required particular help; because, as the 49th state, Alaska needed to catch up with its elders; because its proximity to Russia made it strategically important; and because its oil and gas were national resources.

When Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, tried to shift $452 million that had been allocated for two bridges in Alaska, the so-called Bridges to Nowhere, to rebuild a Louisiana highway wrecked by Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Stevens warned that he would wreak havoc.

“If you want a wounded bull on the floor of the Senate, pass this amendment,” he said. The measure was defeated, 82 to 15, but Alaska later dropped the project.

Image Senator Ted Stevens in 2008. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times

Mr. Stevens’s conviction, for seven violations of the Ethics in Government Act, did not allege that he had traded any of this spending for personal favors. The bulk of the gifts, which he failed to report on a Senate form, consisted of renovations to his home in Girdwood, Alaska. They were paid for by Bill Allen, a longtime friend and the owner of an oil services construction company.