Reid: Stevens, as felon, will not stay in Senate Nick Cargo

Published: Sunday November 2, 2008





Print This Email This Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has made it clear that Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), having attained the status of convicted felon on October 27 pending sentencing, will not remain in his Senate seat.



"[As] precedent shows us," Reid said in a Saturday statement, "Senator Stevens will face an ethics committee investigation and expulsion, regardless of his appeals process."



Stevens' longtime friend Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) disagreed. "As the Senate has done in every other instance in its long 220-year history, I am absolutely confident that Ted Stevens will be sworn into the Senate while he appeals this unjust verdict," he said. "I am certain that this decision in Washington, D.C., will be overturned on appeal."



"While I respect the opinion of Senator Daniel Inouye," Reid countered, "the reality is that a convicted felon is not going to be able to serve in the United States Senate...This is not a partisan issue and it is unfortunate that Senator Stevens has used his long time friendship with Senator Inouye for partisan political gain."



Stevens, 84, has held his seat since December 1968, and is up for re-election on Tuesday. He was convicted in federal court last week on seven counts of violating the Ethics in Government Act by making false statements on financial disclosure forms between 1999 and 2006 to conceal over $250,000 worth of gifts and services from Alaska oil services contractor VECO, including a remodel of one of his houses.



"I have not been convicted of anything," Stevens insisted at a Thursday night debate in Anchorage with Democratic challenger Mark Begich, the city's mayor. "I'm not going to step down. I have not been convicted. I have a case pending against me, and probably the worse case of prosecutorial...misconduct by the prosecutors that is known."



Those who have also signaled the end of Stevens' political career include Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who expressed "zero tolerance" for a convicted felon in the Senate, and Senator McCain (R-AZ) who said that Stevens has "broken his trust with the people and that he should now step down."



(with wire reports)



