The Anchorage Daily News has a lot of questions for Rep. Don Young.  But, like the rest of us, the paper isn't getting any answers.  Today, the ADN called on Congress to investigate the Coconut Road earmark, too: 

Let Justice proceed -- and let's have Congress take its own hard look, with subpoena power and little delay.

And, there's more:

WHY $1.1 MILLION FOR LAWYERS?

Alaskans still have reason to wonder why Rep. Young has spent $1.1 million on lawyers.

Let's be clear -- Rep. Young has not been charged with any wrongdoing, has not been indicted for anything. But a majority of his colleagues voted to investigate him. The suspicion, naturally, is that there's more than what Rep. Young called "innuendo" to investigate.

Rep. Young took the floor of the House last week and declared his innocence. That doesn't settle the matter.

Last month we argued for one investigation or the other, as long as it cleared the air. Let's be sure. Both Congress and Justice should investigate -- the sooner the better.

BOTTOM LINE: Both Congress and the Justice Department should take a hard look at the Coconut Road deal.

Today's media coverage on the House vote for an investigation of the "Coconut Road" earmark address the concerns raised by CREW after the Senate and House votes.  The reality is the investigation by the Department of Justice won't proceed -- and the rather important document called Constitution of the United States is one of the biggest roadblocks:

But critics contend that House members may be so open to an investigation precisely because they know it won’t go anywhere. “It’s laughable,” said Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “They want the headlines, so they’re going to do this. But it’s an absolute farce.”

Stanley Brand, a former general counsel for the House, said the barriers to investigation and prosecution — especially in the Coconut Road case — arise straight from the Constitution. “The Speech or Debate Clause would prevent Justice from questioning lawmakers about what happened on the House floor or outside in the enrollment process,” he told Politico this week. “That’s the essential nature of the crime, or the alleged crime.”

“There’s nothing outside the scope of the clause,” Brand added. “I don’t know what they’re doing.”

As promised in the post below, here is CREW's statement on today's House vote for a Department of Justice investigation of the Coconut Road earmark.   From Melanie Sloan:

First CREW would like to commend Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) attention to the Coconut Road earmark and his relentless pursuit to get to the bottom of the matter. Clearly, something went seriously awry before the 2005 highway funding bill was sent to the president. It certainly appears as if Rep. Don Young (R-AK) snuck in the earmark in exchange for campaign contributions from Florida developer Daniel Aronoff. Although Rep. Young is now critical of the Senate for ‘meddling in House Affairs,’ the House has long-known about the problems with the Coconut Road earmark. It was Sen. Coburn who would not let the issue die.

In fact, the House Ethics Committee has had a complaint for over a year and took no action whatsoever. Neither the House nor the Senate has a strong track record of policing and punishing the illegal or unethical conduct of their members. This situation perfectly illustrates why Congress needs an independent ethics office -- with subpoena power -- to investigate members.

There are many questions remaining. But, in referring the matter over to the Department of Justice, both the Senate and the House have ignored the Speech or Debate clause, which prevents law enforcement from introducing legislative material (such as an earmark in a bill) as evidence against a lawmaker. Moreover, the House takes an expansive view of the breadth of the Speech or Debate clause. Recently, for example, the House counsel’s office sought to quash a Justice Department subpoena issued to a former Appropriations committee staff member in connection with the criminal investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis’s (R-CA) earmarks. The House likely will assert the same arguments here.

The American public needs to have confidence that members of Congress are held accountable for their illegal and unethical conduct. Today’s vote is again nothing more than Kabuki theater given the likely constitutional impediment to a Justice Department investigation.

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives will most likely join the Senate by voting for a measure requesting an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into the now infamous Coconut Road earmark. We'll have CREW's statement on that vote shortly after it occurs. However, before the vote, Rep. Don Young, who is at the center of the controversy, defended the earmark -- but never explained how it got included in the final legislation:

For the first time, Rep. Don Young has offered a public explanation for a secret transportation earmark that so angered fellow lawmakers they called on the Justice Department to investigate it.

Speaking today on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Young acknowledged that he had "been the subject of much innuendo" for the 2005 earmark, which shifted $10 million from a road widening project in southwest Florida to a study of an Interstate interchange that promised to benefit one of Young's campaign donors.

After his speech, the House voted to join a Senate call for a Justice Department investigation into the earmark. The request for an investigation was attached to a bill that makes technical corrections to Young's original 2005 highway spending plan. The bill also allows Florida to spend the $10 million on road widening and not the Coconut Road interchange study.

Young said that the earmark, part of a $286.4 billion highway bill he oversaw as chairman of the House Transportation committee, was never designed to benefit anyone in particular. The accusations have "little if any connection with what actually occurred," Young said in an 11-minute speech on the House floor.

Even as Young defended the earmark, he did not offer an explanation for how it was inserted into the highway-spending bill after the House and Senate both had voted on it. As chairman, Young said, he had no control over the bill enrollment process.

CREW predicted there would be constitutional challenges to the Senate's decision to ask the Justice Department to investigate the controversial Coconut Road earmark.  So, Rep. Young's objection isn't a big surprise:

Rep. Don Young says the Senate overstepped its authority when it voted to seek a federal investigation of an altered earmark.

“What the Senate did was unconstitutional,” the Alaska Republican said Wednesday. “No other body can request an investigation on another body.”

The Senate included language calling for a criminal investigation in a bill (HR 1195) intended to make revisions to the 2005 highway law (PL 109-59).

Any Justice Department investigation would mean scrutiny of Young and his staff, since Young was chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee when a $10 million earmark was changed between final passage and presentation to President Bush.

Senator Coburn (R-OK) has been dogged in his determination of the "Coconut Road" earmark controversy.  Yet, he's not sure the Senate's vote for an investigation by the Department of Justice will pass constitutional muster.  Coburn spoke to the Anchorage Daily News:

Coburn, who opposes earmarks and has been critical of the Alaska delegation, had asked for a bipartisan House and Senate committee to investigate the earmark. It would then refer its findings to the proper authorities. His proposal had 49 supporters, but needed 60 votes for approval.

Later, Coburn said he feared that the Senate's vote Thursday was unconstitutional. Congress can't order a criminal investigation any more than the Justice Department can investigate violations of congressional rules, Coburn said. It violates the Speech and Debate clause of the Constitution, which keeps investigators from using legislative materials as evidence of wrongdoing in criminal investigations.

"Violating congressional rules is not a crime, yet Congress has just given away its right to police itself with this misguided amendment," Coburn said.

His concerns were echoed by congressional budget and ethics watchdog groups, who say they worry that a criminal investigation won't get at the heart of what is essentially a procedural problem.

As noted below, today, the United States Senate approved legislation that requires the Department of Justice to investigate the "Coconut Road" earmark controversy. Melanie Sloan criticized the Senate for asking the Justice Department to do this investigation:

Clearly, something went seriously awry before the 2005 highway funding bill was sent to the president. The question now is the best way to find out how and why this occurred. It certainly appears as if Don Young (R-AK) snuck in the earmark in exchange for campaign contributions from Florida developer Daniel Aronoff. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) is to be commended for insisting that the Senate address this matter. Nevertheless, in sending the matter over to the Department of Justice, the Senate has ignored the Speech or Debate clause, which prevents law enforcement from introducing legislative material (such as an earmark in a bill) as evidence against a lawmaker. In addition, while the Senate has called for an investigation, the House undoubtedly will do everything possible to stymie such an inquiry. The House takes an expansive view of the breadth of the Speech or Debate clause. Recently, for example, the House counsel’s office sought to quash a Justice Department subpoena issued to a former Appropriations committee staff member in connection with the criminal investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis’s (R-CA) earmarks. The House likely will assert the same arguments here.

Given this impediment to a criminal probe, Senator Coburn’s suggestion that a bicameral committee investigate the matter might have been more likely to reveal the facts, but sadly neither the House nor the Senate have a strong track record of policing and punishing the illegal or unethical conduct of their members. This situation perfectly illustrates why Congress needs an independent ethics office -- with subpoena power -- to investigate members. The American public needs to have confidence that members of Congress are held accountable for their illegal and unethical conduct. Today’s vote is nothing more than Kabuki theater given the likely constitutional impediment to a Justice Department investigation

From TPM Muckraker:

Sen. Barbara Boxer's (D-CA) amendment just passed by a margin of 63 to 29. Virtually all Senate Democrats supported the measure, helped by a good number of Republicans.

The amendment requires a review by the Department of Justice into the allegations of impropriety regarding Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) Coconut Road earmark and an investigation into whether the change broke the law.

No surprise, GOP House leaders are opposed to the investigation, which would undoubtedly implicate Rep. Don Young (R-AK).

Speaker Pelosi wants the House Ethics Committee to investigate Coconut Road.

The Senate is actually proceeding with its effort to get to the bottom of the "Coconut Road" earmark scandal.  And, by get to the bottom, Senators are actually pushing for a criminal investigation:

The Senate moved yesterday toward asking the Justice Department for a criminal investigation of a $10 million legislative earmark whose provisions were mysteriously altered after Congress gave final approval to a huge 2005 highway funding bill.

In what may become the first formal request from Congress for a criminal inquiry into one of its own special projects, top Senate Democrats and Republicans have endorsed taking action in connection with the earmark that Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), former chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, inserted into the legislation.

"It's very possible people ought to go to jail," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees highway funding.

Well, this wouldn't be good for Rep. Don Young: 

An Oklahoma senator plans is planning to propose legislation next week that would force a special congressional investigation to find out who set aside $10 million in a 2005 transportation bill -- after it won final House and Senate passage -- to study a possible highway interchange in Southwest Florida. Such an investigation would almost certainly focus on veteran Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, who was chairman of the House Transportation Committee when the unusually late substantive revision was made in the summer of 1995.

Months earlier, Young collected more than $40,000 at a fundraiser in Bonita Springs, Fla., much of it from a Florida real estate developer and others seeking the interchange along Interstate Highway 75.

McClatchy reported last year that the FBI was looking at Young's role in redirecting the $10 million, which until then had been specified for widening a portion of I-75, as part of an investigation into his earmarking practices and his relationship with an Alaska oil services company.

Republican Sen. Tom Coburn's amendment, a copy of which was obtained by McClatchy, would create a select committee appointed by congressional leaders in each chamber to "determine when, how, why and by whom such improper revisions (to the bill) were made."