With Stevens's Fall, Pipeline for Lobbyists Shuts Off

Until recently, there were few better ways to start a lobbying career than by leaving the office of Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. With 40 years of seniority on important Senate committees, Mr. Stevens, a Republican, wielded unrivaled power over industries like fishing, forestry, communications, aviation and the military, steering billions each year to pet Alaskan projects. His power made his good will a valuable commodity on K Street, where many lobbying firms are located. During the past five years, just nine lobbyists and firms known primarily for their ties to Mr. Stevens reported over $60 million in lobbyist fees, not including other income for less direct "consulting." The most recent person to leave his staff to become a lobbyist reported fees of more than $800,000 in just the last 18 months. So when Alaskan voters narrowly rejected Mr. Stevens's bid for re-election last month, just days after a jury convicted him of federal ethics violations, it was in some ways like the closing of the plant in a company town. Stevens's former aides are hardly the only Washington lobbyists to rise and fall with a single Congressional patron. Representative John D. Dingell, the powerful Michigan Democrat first elected in 1955, long sustained a coterie of lobbyists sometimes known as the Dingell Bar. They, too, are feeling the pinch at the moment from his recent loss to Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, of the gavel as chairman of the House Commerce Committee. But Mr. Stevens — Alaska's "Uncle Ted" — is in a class by himself.