[Mb-civic] Ethics Issues Snared GOP's Champion - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Ethics Issues Snared GOP's Champion
DeLay's Focus on Fundraising Powered Party Gains But Led to Problems

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 8, 2006; A08

Standing before a crowd of applauding House Republicans in the Capitol 
Hill Club last March, then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) inscribed 
$1.8 million on a giant check and signed his name at the bottom with the 
flourish of a game show host. The tally, representing funds to be given 
to the campaigns of 10 Republican lawmakers, was yet another cache 
collected by one of the premier money machines ever to function on 
Capitol Hill.

It worked simply. On one side of the machine, a hose vacuumed the 
pockets of large corporations, wealthy individuals and legions of 
lobbyists on K Street, all instructed by DeLay to contribute only to 
Republicans. Out the other side, at some later date, came legislation of 
interest to many of the donors. Inside the machine, twisting its knobs 
and pulling its levers, was DeLay -- who was unabashed about his 
pay-to-play philosophy and relentless in enforcing his political rules.

DeLay's tenure in the congressional leadership, which came to a decisive 
end with his announcement yesterday that he would not try to regain the 
leadership post, was marked by an extraordinary record of political 
accomplishment. From Dec. 6, 1994, until last year, the former pest 
exterminator from a Houston suburb was the go-to guy in the House for 
legislative favors, perks, committee chairmanships and election cash.

"Tom DeLay and I have had our differences over the years, but he is one 
of the most effective and gifted leaders the Republican Party has ever 
known," said Rep. John A. Boehner (Ohio), who served in the leadership 
just below DeLay when the GOP, for the first time in recent years, won a 
majority in the House. He is likely to run for DeLay's now vacated slot 
as majority leader.

As President Bush noted recently, when DeLay was in the saddle, the 
administration's priorities were enacted by the House. Under his 
prodding, that body became in effect a single-party institution, with 
negligible Democratic influence in any aspect of its operations, from 
hearings to appropriations.

But DeLay's leadership was undermined over time by a blurring of ethical 
lines in the handling of money by his aides and advisers, his taste for 
the lifestyle of the super-rich, and his take-no-prisoners approach to 
political disputes in a town built on compromise. A lawmaker who cast 
himself as an icon of moral conservatism, DeLay came increasingly to be 
regarded as a symbol of special-interest lawmaking. With an election 
looming in 11 months, his colleagues began to fear the consequences.

Although DeLay was admonished by the House ethics committee as early as 
1999 for retaliating against a trade association that hired a Democrat, 
for the most part his rigidly partisan style was welcomed by 
Republicans. Not until 2004 did the first major cracks in the DeLay 
political edifice appear. In three reports, the House Committee on 
Standards of Official Conduct rebuked him for asking federal aviation 
officials to intervene in a Texas political spat, for improperly 
pressuring a fellow Republican to vote for a Medicare drug bill, and for 
creating the appearance that Westar Energy Inc. received special 
consideration in exchange for campaign donations.

The committee called on him to "temper your future actions to assure you 
are in compliance" with House ethics rules. But DeLay blamed the rebukes 
on malevolent Democrats, and his supporters retaliated by ousting the 
Republican chairman of the committee and tying up its operations in a 
prolonged dispute over staffing.

More serious damage was done by an ethics inquiry in DeLay's home state, 
which led last September to his felony indictment and forced him to step 
aside temporarily under party rules. At issue was one of DeLay's more 
brilliant achievements, hailed by his fellow Republicans for solidifying 
their control of the House -- orchestrating a party takeover in the 
Texas legislature that led to an extraordinary redrawing of 
congressional districts and the election of five more Texas Republicans 
to Congress in 2004.

Charges of DeLay's involvement in money laundering associated with that 
state Republican victory in 2002 are unproved, and many campaign finance 
lawyers consider the Texas case to be weak. But DeLay's name has also 
figured prominently in a second ethics probe -- this one in Washington, 
under the aegis of a federal task force looking at the links between 
money and favors associated with lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Abramoff, whom DeLay once termed "one of my closest and dearest 
friends," pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy, mail fraud and tax 
evasion and promised to cooperate with investigators. Michael Scanlon, 
DeLay's former spokesman, pleaded guilty Nov. 21 to conspiracy to bribe 
public officials and likewise promised cooperation. Prosecutors are 
meanwhile looking at actions taken by ex-DeLay aides Tony C. Rudy and 
Edwin A. Buckham on behalf of Abramoff's clients. No one knows where 
these inquiries will lead, and uncertainty is always the enemy of 
political strength.

DeLay, now 58, gained a biology degree at the University of Houston and 
pursued a political career out of opposition to regulation of the 
pesticide industry. He first came to Congress in 1985, but it was not 
until a decade later that Buckham, Rudy, Scanlon, and Abramoff played 
key roles in DeLay's ascent in the GOP hierarchy, a rise underpinned by 
the steady infusion of corporate cash into Republican political campaigns.

DeLay was blunt about his emphasis on fundraising from the outset -- he 
and then-Rep. Richard K. Armey (Tex.) each promised in a leadership 
meeting before the 1994 election to raise half a million dollars for 
party hopefuls, and DeLay traveled to dozens of House districts, 
cementing ties to many challengers who won office that fall.

After the historic 1994 elections, when many like-minded conservatives 
swept into the House, DeLay capitalized on his fundraising prowess in a 
successful race for majority whip against Rep. Robert S. Walker (Pa.). 
Walker, who was Rep. Newt Gingrich's best friend and an expert in 
parliamentary maneuvering, was initially favored to win the contest -- 
at a time when Gingrich was poised to win election as speaker. But DeLay 
had distributed so much money that he overtook Walker, securing the 
votes of 52 out of the 73 freshmen in the Class of 1994.

Walker later decried what he considered the excessive influence of 
fundraising committees such as DeLay's Americans for a Republican 
Majority Political Action Committee (ARMPAC), which, he said, caused the 
outcome to be determined by money, not talent. But his colleagues 
largely shrugged their shoulders. Over the next decade, they accepted 
nearly $4.5 million in contributions from ARMPAC, which drew its funds 
heavily from tobacco, energy, railroad and communications interests.

Throughout his tenure in the leadership, DeLay frequently traveled to 
golf resorts and costly hotels for meetings with lobbyists at ARMPAC's 
expense; he also preferred traveling on corporate jets instead of 
commercial airlines. But DeLay was not selfish -- he earned the 
gratitude of many colleagues by extending the same perquisites to them 
in exchange for their votes.

According to his former colleagues, DeLay's office functioned at times 
like a hotel concierge, arranging corporate jets, private cars, fishing 
trips and other expense-paid travel during congressional breaks, key 
votes and party conventions, all financed by wealthy donors with 
interests before Congress.

DeLay's own travel has played a role in his undoing, as investigators 
have begun delving into the circumstances of trips that DeLay took with 
Abramoff to Moscow in 1997 and to Scotland and London in 2000. The first 
trip preceded an unusual million-dollar donation -- which former 
associates say originated with Russian energy executives -- to a group 
linked to DeLay; on the second trip, Abramoff and Buckham -- both 
registered lobbyists -- used their credit cards to pay for some of 
DeLay's expenses, in apparent conflict with ethics rules. DeLay says he 
was unaware of the precise financial arrangements for the travel.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/07/AR2006010701262.html?nav=hcmodule
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