Stevens used old-school tactics to help his state

Bitter defeats over ANWR
More recently, Stevens has been bitterly disappointed by his inability to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil production. Losing efforts in 2003 and 2005 were bitter defeats.

"People who vote against this today are voting against me, and I will not forget it," then-Appropriations Committee Chairman Stevens said before the 2003 vote.

Stevens came to the Senate in an era when bipartisan friendships were far more common than now. Veterans of World War II populated the chamber, and the 24-hour news cycle that is now so prevalent is defining senators' approaches to their work.

In an interview last year, Stevens lamented how the Senate had changed over the years, especially the ever-more-intense partisanship that has gripped the chamber. He said senators travel together less frequently on fact-finding trips, and they're less likely to forge friendships with members of the other party, such as Stevens' two-peas-in-a-pod relationship with Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, a fellow World War II veteran.

His critics called him the "King of Pork" for relentlessly "earmarking" taxpayer dollars to Alaska. In one recent year, according to the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, Stevens sent almost $1,000 per capita to Alaska, 30 times what went to the average state, based on population.

But Stevens makes no apologies for all the money he has directed to Alaska over the years.

"They can call it what they want," Stevens said last year. "I call it good government."

A decorated pilot in World War II, Stevens attended Harvard Law School and practiced law in Washington, D.C., in the early 1950s before he was appointed U.S. attorney in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Stevens was appointed in 1968 and won a special election in 1970. Until this year, he hasn't faced a difficult race since.

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