newsminer.com

WASHINGTON — Congressional candidates still have little more than a week before they must tell the Federal Election Commission how much money their campaigns earned in the first three months of the year.

Most candidates, though, say they’re happy with the amount they’ve collected so far and that their campaigns are going according to plan.

Final tallies aren’t due until April 15, but candidates offered their best estimates Friday on where their finances stood at the end of the first quarter. Everyone who spoke for this report stressed that these figures are rough estimates and subject to change.

Out of those reporting their totals in the House race, incumbent Don Young led the pack in fundraising.

Young, a Republican, raised slightly more than $164,000 between January and March for his reelection campaign. While that dwarfed the $44,000 he brought in the previous quarter, his expenditures continued to exceed income.

The campaign had $948,000 in cash on hand at the end of 2007. Michael Anderson, spokesman for the Young campaign, said they currently had less than that in the bank, though he did not know the exact amount.

Young stayed busy during the two-week congressional Easter recess, hosting fundraisers in Nome, Kodiak and Anchorage. The Nome and Kodiak events together brought in about $7,000, Anderson said. He did not have an estimate on how much the Anchorage event generated.

Much of Young’s cash has come from outside the state, though less than in the years when he was chairman of the powerful House Transportation Committee. His annual crab feed in Washington at the beginning of March brought in $36,000.

Young had about half of his total first-quarter donations in the bank, $85,000, before he swung through the state last month.

Young’s biggest expenditure continued to be the cost of his legal defense. The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating his use of earmarks and ties to VECO Corp. Young has not been charged with a crime and denies any wrongdoing.

The 74-year-old congressman wrote a $94,000 check to his lawyers in January for services performed in December.

He paid another $119,000 for legal services in January and February. At the beginning of April, Young received an invoice for March from his lawyers totaling $23,000, bringing his total legal expenses to date to slightly more than $1.1 million.

Anderson touted the lower total for March as a sign that the flood of legal spending was finally slowing to a trickle. However, it remains to be seen whether the drop signals a new trend or is just an anomaly.

“We thought the legal fees were going to come down, and we’re happy to see that happening,” Anderson said. “We’re going to keep our fingers crossed and see what happens next month.”

Despite establishing a legal expense fund in January, Young paid the attorneys out of his campaign fund.

Young, who has held the state’s lone seat in the House since 1973, faces two challenges in the GOP primary in August.

Republican state Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux pledged not to solicit donations during the regular legislative session, which started in mid-January, to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. LeDoux, who brought in about $8,000 during the first two weeks of January, has been returning checks and asking potential donors to hold off until the session ends April 13.

In order not to fall behind other candidates, LeDoux loaned her campaign about $92,000 to hit her first-quarter target.

“I’m committed enough to my race to put my money where my mouth is,” she said. LeDoux said the loan represented a significant portion of her personal savings.

Christine Marasigan, LeDoux’ campaign spokeswoman, said they had about $150,000 in cash on hand.

Sean Parnell, the Republican lieutenant governor, jumped into the race just days before the end of the first quarter. Parnell, who was still preparing his federal fundraising report, said the number of people who’d made donations on his Web site was in the triple digits, though he declined to give an estimate of the total.

Parnell said he thought it would take as much as $600,000 to wage a successful primary fight against Young.

Three Democrats have filed for the House seat.

Diane Benson, who raised about $48,000 in the first quarter, said her campaign came pretty close to achieving its fundraising goal. Benson said she had about $45,000 in cash on hand.

“I feel I’ve got a pretty good machine going,” she said. “I’m very happy.”

Former state House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz, an Anchorage Democrat, declined to release his first-quarter totals prior to the filing deadline. A spokeswoman for his campaign said he raised significantly more than the $124,000 raised in the last quarter.

Democratic candidate Jake Metcalfe did not return repeated calls for comment for this story.

In the U.S. Senate race, incumbent Ted Stevens maintains a clear financial lead over his challengers.

Stevens raised about $540,000 in the first quarter, according to campaign spokesman Tim McKeever. As of the end of March, Stevens had about $1.3 million cash on hand.

Anchorage real estate developer David Cuddy, a Republican, said he’s not yet begun to raise money, though he has spent about $50,000 of his own cash on TV spots and other campaign expenses.

“It’s pretty much a phone-call-and-shoe-leather campaign right now,” Cuddy said.

Ray Metcalfe, who is running as a Democrat, said he too was just starting to ask for campaign donations. Metcalfe, no relation to Jake Metcalfe, said he held one fundraiser in the first quarter that brought in $3,700. He has about $15,000 in his campaign war chest.

“The money is out there,” Metcalfe said, “I just have to ask for it.”

And finally…

Alaska once again topped the list of states receiving the most government largess.

The budget watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste said the state led the nation with $380 million in federal earmarks, or $556 per resident, in the current fiscal year. Hawaii came in a distant second in per capita spending at $221.

On Wednesday, the watchdog group released its annual Congressional Pig Book documenting 11,610 projects worth $17.2 billion that lawmakers placed in appropriation bills, a 30 percent increase over last year’s total.

Recent reforms enacted by Congress meant this was the first year lawmakers were required to attach their names to specific projects.

Sen. Stevens ranked second among the top three appropriators on the Senate Appropriation Committee with $469 million in earmarks.

Several projects funded by Stevens were singled out by the group as examples of pork barrel spending, including $968,175 for berry research, $818,232 for alternative salmon products, $3.2 million for high frequency active auroral research and $492,000 for the Craig Recreation land transfer.

Stevens also received the group’s Cold Hard Cash Award for securing $165.7 million in defense spending for the state.

Aaron Saunders, a spokesman for Stevens, called the list of earmarks an annual publicity stunt by the group.

“This group attacks federal spending in Alaska as waste without having any real knowledge of the unique challenges facing our people and our state,” Saunders said.

The projects were funded at the request of local communities and organizations to whom Stevens is accountable, Saunders said.

Stevens, 84, strongly disagrees with the group’s allegation that the projects are a waste of taxpayer dollars, Saunders said.

“If they want to call providing barracks to military men and women stationed in Alaska waste, I guess that’s their business,” Saunders said.