Alaska senator’s 'personal vacation' is actually a trip to India with a state-funded organization

An Alaska state senator who earlier this week said his current trip to India was a "personal vacation" is actually on an official visit with an organization subsidized by the state.

A day after he told a reporter that his whereabouts were "none of your business," Kodiak Republican Sen. Gary Stevens said in a phone interview that he was in the Indian metropolis of Mumbai with a "working group" organized by the Council of State Governments and headed by Delaware Democratic Gov. Jack Markell.

Stevens said Alaska was paying "absolutely nothing" for his trip. But the state actually sends $82,000 in membership fees to the Council of State Governments, a Kentucky-based policy group that Stevens once chaired.

Stevens said he didn't think there was any connection between the fees and his trip, though he referred specific questions about costs to CSG. A spokeswoman for the organization, Shawntaye Hopkins, didn't respond to series of emailed questions.

Other members of the delegation include Nevada Democratic state Sen. Kelvin Atkinson, Connecticut Democratic state Rep. Kevin Ryan, Idaho Republican state Sen. Bart Davis, and Wyoming state Rep. Rosie Berger, a lame-duck who was expected to become the state's next House speaker but instead lost her seat in the GOP primary.

Another participant is Herb Tyson, a lobbyist for an international shopping center trade group.

The weeklong trip to India, which runs through Friday, stopped in the cities of New Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai, according to a summary provided by an aide to Stevens. The group is meeting Indian leaders "to discuss the state and federal relationship in shaping policy and learn more about Indian culture," the summary said.

Stevens said delegation members are trying to find opportunities for future "state-to-state relationships." And he said he was particularly interested in India's demand for natural gas, which Alaska hopes to export from the North Slope.

"It's good for the state to have relations with other countries, and other states in those countries," Stevens said in a phone interview Tuesday night.

Stevens, a former Senate president who was just re-elected to a four-year term, is finishing a two-year chairmanship of the Legislative Council, the joint House-Senate committee that handles lawmakers' internal business and budgets — including its long-running efforts to find office space in Anchorage.

He consistently ranks among the Legislature's busiest travelers, with $24,400 in expenses last year, according an annual legislative report.

The report doesn't include costs that were footed by other organizations — even those that are subsidized by the state, like CSG and the National Council of State Legislatures, which gets $107,000 from Alaska annually.

Lawmakers have scaled back their travel with the state facing a multibillion-dollar deficit, but they haven't eliminated it completely, even as legislative leaders called on Gov. Bill Walker's administration to institute a travel freeze.

Stevens' destinations last year included Washington, D.C.; Scottsdale, Arizona.; Las Vegas; Denver; and China. Two years ago he took his wife along on three different trips — to Turkey, Puerto Rico and Scottsdale — with some of her expenses paid by CSG and a Turkish nonprofit, Bakiad, according to disclosures Stevens filed with the Select Committee on Legislative Ethics.

Asked why he initially claimed to be on vacation, Stevens said, "I guess I thought it was truly none of your business."

"It's not being paid for by the state. It was my trip, my time, and my energy to do this," he said. "I just wanted to make that clear, that truly, when I'm on my own, giving my own time, I'm not a state official."

Social media postings offer a peek into the delegation's travels through India. Atkinson, the Nevada state senator, posted pictures of himself standing in front of the Taj Mahal, visiting an open-air market and exchanging handshakes outside a tour bus with K.T. Rama Rao, the information technology minister for Telangana, a south Indian state that includes Hyderabad and is known for its silk production.

Stevens, with a new-looking scarf over his suit jacket, shirt and tie, posed for his own photo with Rao, known to locals as "Minister KTR," which Rao's office later posted to Facebook.