The Anchorage Daily News has become a go-to source for the latest corruption in Alaska. The state's ethics woes made national news last week with the indictment of Senator Ted Stevens.  But, the scandal goes much deeper:

A broad federal investigation of public corruption has been under way in Alaska for more than four years, although it didn’t become widely known until Aug. 31, 2006. That’s when teams of federal agents executed search warrants at the offices of six state legislators, as well as others, in Anchorage, Juneau and elsewhere around the state.

(Find all ADN coverage of the investigation here.)

The government has brought indictments against five state legislators. Three have been convicted by juries and two are awaiting trial. Four others - two former top officials with Veco Corp., the former chief of staff of Gov. Frank Murkowski and a private-prison lobbyist - have entered guilty pleas and are cooperating with the government.

By far the most far-reaching charges came on July 29, 2008, when U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. on seven counts of filing false financial disclosure forms and hiding "things of value" he received from one of the Veco officials. Alaska's sole congressman, Don Young, is also under investigation and has reported spending more than $1.2 million on unspecified legal fees since early 2007.

It's never a dull moment in Alaska.  You may recall that all three members of Alaska's Congressional Delegation, Senator Ted Stevens, Senator Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young, made CREW's list of the most corrupt members of Congress, Beyond DeLay.

Now, the relatively new Governor, Sarah Palin, is in hot water and may be facing a legislative investigation.  Via the ever informative Anchorage Daily News:

Alaska Senate leaders want an investigation of whether Gov. Sarah Palin pressured and then fired the public safety commissioner because he wouldn't get rid of a state trooper who had gone through a bitter divorce with Palin's sister.

"I'm fairly confident at this point that what we're going to see is the appointment of an independent investigator," said Anchorage Democratic Sen. Hollis French, chairman of the judiciary committee.

Palin denied any wrongdoing Monday and said she welcomed an investigation.

"I've said all along, hold me accountable," Palin told reporters in Juneau. "And I'm telling the truth when I say that there was never pressure put on Commissioner Monegan."

The governor said she didn't think any conversations she, her husband, Todd, or members of her administration had with the commissioner about Mike Wooten should have been taken as pressure to get rid of the trooper.

There are still on-going federal investigations involving Senator Stevens and Rep. Young.

Another prominent Alaska public official was indicted yesterday.  Alaska has been a hot bed of corruption and federal investigations, which is why the Anchorage Daily News wonders who is next?

The indictment of state Sen. John Cowdery culminates another investigation of a public official targeted in federal raids, subpoenas and wiretaps in Alaska over the last two years.

But what of the far more powerful and prominent elected officials also in the sights of the FBI, IRS and other federal agencies, men like U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, his son Ben, and U.S. Rep. Don Young?

Ben Stevens, the former Alaska Senate president, was probably the best known among those whose legislative offices were searched in a series of raids on Aug. 31, 2006. Nearly a year later, the FBI and IRS searched Ted Stevens' home in Girdwood, in part to document an extensive addition built by Veco Corp. employees and contractors. Young is also under investigation for his ties to Veco and for an earmark he sponsored for a Florida highway interchange sought by a key campaign contributor.

Ben and Ted Stevens and Young say they have done nothing wrong, and federal prosecutors and agents won't say where their investigations are going or when they might get there.

As we noted last night, Jim Clark, who served as Chief of Staff to former Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski, entered a guilty plea to charges stemming from the on-going public corruption scandal in that state. But, Clark isn't finished.  He now has to cooperate with the authorities.  And, we still don't know where that will lead -- although the names of two members of Alaska's Congressional Delegation, Senator Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, are under federal investigation:

Clark is the first member of the executive branch to be charged in the wide-ranging FBI investigation that has resulted in convictions of three former Alaska legislators, pending charges against a fourth, and guilty pleas by a lobbyist and Veco's Allen and Smith.

In a document describing the facts that Clark was pleading to, the government said that it was "merely" summarizing some of Clark's illegal conduct, "but not all." Clark is required by his plea deal to join a growing list of cooperating government witnesses required to testify before grand juries and at trials. The government is seeking to delay his sentencing at least six months because of the complexity of the ongoing inquiry.

While the agreement protects Clark from additional related federal charges as long as he assists the government, it doesn't block the state from pursuing its own charges.

Additional legislators, Stevens and U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, are among those being investigated.

The charging documents said that even with his cooperation, Clark is facing more than three years in prison and a fine of up to $75,000.

From the Anchorage Daily News:

Jim Clark, former chief of staff to ex-Gov. Frank Murkowski, agreed to plead guilty Monday to a single felony charge of fraud in the latest case brought by the federal government in the Alaska corruption scandal. Clark admitted asking officials of the now-defunct oil-field service company Veco to illegally spend more than $68,000 on polls and political consultants for Murkowski's failed re-election bid in 2006.

Alaska's legislature is in the process of passing ethics reform -- much needed ethics reform. A provision to ban all campaign fund raising during the legislative session has met a snag.  A ban on raising money for federal campaigns may not be constitutional based on a Georgia case.  The Anchorage Daily News says pass the ban anyway:

Given the corruption that afflicted the Alaska Legislature, Alaskans want and need legislators to uphold the strongest possible ethical standards. Include a federal election fundraising ban in the legislative ethics reform -- and should any lawmaker decide to challenge it, let's see if the federal courts will come to their senses.

BOTTOM LINE: The tighter the ban on campaign fundraising during a legislative session, the better.

Alaska, the state that has become ground-zero for public corruption, is considering ethics reform.   Legislators and the Governor are offering an array of proposals:

The Alaska Legislature, reeling from corruption convictions of three of its former members, isn't done arguing ethics.

Anchorage Republican Rep. Kevin Meyer said he plans to put in a bill meant to generate discussion about whether legislators should get to vote on something in which they have a potential conflict of interest. Currently, conflicts don't stop voting.

Meyer is also crafting a bill to forbid state legislators who are running for federal office from raising campaign money when the Legislature is in session. That takes a poke at Kodiak Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux's fundraising for her congressional race during this fall's special session on oil taxes.

Gov. Sarah Palin plans to get into the ethics mix as well with some bills of her own. Palin's legislative director, Russ Kelly, said the specifics are still being worked out.

You have to love this passage: 

Some Alaska legislators are weary of being reminded about the corruption that was in their midst. But it doesn't look as though it's going away as an issue anytime soon.

It's not going away soon.  Far from it.   

Another stiff sentence in the extensive Alaska corruption scandal:

In handing down the sentence this morning, U.S. District Judge John Sedwick said he found that Kott, a former House speaker who represented Eagle River until last year, committed perjury in his testimony during his trial in September.

Kott's sentence also includes three years' probation, and he was ordered to receive alcoholism treatment.

Kott's attorney had argued that he should receive 33 months in prison - a little less than three years - while prosecutors had requested 10 years.

A federal jury convicted Kott, 58, of bribery, conspiracy and extortion for his role in advocating an oil tax pushed by Veco Corp. executives and favored by North Slope oil producers. He received nearly $9,000, a political poll for his re-election campaign and the promise of a job, all from Veco executives, according to testimony.

A key witness in Kott's trial was former Veco CEO Bill Allen, who along with a company vice president, Rick Smith, has pleaded guilty to bribing Kott and other lawmakers.

And, yes, this was the case where Ted Stevens was linked to Veco Corp.'s corruption:

The case has wide implications because the FBI is investigating whether Ted Stevens, the U.S. Senate's longest-serving Republican, received illegal gifts from Veco.

Kott's two-week trial included testimony by Allen that he doled out more than $400,000 in bribes to various officials and had company workers remodel the home of Stevens.

Stevens has not been charged and has said he paid all bills he received for the remodeling project.

Seriously, it's never, ever a dull moment in Alaska:

Bill Bobrick, a once-prominent lobbyist who cooperated with the FBI in its investigation of corruption in Alaska politics, will serve five months in federal prison followed by five months of house arrest for his conviction on a conspiracy charge.

U.S. District Judge John Sedwick handed down the sentence this morning. It was the minimum that Bobrick, 52, could have received under federal guidelines, which are advisory.

And at the hearing today, surprising information came out about reported threats made by state Sen. Lesil McGuire, R-Anchorage, who is married to the man that Bobrick helped put away, former state Rep. Tom Anderson.

Doug Pope, Bobrick's lawyer, asked Sedwick to consider that Bobrick testified against Anderson despite the threats by McGuire.

Bobrick, who had a long list of clients who paid him to represent them before the municipality of Anchorage, was one of the main witnesses last summer at Anderson's trial. A jury convicted Anderson of seven felonies, including bribery and money laundering, and he was sentenced to five years. Anderson will report to federal prison in Oregon on Monday.

Anderson was indicted and arrested in December, and it was soon apparent that Bobrick would be a witness against him, Pope said.

Early in 2007, McGuire called both Bobrick and his wife, Jessica Bury, who was in medical school in Minnesota, Pope said. She said that she was hearing Bury might have a hard time being licensed to practice medicine in Alaska.

"Bobrick understood the call to be a threat that if he testified favorably for the government, Lesil McGuire would take steps to see that Jessica did not obtain her medical license," Pope told Sedwick in court.

With the holiday on Monday -- and the major news about the Temporary Restraining Order against the Bush administration, we almost overlooked a front page article in Monday's Washington Post examining the extensive public corruption in Alaska -- and it's potential impact on Alaska's Congressional Delegation. You may recall that all three members of Congress from Alaska -- Senator Ted Stevens, Senator Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young -- were included in CREW's report, Beyond DeLay, as among the most corrupt members of Congress.

The Post article looked back at where the corruption scandal began and where it may lead:

Since breaking into public view a year ago when federal agents raided lawmakers' offices and homes -- finding $32,200 neatly stacked in a closet of Kott's condo -- the federal probe has produced four indictments, three convictions, three guilty pleas and a rapt audience keen to see how high into Alaska's political hierarchy the rot reaches.

Officially, the scandal has remained confined to Juneau, where Alaska lawmakers had grown so accustomed to operating under the presumption of impropriety that several of them embroidered ball caps with the letters CBC, for "Corrupt Bastards Club." (An Anchorage coffeehouse now offers Corrupt Bastards Brew.) But with signs that the investigation is brushing against Alaska's lone congressman, Don Young (R), and its longtime and venerated senator Ted Stevens (R), residents of the Last Frontier are experiencing a rare spasm of soul-searching.

"These disclosures have come as a real shock, because of revelations of what was going on, and because Alaskans have always felt that they are special," said Vic Fisher, 83, one of four surviving members of the convention that only a half-century ago wrote Alaska's state constitution. "And that this thing is ruining our national reputation."

Young, who has represented the nation's largest state in the U.S. House for 34 years, has not been named in the proceedings -- yet he reports spending $450,000 on legal fees over the past six months. Veco, the oil-field services company that Allen owned, was Young's largest campaign contributor.

Stevens, an iconic figure who has dominated Alaska politics for decades, has said little publicly since agents swarmed over his mountainside home, the renovation of which was overseen by Allen.