Don Young

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Don Young

United States Representative from Alaska's At-large district
In office 1973 - Present
Preceded by	Nick Begich
Succeeded by	Incumbent

Born	June 9, 1933 Meridian, California
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Lu Young
Religion	Episcopalian

Donald Edwin (Don) Young (born June 9, 1933) has been the sole congressman from Alaska in the United States House of Representatives since 1973. He is a Republican.

1 Early life
2 In Congress
3 Recent controversies
4 Quotes
5 Committees and caucus
6 External links
7 References

[edit] Early life

Young was born in Meridian, California. He earned an associate's degree in education from Yuba Junior College in 1952 and a bachelor's degree from Chico State College (now California State University, Chico) in 1958. He served in the Army from 1955 to 1957.^[1]

Young moved to Alaska in 1959, not long after it became a state. He eventually settled in Fort Yukon, a 700-person city on the Yukon River, seven miles above the Arctic Circle in Alaska’s central interior region. He made a living in construction, fishing, trapping and gold mining. He captained a tugboat and ran a barge operation to deliver products and supplies to villages along the Yukon River. He still holds his mariner's license today. During the winter, he taught fifth grade at the local Bureau of Indian Affairs elementary school.

Young began his political career in 1964 when he was elected mayor of Fort Yukon. After only one term, he was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives and served two terms before being elected to the Alaska Senate in 1970.

Young is married to the former Lula Fredson. They have two daughters. The Youngs are Episcopalians.

[edit] In Congress

This article or section does not cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!) This article has been tagged since October 2006.

Alaska's at-large congressman, Democrat Nick Begich, disappeared in a plane crash on October 16, 1972. He was reelected to the House that November, but was declared dead on December 29. Young, who had been the Republican candidate against Begich in November, ran in the special election in March 1973 and won, just barely defeating Democrat Emil Notti. He won a full term in 1974 in another relative squeaker, largely due to his role in fighting for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. However, he didn't face another serious opponent until 1990. That year, John Devens, the mayor of Valdez, nearly defeated him because of dissatisfaction with Young's role in the investigation of the Exxon Valdez spill. Devens ran another close race against Young in 1992, but Young was reelected in 1994 with 57 percent of the vote and had not faced serious opposition until the 2006 election year, with Democratic challenger Diane Benson. He was reelected to his 16th full term in 2004 with 72%, the most votes ever for a single candidate in a statewide election in Alaska. In 2006 He won re-election for his House seat against Diane Benson (D) 56%-42%. Though he was never expected to lose the election, his much smaller margin of victory compared to the 2004 election is notable.

Young is the 8th-longest serving House member, and the 3rd most senior Republican (ranked only by Bill Young of Florida and Ralph Regula of Ohio). Due to his long tenure in the House and that of Senator Ted Stevens, Alaska is considered to have clout in national politics far beyond its small size (it has long been one of the smallest states in population and is currently 47th, ahead of only North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming). He is often called "Alaska's third senator."

Young's voting record is relatively moderate by Republican standards. However, he vigorously opposes federal control of Alaska's land and resources. He is also a strong proponent of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Since 2001, Young has chaired the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He also chaired the Resources Committee from the 1995 Republican takeover of the House until 2001.

According to The New Republic, Young is "well-known for his sharp elbows and generous appetite for legislative pork."[1] His reputation for steering federal dollars to Alaska is almost as legendary as that of Stevens. For example, in the 2005 Highway Bill, Young helped secure "$941 million for 119 special projects," including a $231 million bridge in Anchorage which a rider in the bill would name for Young himself[2].

[edit] Recent controversies

[edit] The "Bridge to Nowhere"

In 2005, Young and Stevens earmarked $223 million for building an enormous bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina Island (pop. 50), which also contains Ketchikan's airport. The bridge would be used for access by emergency vehicles, as well as passengers. Currently there is a small car and passenger ferry that travels the 1/4 mile crossing in 3 to 7 minutes and runs every half hour. Critics assailed this as pork barrel spending at taxpayers' expense and dubbed it the "Bridge to Nowhere". After criticism from citizens and others in Congress, lawmakers defunded the bridge specifically, and instead funneled the money to the State of Alaska, Department of Transportation, allowing Alaska's Governor to start road construction after the Alaska Legislature funded the project with the directed monies.[3]

[edit] Abramoff scandal

Published reports have linked Young to the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal, although no wrongdoing has been alleged[4]. In September 2002 Young and fellow Republican Steve LaTourette of Ohio wrote to the General Services Administration urging the agency to give preferential treatment to groups such as Indian tribes when evaluating development proposals.[5] In particular, the letter referred to a historic building, the Old Post Office Pavilion in downtown Washington, DC.[6]

[edit] 10 worst Current Congressmen

An article speaking of the 10 worst current Congressmen by Tim Dickinson (Contributing Editor to Rolling Stone) Powerful enough to earn the moniker "Alaska's Third Senator", this seventeen-term congressman and former tugboat captain knows how to haul home the bacon. Thanks in no small part to his efforts, Alaskans receive $1.87 in federal funds for every dollar they contribute in taxes. Last year, Young leveraged his post as chairman of the House Transportation committee to stuff the highway bill - "like a turkey", in his own words - with nearly $1 billion in pork-barrel projects for his home state. More than $400 million of the money was earmarked for two separate "bridges to nowhere." One, nearly as long as the Golden Gate, would serve an island community of only fifty people. The second, a monument to waste known as "Don Young's Way," would connect Anchorage to a patch of scarcely habitable marshland. "These two bridges are the most egregious example of government waste we've ever seen," says Tom Schatz, president of the bipartisan group Citizens Against Government Waste. Even the partisan conservative Heritage Foundation called one of Young's bridges a "national embarrassment." But the congressman refused to scrap the project. In the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina, when Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) proposed that Young redirect his prized pork money to help rebuild New Orleans, Young accused his detractors of "ignorance and stupidity." The victims of Hurrican Katrina, he suggested, "can kiss my ear!" He once called [people involved in environmental protection]"self-centered bunch of waffle-stomping, Harvard-graduating, intellectual idiots" who "are not Americans, never have been Americans, and never will be Americans." During a debate on the right of native Alaskans to sell the sex organs of endangered animals as aphrodisiacs, Young whipped out the eighteen-inch penis bone of a walrus and brandished it like a sword on the House floor. When someone suggested that Sen. Ten Stevens (R-AK) had outdone him in bringing home federal dollars, Young just laughed. "If he's the chief porker, I'm upset," Young said. [7]

[edit] Cape Wind

According to an editorial in the Boston Globe on February 26, 2006 [8], Young sponsored a proposal to the fiscal 2006 Coast Guard authorization bill that would have banned offshore wind turbines within 1.5 nautical miles of navigation channels, a measure opposed by the Coast Guard, and, according to the Globe, intended to block the Cape Wind energy farm off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The measure, now in conference committee, has been drawn more narrowly so that it would only apply to Cape Wind, as well as stating that the Coast Guard or governor may quash the project if they find it to be unsafe or otherwise unsuitable.

[edit] Quotes

"Environmentalists are a self-centered bunch of waffle-stomping, Harvard-graduating, intellectual idiots" who "are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans."[9]