Stevens lonelier after charges

Some donate his contributions

WASHINGTON -- Several GOP colleagues of indicted Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens distanced themselves politically Wednesday by donating campaign contributions from him to charity.

Stevens, meanwhile, returned to work in the Senate, actively participating in a committee bill drafting session and casting votes on the floor, where he received warm embraces and gestures of personal support from several colleagues.

"Hey Ted ... say it ain't so," said longtime Democratic colleague and friend Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

But several GOP colleagues, when asked whether Stevens should remain in office despite accusations that he took more than a quarter-million dollars' worth of unreported gifts, offered no encouragement other than to say he is presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

"I'm not going to talk about Senator Stevens, OK?" said Mel Martinez, R-Fla. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., also declined to comment, while Sam Brownback, R-Kan., declared, "He's innocent until proven guilty."

Other Republicans declined to comment on whether they support his decision to remain in office.

Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, chairman of the campaign committee for Senate Republicans, declined to restate his earlier endorsement of Stevens, who is running for re-election to a seventh full Senate term, in a six-way Aug. 26 GOP primary.

"There's an electoral process in place and a legal process in place, and we will let the process play out," Ensign said.

More trouble for GOP

At the same time, at least five Republicans up for re-election shed contributions from Stevens and his political action committee. They included: John Sununu, R-N.H.; Gordon Smith, R-Ore.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C.; and Pat Roberts, R-Kan.

The shaky support for Stevens was evident in the wake of accusations he lied about accepting gifts from oil services contractor Veco Corp. His indictment on seven felony counts adds to his party's already bleak electoral prospects in November, and could cost the GOP a Senate seat that should be safe.

While Stevens has vowed to fight charges and, through a spokesman, to move "full steam ahead" with his re-election bid, he's received little support from Alaska's Republican governor and no comment yet from his own GOP leader in the Capitol.

Stevens refused to comment to a pack of reporters shadowing his moves around the Capitol.

His indictment could knock Republicans off message just as party leaders hoped to gain traction on one of the few issues in which voters solidly side with them: producing more domestic oil.

He is the most prominent advocate of oil drilling in protected areas, and charges that he took the gifts will play right into Democratic efforts to paint Republicans as a party captive to Big Oil.

Stevens, 84, the first sitting U.S. senator to face federal indictment since 1993, declared Tuesday, "I am innocent of these charges and intend to prove that." His spokesman said his office had been flooded with calls and e-mails from supporters.