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WASHINGTON — Rep. Don Young spent an additional $49,000 in the second quarter of this year to defend himself against a Justice Department investigation.

Young, a Republican, filed the latest quarterly financial disclosure for his legal expense fund last week showing roughly $54,000 in contributions. Young spent nearly all of the money on attorney fees related to the ongoing federal investigation into political corruption in Alaska.

He paid Washington, D.C., law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld $24,832 in June and $24,582 in July.

Young is required to file quarterly financial disclosures for the legal expense fund, which he set up in January, with the House Legislative Council. The most recent disclosure was filed Wednesday.

Young’s campaign spokesman and chief of staff Michael Anderson declined to comment Friday on the specifics of the special fund, but said Rep. Young was committed to using it — instead of his campaign fund — to cover his legal expenses as much as possible.

Still, Young’s mounting legal fees mean he continues to dip into his campaign war chest to satisfy lawyers for himself, his campaign and campaign treasurer Steve Dougherty.

Money donated to the legal defense account can only be spent on Young’s personal defense, meaning any billable hours generated by the campaign or Dougherty must be paid from somewhere else.

Young’s campaign fund raised $105,716 in April, May and June. Young spent $250,592 during the same period, leaving cash-on-hand of $461,265 as of June 30.

Among his second-quarter expenses, Young spent $128,000 on attorneys from his campaign account, including $48,000 to Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld for his personal legal fees.

The remaining $80,000 in attorney bills during went to cover the legal work done on behalf of the campaign and Dougherty.

Young isn’t required to cover Dougherty’s legal fees but does so out of loyalty to his longtime treasure, Anderson said.

Young has now spent more than $1.2 million on legal expenses this election cycle. Young has not been charged with a crime and denies any wrongdoing.

The wide-ranging federal probe into political corruption in the state has already led to seven convictions, including three state former legislators. The Justice Department is reportedly looking at Young’s campaign financing and ties to lobbyists.

The investigation reached the federal level last week with the indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens on seven felony counts of making false statements on his financial disclosures. Stevens has pleaded not guilty and has vowed to clear his name before the November general election.

Polls, polls, polls

The first batch of polls on the U.S. Senate race since Stevens was indicted show Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, a Democrat, widening his lead.

A Rasmussen Research poll conducted the day after Stevens was indicted shows the Republican incumbent trailing Begich by 13 points, 50 percent to 37 percent. A Rasmussen poll conducted two weeks ago showed Begich with a nine point lead over Stevens.

While 90 percent of respondents say they’ve been following the news coverage of Stevens’ indictment by a Washington, D.C., federal grand jury, only 33 percent think he should resign, according to Rasmussen.

Fifty percent of Alaskans still regard Stevens favorably and don’t want him to resign. Some 66 percent view him as least as ethical as most politicians, 27 percent say he is less ethical and 20 percent more ethical, according to the survey of 500 likely voters. The survey has a margin of error of 4.5 percent.

Separate polling by Ivan Moore found Stevens’ legal troubles have dented his reputation, but he remains the favorite in the Aug. 26 GOP primary.

Stevens’ approval rating plunged 11 percentage points, from 55 percent to 44 percent, the day after a grand jury indicted him, according to a comparison of polls conducted by Moore on July 18-22 and July 30-31. Both polls have a margin of error of roughly 4.5 percent.

Those who described their opinion of Stevens as neutral went up a single percentage point to 7 percent in the latter survey, but Stevens’ negatives jumped from 38 percent to 48 percent, according to Moore.

Despite the drop in popularity, Moore’s post-indictment poll shows Stevens winning the primary with 59 percent of the vote — down 11 percentage points from the first survey.

While respondents say they are less likely to vote for Stevens now that he’s been indicted, that hasn’t bumped up support for any of his six primary challengers. Instead, those who said they were undecided in the primary went from 7 percent to 20 percent in the week between the two surveys.

The sample size for the GOP primary question was 219, which increases the margin of error slightly.

However, the latest Moore poll found Stevens falling further behind Begich in the general matchup. If the election was held today, Begich would receive 56 percent of the vote, compared to just 35 percent for Stevens. Five percent of likely voters said they were still undecided.

Begich’s 8.5 percent lead two weeks ago has grown to nearly 21 percent, Moore said.

Meanwhile, Stevens recent legal troubles have prompted Congressional Quarterly to switch its rating of the race from “Leans Republican” to “Leans Democrat.”

The Rasmussen poll also asked how Stevens’ indictment would affect voters’ opinion of Rep. Young, who is also the focus of a federal corruption investigation.

Some 44 percent said the Stevens’ predicament made it less likely they’d vote for Young, while 41 percent said it wouldn’t influence their decision. Only 12 percent said they are more likely to vote for Young because of the indictment.

Thirty-six percent say Young is less ethical than other politicians, 9 percent say he is more ethical, and nearly half, 47 percent, see him as about as ethical as other politicians.

Palin remains popular

Anchorage pollster Dave Dittman released a new poll Thursday that shows Gov. Sarah Palin remains popular with the public despite the political backlash from her firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.

Asked how they would rate the governor’s job performance in office, 76 percent of likely voters said it was “very good” or “quite good.” Only 14 percent described it as “not too good,” and 5 percent said it was “pretty bad.” That’s a drop in Palin’s approval rating from a high of 86 percent back in February.

The statewide poll of 406 likely voters was conducted July 22-28 and has a margin of error of roughly 5 percent.

Meanwhile, this week’s Rasmussen poll found 64 percent of voters rate Palin’s job performance as excellent or good versus only 14 percent who view it as poor. Palin is seen as more ethical than most politicians by 51 percent of Alaska voters.

Hays poll

A recent Hays Research poll shows Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell with a slight lead on incumbent Young going into the final weeks before the GOP primary for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Nearly 46 percent of likely Republican voters said they would vote for Parnell, compared to 42 percent who said they preferred Young.

The statewide survey, conducted July 24-25, included 404 likely voters and has a margin of error of roughly 5 percent. However, the sample used for the Parnell-Young question included only the 175 respondents who identified themselves as Republicans, increasing the margin of error and leaving out independent and nonpartisan voters who might participate in the GOP primary.

Some 41 percent of the 404 respondents said they had a “very” or “somewhat” favorable opinion of Young, compared to 55 percent who had an unfavorable opinion. Only 3.5 percent had no opinion or had never heard of Young.

That’s a slight improvement over the 36 percent of respondents who said they had a favorable view of Young in a Hays poll conducted in May. Fifty-nine percent of those surveyed in that poll said they had an unfavorable opinion of Young.

The survey put Democrat Ethan Berkowitz ahead of Parnell, 33 percent to 30 percent, in a general election matchup. More than 37 percent of those asked were either undecided or declined to answer.

The polling results released by Hays Research did not include data on voters’ opinion of Berkowitz or Parnell.

The poll also found that Gov. Sarah Palin continues to be popular, despite the recent controversies surrounding her decision to replace Monegan.

The survey found 80 percent of Alaskans have a favorable view of the Republican governor. That’s down from 86 percent from the Hays poll done in May. Palin’s negatives were 16 percent in the most recent poll.

Palin has been shaken over the past couple of weeks by allegations that she replaced Monegan because he refused to get rid of a trooper involved in a messy custody battle with her younger sister. The Legislature has appointed an independent investigator to look into the incident.

Meanwhile, the man Palin picked to replace Monegan, former Kenai police chief Chuck Kopp, was forced to step down within days of being appointed after a previous sexual harassment complaint against him surfaced.