TED STEVENS - AUTOGRAPH - HFSID 71462

TED STEVENS
He signs as US Senator for Alaska
Signature: Ted Stevens/US Senator/for Alaska". 3½x2 white card. Ted Stevens (1923-2010) represented Alaska in the US Senate for 40 years, beginning in 1968, the longest tenure by a Republican Senator in US history. As Chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, he was legendary for delivering billions in federal aid to his home state, fashioning bipartisan compromises but famously threatening anyone of either party who voted against what he saw as Alaska's interests. He was Republican Whip from 1977 to 1985, and President Pro Tempore of the Senate (2003-2007), third in the line of succession to the Presidency after the Vice President and the Speaker of the House. He was one of only 10 Republican Senators to vote against President Clinton's removal from office. In 2006, environmentalists who had long battled Stevens on logging issues, and over his support of oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, praised his legislation to establish a system of sustainable fisheries management. In 2008, he was narrowly defeated for re-election, days after his conviction on seven felony counts arising from charges that he had diverted campaign funds to personal uses. The charges were thrown out on appeal because the federal prosecutors had withheld evidence that could have exonerated him. In 1978, Stevens sustained serious injuries in a plane crash that killed his wife and four others. On August 9, 2010, he died of injuries sustained in another Alaska plane crash. Paperclip crease at top edge affecting signature at "d S". Otherwise, fine condition.