Gov. Dunleavy names Ben Stevens a top adviser

JUNEAU — Gov. Mike Dunleavy has named former state Sen. Ben Stevens an adviser for transportation, legislation and fishing, administration spokesman Jeff Turner confirmed Wednesday.

The appointment was first reported by Alaska Public Media.

Stevens, a former Senate president, most recently worked as president of Cook Inlet Tug and Barge. He is the son of former Alaska U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and was one of several legislators whose offices were raided by the FBI during the Veco corruption investigation.

Stevens was never accused of a crime, but he collected more than $240,000 in consulting fees from Veco for unspecified work during his six years in the Senate, and during a 2007 trial, a Veco vice president testified that he had bribed Stevens and another senator, John Cowdery.

Last year, Stevens considered a run for governor.

He decided against a run, and now Stevens will join John Moller and Brett Huber as senior advisers to the governor. Moller was a co-chair of Dunleavy’s campaign, and Huber was Dunleavy’s campaign chairman.

Moller was senior rural affairs adviser under Gov. Sean Parnell and reprises that role under Dunleavy. Huber is the governor’s senior policy adviser.

The governor’s other policy advisers include former Libertarian and Republican legislator Dick Randolph on constitutional issues and Parnell as an adviser on the natural gas pipeline.

Former Alaska Republican Party chairman Tuckerman Babcock is the governor’s chief of staff, and former Anchorage Assemblywoman Amy Demboski and Jeremy Price have been named deputy chiefs of staff.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that Ben Stevens is former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' oldest child. He is the fifth of six children.