• Congressional ethics Congressional ethics From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – October 8, 2004 House Majority Leader Tom Delay, who raises millions in corporate campaign cash and wields it like a blunt instrument, finally may have overstepped himself. In the
• Congressional ethics
Congressional ethics
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – October 8, 2004
House Majority Leader Tom Delay, who raises millions in corporate campaign cash and wields it like a blunt instrument, finally may have overstepped himself.
In the past two weeks, the usually somnambulant House Ethics Committee issued three “admonishments” against Mr. DeLay, R-Texas, for “acts severe enough to reflect discredit on the Congress.” Worse sanctions than admonishments may be coming.
An “admonishment” is a slap on the wrist, but that the committee took any action at all comes as a surprise. The Houston congressman revels in his nickname, “the Hammer,” earned by his high-sticking, gloves-off leadership style.
Last week, the ethics committee ruled that Mr. DeLay had gone too far last year by offering something of “purely personal interest” to Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., in return for a vote for the Republican prescription drug bill. Mr. DeLay was found to have promised support for Mr. Smith’s son’s campaign to succeed his father in Congress. On Wednesday, the ethics committee issued two more admonishments, citing Mr. DeLay for participating in a 2002 fund-raiser with energy company executives at a time when energy legislation was before the House and for misusing his influence with the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA incident stems from last year’s notorious Texas congressional redistricting battle. That’s the one during which Democrats in the Texas House decamped to Oklahoma to keep the redistricting bill from coming to a vote. Mr. DeLay was slapped for asking the FAA to help track down the missing legislators.
It sounds like Keystone Kops stuff, but three of Mr. DeLay’s aides in Texas have been indicted for money laundering by an Austin grand jury looking into the redistricting battle. Because the matter is before the grand jury, the ethics committee deferred action on a separate complaint by Rep. Chris Bell, a Houston Democrat who was redistricted out of his seat. Mr. Bell charges that Mr. DeLay laundered corporate campaign contributions and funneled them into the Texas legislative races in 2002 so that Republicans would control redistricting. If that’s true, it would violate a Texas law banning the use of corporate money in state races. “All I did was help raise money,” Mr. DeLay says.
It took some gumption for Republicans on the bipartisan ethics committee to issue the three admonishments. The Texas charges, which are potentially criminal matters, are of a different order of magnitude.
The committee should preserve its independence by appointing an independent prosecutor, someone tough enough to investigate the Hammer without being hammered in return.
