Anchorage Sen. Cathy Giessel spoke on the Alaska Senate floor regarding a rally for justice for the late Sen. Ted Stevens.

Here are her remarks:

Later Today in anchorage there will be a “Friends of Ted Stevens” rally.

The purpose of this rally is a call for the Dept. of Justice to take responsibility for misconduct of their attorneys in prosecuting Senator Ted Stevens.

The outcome of the Federal case, the loss of our great Senator Ted Stevens, has impacted Alaska in profound ways.  I think we are only now realizing some of the impacts.

Senator Ted’s hard work for Alaska moved us forward:  in transportation, land settlement, fisheries, resource development…

But I am particularly aware of Senator Ted’s impact on healthcare.

I had the amazing opportunity to be a member of Senator Ted’s first group of senate interns in his DC office.  There were 5 of us kids from all over Alaska in that group.  It was an amazing experience.  At that time Senator Ted was our US senator as an appointee, filling a vacancy left by the death of Senator Bob Bartlett.

And I can tell you that, from those very early days in his years of work for Alaska, Senator Ted cared deeply about healthcare in Alaska, particularly rural Alaska.  I accompanied Senator Ted and staff to rural communities.  He wasn’t flying to the small communities to fish or take photos.  Senator Ted wanted to talk to Alaskans and see, first hand, water and wastewater management, clinics, and meet the healthcare professionals in rural Alaska.

Then Senator Ted set to work to bring safe water & wastewater management to rural communities, build clinics and train healthcare providers.  He made sure there was funding and development of telemedicine capability.  Senator Ted made sure that there was focus on prevention of the devastating illnesses in rural communities, by providing adequate funding for immunizations.

The healthcare infrastructure that Senator Ted Stevens brought to Alaska has been incredible.  We owe him great thanks!

The egregious misconduct of the attorneys in the federal case against him was devastating to Senator Ted Stevens, who gave his life for Alaska.  We know now that this injustice was done and Senator Ted has been vindicated.

But his last wish was that we would do everything possible to prevent this happening to someone else.

I wish I could join Senator Lisa Murkowski, Congressman Young, Mayor Dan Sullivan and all the other friends of Senator Ted at the rally today.  I will be there in spirit!  And next week, April 11, at 4:30 on the Capitol steps, here in Juneau, a similar rally will take place to show our support for Senator Ted Stevens.