Crib Sheet: Tom DeLay's non-ethics

From attempted bribery to swank luxury vacations, what ethical rules hasn’t the House Majority Leader violated?

Check out our companion piece, Tom DeLay’s Guide to Criminal Justice.

Thursday September 29, 2005

A grand jury in Texas issued a second indictment against Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, the former House Majority Leader. DeLay resigned his post after being indicted by a Texas grand jury on charges of conspiring to violate election laws last week. The new indictment accuses DeLay and two aides of money laundering in a $190,000 transaction that prosecutors describe as a violation of the state’s ban on the use of corporate money in local election campaigns. If convicted of this charge DeLay faces a maximum prison term of five years to life. A jury may ultimately decide DeLay’s fate, but it already is abundantly clear that his actions undermine the integrity of Congress and the concept of good government. Citizens are entitled to leaders who don’t misuse government resources and who are free from financial influence by special interests.

DeLay has a long history of ethical violations, but the actions alleged in the Texas indictment are among the most serious. The indictment accuses DeLay of conspiring with two aides, who already have been charged, to violate a Texas law banning the use of corporate money by candidates for state office. The Texas prosecutor charges that DeLay and his associates carried out the scheme by funneling corporate contributions through the Republican National Committee.

The indictment also charges a who’s who of DeLay cronies, including James W. Ellis, the head of Mr. DeLay’s national political committee, Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC); and John D. Colyandro, the former head of Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC).

DeLay bought the loyalty of other Republican candidates by raising hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate donations for them through ARMPAC. With TRMPAC DeLay plotted a successful Republican takeover of the Texas Legislature. That allowed Republicans to redraw congressional districts in Texas, which they used to create five new Republican-leaning districts, thus solidifying Mr. DeLay’s power in Congress.

Prosecutors accuse DeLay of money laundering in the 2002 Texas election – by violating a state law intended to prevent companies from donating to individual candidates.

In anticipation that this day might come, House Republicans had changed the rule stating that a leader under indictment has to step down. Only after a public outcry did they reverse the change.

With new DeLay ethics abuses uncovered nearly every week, here’s a way to keep track of some of the most egregious:

First, there were the Ethics Committee rebukes:

• ATTEMPTED BRIBERY: DeLay admitted offering to endorse Sen. Nick Smith’s (R-MI) son Brad, who was running for Congress at the time, in exchange for Smith’s “yea” vote on the Medicare bill. His actions violated House rules and earned DeLay a “public admonishment” from the Ethics Committee.
  


• MISUSED THE FAA: The House ethics panel rebuked DeLay for using government resources to help locate a private plane he thought was carrying Texas Democratic legislators. DeLay was trying to force the legislators back to the capitol so he could push through his “bitterly disputed congressional redistricting.” The ethics report cited House rules that bar members from taking “any official action on the basis of the partisan affiliation…of the individuals involved” and said DeLay’s behavior raised “serious concerns under such “standards of conduct.”
  


• ALLEGEDLY PROMISED FAVORS TO DONOR: In one of its three public rebukes, the House Ethics Committee cited the belief on the part of executives at an energy company, Westar Energy Inc., that a $56,500 contribution to a political action committee associated with DeLay would get them a “seat at the table” where key energy legislation was being drafted. DeLay also participated in Westar’s golf fundraiser at The Homestead resort in the summer of 2002, ” just as the House-Senate conference on major energy legislation … was about to get underway.”

• EUROPEAN VACATION: DeLay enjoyed a luxurious vacation at the Four Seasons Hotel in London in mid-2000, paid for by an Indian tribe and a gambling services company, both of which opposed gambling legislation DeLay voted against two months later. The payment was funneled through lobbyist Jack Abramoff (who is embroiled in his own scandal) by right-wing religious fundamentalist Ralph Reed to close down a Texas casino operated by the Tigua Indians in 2002, then persuading the tribe to pay the two of them $4.2 million to lobby Washington lawmakers, including DeLay, to reopen it. According to expense accounts obtained by the Journal, Abramoff financed DeLay and DeLay’s staff’s stay at the Four Seasons hotel to the tune of $4,285.35. The total reimbursement for expenses in London was $13,318.50.
  


• ASIAN GET-AWAY: DeLay accepted an expense-paid trip to South Korea which, in direct violation of House rules, was paid for by a South Korean lobbying group. The cost to send DeLay, his wife and three of his lawmaker friends to Seoul for three days was $106,921, the fourth largest cost for any single trip taken by lawmakers between January 2000 and September 2004.
  


• RUSSIA TRIP: A six-day trip to Moscow DeLay took in 1997 is also under investigation. The excursion was set up by the scandal-riddled Jack Abramoff and paid for by a shadowy, offshore lobbying group. DeLay said the trip, which cost more than $57,000, was financed by a non-profit. In reality, it was paid for by "a mysterious company registered in the Bahamas " which was actually a front for a $440,000 intensive lobbying campaign financed by the Russians.

What can you do about it?

Read a more comprehensive list of the other shady DeLay dealings with DeLay’s Dirty Dozen and his distortions regarding the current case at thinkprogress.org.