Convicted felon Ted Stevens should resign from the U.S. Senate.
And Alaska voters on Nov. 4 should crush his bid for re-election.
Those points are clear following his conviction Monday on seven counts of trying to hide more than $250,000 in free home renovations and other gifts from a wealthy oil contractor.
Unfortunately, Stevens has vowed not to resign. And even if he did quit before the end of this term, it’s unclear if Alaska could replace him.
According to an analysis by the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska’s law on senatorial succession was changed twice in 2004 — once by the Legislature and once by ballot initiative. Both laws call for a special election within 60 days of the vacancy. But they disagree on whether the governor appoints an interim senator in the meantime. The Alaska Supreme Court would ultimately have to resolve the conflict in the laws.
As unseemly as it is to have a convicted felon serving in the Senate, there’s no law against it. The U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 3, says: “No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state for which he shall have been chosen.”
The courts have ruled that neither state legislatures nor Congress can add requirements to those constitutional minimums, so Stevens’ felony conviction doesn’t automatically force his ouster. But since Section 5 also gives both the House of Representatives and the Senate the power to “be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members,” the Senate would have the power to expel Stevens by a two-thirds vote.
That almost certainty won’t happen before the lame-duck Congress leaves office, since the Senate has traditionally let members convicted of a crime appeal their sentences before moving to expel them. The ambiguity about whether Alaska could appoint anyone to serve out the few weeks remaining before the new Congress begins would make the holdover Senate even more reluctant to act.
But if Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, a Democrat, defeats Stevens on Tuesday, it would be a gracious act for Stevens to then resign and allow Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to name Begich to fill out the remaining days of Stevens’ term. That would give the new Alaska senator a leg up on seniority, assuming the courts sanctioned the move.
If, however, Alaskans re-elect the felon Stevens, the Senate should expel him in January. Four other senators have been convicted of felonies and, while none were actually expelled, several have resigned rather than face expulsion.
Technicalities aside, Stevens is a crook who has no business representing the great state of Alaska. The sooner he goes, the better.
