Today is primary day in Alaska. 

Just in time for the primary, Ted Stevens' defense team launched an attack on the federal prosecutors from the U.S. Department of Justice who are bringing the case against the Alaska Senator.   They're alleging a "smear":

Lawyers for Ted Stevens accused prosecutors Monday of attempting to unfairly try Alaska's senior U.S. senator next month by introducing "irrelevant and prejudicial evidence" that has nothing to do with the disclosure violations he's charge with.

Defense attorney Robert Cary asserted that new issues raised by the government "in its unnecessary public filing" nine days earlier have no place in the trial, scheduled to begin Sept. 22 in Washington, D.C.

"Instead, they are an obvious attempt to smear the senator's character," Cary wrote.

The Senate did pass its version of ethics reform last night by a 96-2 margin:

Senate Democrats and Republicans broke a difficult stalemate last night and approved 96 to 2 expansive legislation to curtail the influence of lobbyists, tighten congressional ethics rules and prevent the spouses of senators from lobbying senators and their staffs.

The Senate legislation, hailed by proponents as the most significant ethics reform since Watergate, would ban gifts, meals and travel funded by lobbyists, and would force lawmakers to attach their names to special-interest provisions and pet projects that they slip into bills. Lawmakers would have to pay charter rates on corporate jets, not the far-cheaper first-class rates they pay now.

While several key improvements were made, the Senate defeated an amendment that would have established an Office of Public Integrity:

In another defeat for watchdog groups, the Senate overwhelmingly defeated a proposal to create an independent ethics counsel to investigate allegations of wrongdoing in the Senate. The 71 to 27 vote was the second time that Congress has rejected the proposal in recent years.

Progress on a new, stricter ethics legislation ground to a halt yesterday. Senate Republicans, who want to add a line-item veto provision, stopped the ethics package from moving forward yesterday by voting against the motion to invoke cloture:

The Democratic-led Senate failed to end a Republican procedural roadblock that has stalled a bipartisan bill to revamp the Senate's ethics and lobbying rules.

On a 51-46 vote, the Senate fell 14 short of the 65 votes needed to end more than a week of debate and move toward a vote on passage of the sweeping measure.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said he would try again on Thursday to muster the two-thirds majority vote needed to end debate on proposed rules changes.

This is the roll call vote on the motion to invoke cloture that held up the debate:

Grouped By Vote Position

The Senate debate on ethics turned in to a battle over earmarks reform yesterday.  In the end, the Senate adopted an amendment offered by Senator DeMint (R-SC) that mirrored the House-passed language.  The Democratic leadership, however, opposed DeMint's amendment -- but their objection, through a motion to table DeMint's amendment, was defeated:

Last week the House Democrats passed an unexpectedly broad change to their chamber’s rules that would disclose the size, purpose and sponsor of any earmark.

But on Thursday, when Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, introduced the same thing in the Senate, Democratic leaders moved quickly to squash it, calling the House bill ill thought out.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said he was happy to see the House “moving things along very quickly.” But, Mr. Reid said, “frankly, I don’t think they spent the time on this that we have.”

The Democratic leaders’ effort to block the DeMint proposal was defeated by a vote of 51 to 46, surprising almost everyone in the Senate. The outcome reflected the keen desire of many lawmakers to appear to be on the side of openness and reform after an election that turned in part on Congressional corruption scandals.

The roll call vote is below and can be found here.  A "Nay" vote was a vote against the motion to table and would keep the amendment alive.

Alphabetical by Senator Name