Written by: Jim Hansen
Wednesday, May 09, 2007

When big influencing peddling scandals start to unravel, the money trail often leads to many parts of the country. We have a system that requires our federal elected officials to have their hands out for as much private money as they can possibly collect. So, it is not surprising that now that two oil executives (VECO's CEO Bill Allen and VP Rick Smith) in Alaska have pled guilty to federal bribery, extortion and tax fraud charges, we are starting to find out that VECO executives gave campaign money to many other elected officials outside of Alaska as well.

There is some good research that the watch-dog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has released. The executives were indicted along with one current and three former Alaska state legislators that were connect with VECO. The charging documents include the giving of "special bonuses" to VECO executives that were then given to state and federal candidates, including President Bush. The Alaska Public Interest Research Group pointed out that FEC reports show these are some of the members of Congress who received campaign contributions from VECO executives: Sen. Christopher Bond (MO), Sen. Richard Burr (NC), Sen. Tom Coburn (OK), Sen. Norm Coleman (MN), Sen. Larry Craig (ID), Rep. Barbara Cubin (WY), Sen. James DeMint (SC), Sen. John Ensign (NV), Sen. Daniel Inouye (HI), Rep. Steve Pearce (NM), Rep. Jon Porter (NV), Rep. Dennis Rehberg (MT), Sen. Arlen Specter (PA), Sen. John Sununu (NH), Sen. John Thune (SD), Sen. David Vitter (LA), Sen. George Voinovich (OH).

The Center for Responsive Politics has a story on this as well in their Capital Eye newsletter.

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