Rep. Don Young has said he never allowed convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff to be an influential force over him in Congress. But now a trove of old billing records from two of Abramoff’s firms show that his team of lobbyists had more than 120 contacts with Young’s personal and committee staffs over 25 months, including at least 10 with Young himself.

The Coconut Road controversy involving Alaska Congressman Don Young was front and center Thursday on Capitol Hill when the Senate voted for a Justice Department investigation. While Young’s office claims “there was an error in the bill and so it was corrected,” Ethan said there were no “conceivable circumstances” in which changing an appropriation after it’s signed into law would be OK: “When you have that kind of change in language, what you’ve done is undercut the rule of law and you’ve undercut the integrity of the legislative process.”

U.S. Rep. Don Young has spent more than $1.1 million on lawyers who have helped fend off Justice Department investigations, according to a campaign spending report filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission. If Young prevails in the primary, he’ll face one of three Democrats in the race. The leading fundraiser, former state House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz, raised twice as much money as Young. With $287,306 in the bank, Berkowitz continues to gain on Young.

Congressional Quarterly notes that, after years of nearly iron-clad electoral security in strongly Republican-leaning Alaska, Sen. Ted Stevens and at-large Rep. Don Young — and their Republican Party — suddenly find themselves at risk this year. And the problems faced by Stevens, who has been a senator since 1968, and Young, the state’s sole House member since 1973, essentially stem from the same source: publicity about individual federal investigations into both veteran incumbents’ ties to Alaska businessmen who are at the core of the most sweeping political corruption scandals in the state’s history.

Former state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz, D-Anchorage, said the guilty plea by the top aide to former Gov. Frank Murkowski shows what’s gone wrong with Alaska politics in recent years. Said Ethan: “You had a very dangerous situation - very high stakes and very few people who control the levers of government.”

Jim Clark - considered the most powerful non-elected person in Alaska’s state Capitol when he was former Gov. Frank Murkowski’s chief of staff - quietly told a federal judge Tuesday that he was guilty of fraud. Ethan called the news tragic, but says he can’t forget what he called four years of bullying tactics: “There was an unholy alliance of big oil, the Murkowski administration and the Republican operatives that treated the Legislature and state assets as their own private domain.”

Former Democratic House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz, who served while Murkowski was in office, called the news tragic, but says he can’t forget what he called four years of bullying tactics: “There was an unholy alliance of big oil, the Murkowski administration and the Republican operatives that treated the Legislature and state assets as their own private domain.”

Jim Clark, a former top aide to former Gov. Frank Murkowski, has pleaded guilty to a felony conspiracy charge in the widening federal corruption investigation in Alaska. The Legislature rejected the gas pipeline contract, saying its terms gave away too much to the companies and was unconstitutional. In an emotional speech on the House Floor, Berkowitz predicted people would be sent to prison for the oil tax plan that was being pushed in the House.

For the first time since the VECO scandal erupted, someone in the executive branch has been implicated. Ethan says: “It surprises me that people who have such incredible potential like Jim Clark fall prey to that kind of corruption. So it’s disappointing more than surprising.”