Republicans scramble after Stevens conviction

Stevens pushes ahead with campaign
The immediate future is in the hands of Stevens, who said he would to fight for re-election.

“I am innocent,” he said in a statement after his conviction on Tuesday. “I remain a candidate for the United States Senate. I will come home on Wednesday and ask for your vote.”

Voters appeared divided, but many said the convictions would not change their votes one way or the other.

“I don’t think some clerical error, some paperwork, should define his professional career,” said Carl Washington, a restaurant cook in Anchorage. “That man has backed this state, has put this state on the map.”

But Dianne Parks, also of Anchorage, said Stevens had it coming.

“He has maybe seen himself too powerful,” Parks said. “I think he overstepped, and unfortunately he’s going to have to pay for it now.”

‘Florida in Juneau’?
The latest poll in the race, conducted Oct. 17-19 for NBC affiliate KTUU of Anchorage and The Anchorage Press, showed the race essentially tied, with just 1 point separating Stevens and Begich. 

Even so, Carl Shepro, a professor of political science at the University of Alaska in Anchorage, said that Stevens’ connection to Alaskans ran deep and that it was “very possible” that he would still win next week.

“A lot of people feel the senator is completely innocent and that there are people who have been doing favors for him without him being aware of it,” Shepro said. “The senator is very popular in Alaska.”

That raises the potential for a “Florida in Juneau” court battle to determine how his successor would be picked.

Stevens is not scheduled to be sentenced until after a status hearing in late February, several weeks after he would have been sworn into a new term. Were he then to resign or be forced out by his fellow senators, state law mandates a special election to replace him within 60 to 90 days.

But the law is unclear on how, exactly, that would happen. In 2004, the Legislature changed the law to say the governor must appoint a temporary senator pending the special election. But in a ballot initiative the same year, voters said the governor should not have that much power and voted to get by with no temporary replacement.

The state has yet to resolve the conflict. Were Palin — or her successor, Republican Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, if she becomes vice president — to insist on appointing a replacement, the state Supreme Court would first have to sort everything out.

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