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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell has conceded the tight Republican House primary race to incumbent U.S. Rep. Don Young. Parnell said Thursday he would not ask for a recount in the race he lost by 304 votes. Parnell conceded in a statement e-mailed to reporters and confirmed by campaign spokeswoman Cathy Giessel.

"Rep. Don Young, a 35-year veteran of the U.S. House and currently under federal investigation, narrowly won the Republican primary battle Wednesday to keep his seat, Alaska's only one in the House of Representatives," the AP says. "In a close race only decided with the final counting of about 350 outstanding absentee and questioned ballots, Young beat Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell by 304 votes. Young finished with 48,195 votes; Parnell had 47,891 votes....

U.S. Representative Don Young of Alaska still has a slim lead in a tight primary race against state Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell. Young was 172 votes ahead of Parnell this evening (Friday) with most of the absentee and questioned ballots counted. That's up slightly from 151 votes after the primary election a week and a half ago. Ballots from five House districts still remain to be counted tonight and the last overseas ballots won't be counted until Wednesday. But campaign spokesman Mike Anderson said Young was cautiously optimistic. Young, the subject of a federal investigation for his ties to oil...

With another hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast, the so-called “bridge to nowhere,” championed by Alaska’s Congressional delegation on behalf of the people of Ketchikan, just won’t go away. Three years ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the plan to spend hundreds of millions to connect Ketchikan with its airport on Gravina Island became a national symbol of Congressional excess, much to the dismay of Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young. Sen. John McCain has made it a habit to ridicule the bridge project during his presidential campaign. McCain has promised to veto any bill sent to...

U.S. Rep. Don Young and Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will have to wait until Sept. 5 to find out which of them will face Democrat Ethan Berkowitz in November. With all but one of Alaska's 438 precincts reporting late Wednesday afternoon, less than two-tenths of a percentage point separated Young and Parnell in the Republican U.S. House primary. Young was in the lead with 42,539 votes, just 152 votes more than Parnell's 42,387. The state Division of Elections was still waiting for the Interior village of Hughes to turn in its ballot count.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell held a slight lead early today (Wednesday) in the Republican race for US House. With 85% of Alaska precincts reporting, Parnell held a 213-vote lead over the incumbent, US Representative Don Young.

Facing bad publicity and a dwindling campaign account, U.S. Rep. Don Young last year turned to the "AK Wolfpack," a group of more than 20 lobbyists, including former Young staffers and retired former congressmen, with close ties to the Alaska Republican. Young's chief of staff, Mike Anderson, sent the Wolfpack an e-mail to tell them that national Democrats planned aggressive fundraising and claims of misconduct by Young to topple the 35-year incumbent congressman and his fellow Alaska Republican, U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens. If they succeed, Anderson warned, "you and your clients will be impacted." Anderson e-mailed the fundraising appeal on...

Today, the Club for Growth Political Action Committee endorses Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell in his bid to unseat Republican Rep. Don Young in the state's August primary. The reason for the endorsement is simple. Mr. Parnell is a solid conservative who led the fight for lower taxes and spending in the state legislature, and joined Gov. Sarah Palin in pushing for reform in the state. The man he is hoping to replace isn't economically conservative in the least. Mr. Young is actually a poster child for what has gone wrong with the Republican Party in Washington.

Today, the Club for Growth Political Action Committee endorses Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell in his bid to unseat Republican Rep. Don Young in the state's August primary. The reason for the endorsement is simple. Mr. Parnell is a solid conservative who led the fight for lower taxes and spending in the state legislature, and joined Gov. Sarah Palin in pushing for reform in the state. The man he is hoping to replace isn't economically conservative in the least. Mr. Young is actually a poster child for what has gone wrong with the Republican Party in Washington. Over his 35...

BUTTE, Alaska (AP) - For decades, Alaskans have contentedly called Ted Stevens senator, and Don Young congressman, their Republicans in far-off Washington. Now other, less flattering names are creeping into conversation. Crook, for example. Or jerk. Or old, washed up. And because of it, Democrats sense opportunity even in the Last Frontier, a state that has dealt them mostly defeat for a generation. "I've been voting for Ted and Don all my life," says Scott Frank, 45, a blue-collar Republican sipping coffee at the Butte Cafe, "but they've really screwed up." Shoulder-to-shoulder around a slab-wood table, Frank and his pals...

The lieutenant governor of Alaska, Sean Parnell, announced today that he's challenging ethically embattled Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) in the Republican primary, raising the likelihood of a hotly contested fight for the GOP nomination. Parnell announced his intentions at the state’s Republican Party convention, according to The Associated Press. He will be formally kicking off his campaign at a news conference this afternoon in Anchorage. Parnell is an ally of the state's governor, Sarah Palin, a reform-minded Republican who unseated former Gov. Frank Murkowski in a 2006 Republican primary. An attorney, he has served in both the state House and...

In a surprise move, Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell announced Friday at the State GOP Convention that he will challenge embattled Congressman Don Young in the Republican primary. Young -- an 18-term incumbent -- is reportedly the target of a federal corruption investigation. Young's campaign committee has already spent over $800,000 on legal fees related to the investigation. Independent polling has shown Young trailing former State House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz (D) in general election matchups. "For too long, we have expected too little from our elected officials. It is time for change," said Parnell. As Parnell is a close ally...

LEE COUNTY, Fla. -- Coconut Road near Fort Myers looks like any other concrete ribbon near housing developments, golf courses and shopping malls in this state's booming southwest. But like another fragrant slab of recent pork, the $223 million "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska, Coconut Road leads to somewhere darkly fascinating. It runs straight into Washington's earmark culture of waste, corruption and anticonstitutional deviousness. Today the road ends at a chain-link fence, beyond which flows the river of traffic on Interstate 75. The earmark that would have built an interchange to connect Coconut Road to I-75 was, like the bridge,...

A pair of ethically-embattled GOP lawmakers from Alaska are finding themselves viewed unfavorably by a growing number of the state’s voters, according to a newly-conducted poll from Hays Research Group. Only 44 percent of Alaska voters said they approved of Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-Alaska) performance in office, while 38 percent disapprove. Stevens has been a stalwart in Alaska politics since first elected in 1968, and the six-point net approval rating is one of his lowest levels of support since first elected. Stevens has faced little re-election difficulties since first elected, never winning less than 66 percent of the vote. But...

October 18, 2007, 7:30 a.m. How to Lose, Don YoungÂ’s WayA lesson of 2006: Purge now or pay later. By David Freddoso How can House Republican leaders stave off a rout in 2008? The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), responsible for electing Republican House members, had a pathetic $1.6 million in cash at the end of August. Republican retirements from the House continue to rack up, including several in vulnerable districts. The issues seem to be stacked against the GOP as Democrats exploit issues such as health care and the Iraq war. There has been talk of a few...

A new poll of Alaska voters finds that Alaskans, weary from the scandal-plagued Rep. Don Young (R-AK), support challenger Ethan Berkowitz (D) by a 51% to 45.5% split. This marks the first time the challenger has held a lead over Young this cycle. Perhaps of even more concern for Young, the poll found 34% are strong Berkowitz supporters -- unlikely to change their decision -- while only 19% of those polled called themselves strong supporters of Young. Berkowitz was the 2006 Democratic nominee for Lt. Governor. CQ: "Young has rarely faced serious competition since the 1973 election he won to...

U.S. Rep. Don Young already faces significant opposition in the general election next year. Now he’s facing opposition in the Republican primary. State Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, R-Kodiak, announced Wednesday she will seek Young’s seat in Congress. In an interview with the Kodiak Daily Mirror today, LeDoux said she officially filed papers to run for Young’s seat. LeDoux, an attorney and former Kodiak Island Borough mayor, is attending a board meeting today in Anchorage for the Alaska Aerospace Development Corp., which oversees operation of the Kodiak Launch Complex.

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate John Binkley agrees with Palin that the public is upset. "They don't like the back room deals that have been cut. I think there have been errors in judgment in people as they've dealt with people like Bill Allen, and what that's caused for our state, for our delegation. And they want a change. They don't want to see that business as usual," Binkley said. Like Binkley, former Lt. Gov. Loren Leman says he's not planning to run against Young or Stevens, but also says that's subject to change. "And if nothing changes that would suggest,...

Some called it a bridge to the future. Others called it the bridge to nowhere. The bridge is going nowhere. On Friday, the state abandoned the controversial project in Ketchikan that became a national symbol of federal pork-barrel spending. It closes a chapter that has brought the state reams of ridicule, but it also leaves open wounds in a community that fought for decades to get federal help. "We went through political hot water -- tons of it -- and not just nationally but internationally," said Ketchikan-Gateway Borough Mayor Joe Williams. "We have nothing to show for it." The $398...

The state of Alaska on Friday officially abandoned the controversial "bridge to nowhere" project in Ketchikan that became symbol of federal pork-barrel spending. The $398 million bridge would have connected Ketchikan to its airport on a nearby island. "Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer," Gov. Sarah Palin said in a prepared statement. She directed the state transportation department to find the most "fiscally responsible" alternative for access to the airport. Republicans U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and U.S. Rep. Don Young championed the project through Congress two years ago,...

One of the most conservative members of the Alaska Legislature called for some of the state's most prominent Republican politicians to step aside. Sound off on the important issues at In a letter to the Fairbanks News-Miner, published Sunday, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Fairbanks, said he'd like to see both U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and U.S. Rep. Don Young announce their intent to retire and not run for re-election

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens and the state’s sole U.S. House member Don Young, both Republicans, have dominated their elections, and have done so over an extraordinary length of time. Stevens was first elected in 1970 after receiving a Senate appointment in 1968 — a tenure that in April made him the chamber’s longest-serving Republican ever. Young was first sent to the House in a 1973 special election. But the 83-year-old Stevens, a former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the 74-year-old Young, who has chaired both what is now the House Natural Resources Committee and the Committee on Transportation...

Hooray! Finally those nasty and obscenely profitable oil companies will get their just desserts. The Democrat-controlled House Of Representatives just recently voted to repeal tax breaks that were in place to encourage domestic oil exploration and drilling. Wait a minute. Why would they repeal tax breaks that are designed to free us from foreign (mostly Arab) oil? Why, to encourage the use of Biofuels, of course. The same Biofuels that most experts now admit cost more energy to produce and transport than they contain – the same Biofuels that Brazil, formerly a leading user of fuel produced from sugar cane,...

DRIVING OUT SHERRY Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, one of the most liberal Republicans in Congress who is now serving his 12th term from upstate New York, might not seek re-election in 2006 if he is shut out from committee chairmanships. Boehlert is serving his last year as Science Committee chairman thanks to term limits. Although he is next in line to head the Transportation Committee (a principal dispenser of pork), current Chairman Don Young of Alaska is expected to block Boehlert's ascension. Boehlert's lifetime support record by the American Conservative Union is only 40 percent. A footnote: Rep. Tom Petri of...

You heard what the Senate did to Tom Coburn's attempt to impose some sanity on spending. How do they live with themselves? Years ago, interviewing economist Walter Williams for a show ABC News called "Greed," I was perplexed when Williams said, "a thief is more moral than a congressman; when a thief steals your money, he doesn't demand you thank him." That was silly hyperbole, I thought, but watching Congress spend, I see that I was naive and Williams was right. When the Democrats held power, I confronted Sen. Robert Byrd about wasting our money on "Robert Byrd Highway"-type projects...

Reps. Tom DeLay and Don Young Are Co-Porkers of the Month (Washington, D.C.) - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) Co-Porkers of the Month for their response to requests to offset the costs of Hurricane Katrina relief. According to a September 14 Washington Times article, Rep. DeLay declared an “ongoing victory” in the effort to cut spending, and that the Republicans had “pared [the government] down pretty good.” While claiming to be receptive to proposed offsets, Mr. DeLay said that “nobody has been able...

2006 Congressional Election Cycle Has Begun  50 Republican Incumbents Undeserving of Support by Pro-life Voters   The Republican National Coalition for Life PAC is currently receiving phone calls from Republican candidates for Congress in the 2006 Republican primaries. Our usual practice is to mail our Candidate Questionnaire to Republican candidates in each district as soon as the filing deadlines are reached. When we receive the results of the questionnaire, they are recorded on our website at www.RNCLife.org so that voters can see for themselves it those seeking to represent them in Washington are truly pro-life. We hope that this service...

YOU have probably already heard about the pile of cash going to Alaska from the federal transportation bill. There's about a quarter of a billion dollars for a bridge to connect the airport on Gravina Island to Ketchikan (population 14,000). The bridge will rival the Golden Gate and Brooklyn Bridges in length and height. Then there's $230 million or so for "Don Young's Way," a bridge between Anchorage and a swampy, undeveloped port, which is named for the man who got us the money, Alaska's lone congressman. But it's the $15 million designated for a road between Juneau and Skagway...

Fifteen years from now, 28,000 trucks a day, many of them hauling double or triple trailers, may be speeding up and down special truck lanes on Virginia’s Interstate 81, belching tons of carbon monoxide into the Shenandoah Valley each year. Proponents of “toll truckways,” such as the influential libertarian Reason Foundation think tank, believe they are the wave of the future and the answer to the nation’s transportation needs. Today, trucks on the four-lane I-81 account for as much as 40 percent of total traffic, thanks in part to the North American Free Trade Agreement. The road, which has become...

Today the House of Representatives passed the mammoth $284 billion transportation bill, or the Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy For Users. The transportation bill has long been one of the favorite bills of lobbyists and congressmen. As I noted in an earlier post entitled “Pork & Beans: A Look at the Transportation Bill,” profligate spending is just one problem with the bill. Despite the record size of the bill and a 42% increase from the previous bill, Chairman Don Young (R-AK), still claims it’s not enough. Amazingly, he says that $284 billion is inadequate to make inroads at the congestion...

ETCHIKAN, Alaska, April 8 — Even by the standards of Alaska, the land where schemes and dreams come for new life, two bridges approved under the national highway bill passed by the House last week are monuments to the imagination.One, here in Ketchikan, would be among the biggest in the United States: a mile long, with a top clearance of 200 feet from the water — 80 feet higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and just 20 feet short of the Golden Gate Bridge. It would connect this economically depressed, rain-soaked town of 7,845 people to an island that has about...

Musgrave alleges intimidationAlaska lawmaker berated her, she saysBy Mike Soraghan, Denver Post Washington BureauWASHINGTON - Freshman Rep. Marilyn Musgrave is leading the charge against a gasoline tax increase being pushed by fellow Republicans. But she's finding that the limelight can be an uncomfortable place. Musgrave, of Fort Morgan, said this week that the chief sponsor of raising the tax, House Transportation Committee chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, tried to intimidate her with an in-your-face tirade on the House floor. She said he also threatened highway projects in her district. "I have never had a man talk to me the way Mr....

Subject: A fighting freshman May 23, 2003 Representative Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO), one of our new caucus members -- and a lowly freshman, no less -- has had the audacity to stand up to the all-powerful chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. Don Young (R-AK, 15 terms in office!). In fact, Mrs. Musgrave is leading the charge to keep Mr. Young from raising the tax you pay on gasoline. Imagine! Rep. Musgrave received an old-fashioned dressing down for her impertinence. "I've been married a long time and my husband is a gentleman. And I've never had a man talk to...

<p>Washington -- Republican lawmakers on Wednesday offered what they said was a compromise on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.</p> <p>In exchange for opening the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain to the oil industry, the rest of the refuge in Northeast Alaska would be forever protected from development.</p>