Inouye Backs Sen. Stevens Through Indictment
HONOLULU — Hawaii’s senior senator said Tuesday he believes in longtime friend and colleague Sen. Ted Stevens after the Alaska Republican was indicted Tuesday.
“In our legal system, a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. That is fundamental in our democracy,” Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, said in a statement. “As far as I am concerned, Ted Stevens remains my friend. I believe in him.”
Stevens, 84, was indicted on seven counts of failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in services from an oil services company that helped renovate his home.
Inouye and Stevens have long cooperated across party lines, using their seniority on key committees to secure funding for projects in Alaska and Hawaii no matter which party was in power.
Stevens said he would temporarily step down as vice chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, a committee Inouye chairs, until he’s absolved of the charges.
He also plans to temporarily give up his ranking position on the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee. Inouye chairs the subcommittee.
Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., will take over as the ranking member on the subcommittee.
Dan Boylan, a political analyst and University of Hawaii history professor, said Stevens gives Inouye a bridge to the Republican side of the Senate. But he said Inouye knows, and has good relations, with many other senators as well.
“The depth of Inouye’s influence in the Senate goes beyond the friendship with Ted Stevens,” Boylan said.
Former U.S. Rep. Ed Case agreed, saying Inouye’s relationship with Stevens was one factor behind his power in the Senate but not the only one.
“I wouldn’t expect his influence to diminish,” said Case, who served in Congress from 2002 to 2007.
First elected to the Senate in 1962, Inouye, 83, is the third highest-ranking senator after Sens. Robert Byrd, D-W. Va., and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.
Stevens is the fourth-highest ranking member. He was first elected to the Senate in 1968.