The Devil In Mr. DeLay

My political philosophy is made up of a healthy dose of equal parts cynicism and pragmatism. I expect politicians to lie, cheat and steal up to a point. There isn't a member of Congress whom is beyond scrutiny so I tend not get into these picayune arguments over which politician is more corrupt than the others. I believe much of what sets people off about a particular politician goes back to his or her own personal preferences and ideology. In an argument over which was the better president, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush you'll hardly find a debate devoid of emotion and centered entirely on the facts and on their individual records.

There are limits however to how much a pragmatist like myself can stand. I chafe at even the appearance of royalty or tyranny in American politics and when any person in our government goes well over the line, I believe he or she has to lose their job. This of course brings me to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).

To be truthful, I kept hearing in the background about Tom DeLay's ethical violations and I didn't really pay too much attention. I figured if he's guilty of anything really bad eventually he'll get his comeuppance and life will go on. However, I like a good car wreck as much as anyone so when I see so many people staring at this mess on the side of the side political highway I cannot help but take a peek. What I have learned about Mr. DeLay smacks of somebody who has been so removed from real life that he’s obviously gone insane and is in desperate need of therapy.

First off, in a truly rare and dubious achievement, Rep. DeLay has earned four formal ethics violations, which is considerable since the committee has chastised only five Members of Congress in the last six years. While Congress may be fraternal in the sense that they protect their own, you know this man must have gone beyond pale to have scored four FORMAL ethics violation.

Tom DeLay owes much of his success to the energy industry. Much of what is plaguing Mr. DeLay now is a direct result of cronyism. For example, "DeLay’s rise in politics was fueled by Enron. The rogue company hosted the first fundraiser for his leadership PAC, raising $280,000 for him at the event. And DeLay fought hard for the company’s agenda of regulatory relief. Not only did Enron reward Delay with $32,700 over his years in Congress (making him its #8 top beneficiary overall), it gave two of his top aides a $750,000 consulting contract to do a “grassroots” campaign for the deregulation of energy markets, and paid his wife Christine $40,000 for a no-show job.

In 1998, DeLay sponsored a far-reaching energy deregulation bill, earning him a letter from Enron CEO Ken Lay lauding him “for his vision.” The Fort Worth Star Telegram wrote that “DeLay and a cadre of close political advisers operated at the center of an Enron-backed crusade for energy deregulation in the late 1990s.” That particular bill died but DeLay’s service to Enron continued even into the months after the company scandal broke open, when he pushed the House to pass a retroactive tax break that would have delivered $254 million to the failing company. Unlike most members of Congress, DeLay did not return his Enron campaign contributions after the company’s collapse; nor did he donate them to help assist its many devastated ex-employees and pensioners." (Credit pcactionfund.org)

It only gets worse from here folks. "In 2003, as the House was down-to-the-wire on the vote over the GOP's Medicare prescription drug legislation, DeLay offered to endorse Rep. Nick Smith’s (R-MI) son in his bid for a congressional seat in exchange for his support for the bill. The incident was made public when Smith, who was about to retire, wrote a newspaper column charging that Republican leaders had offered him “bribes” in the form of campaign help for his son.

In October 2004, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct admonished DeLay, saying he had gone too far: ''The promise of political support for a relative of a member goes beyond the boundaries of maintaining party discipline, and should not be used as the basis of a bargain for members to achieve their respective goals.” (House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct; The New York Times, 10/1/04)"

People reading this may argue that any Democrat with their hands on the levers of government could be and probably have been guilty of similar chicanery. Maybe, but DeLay has been cited as having nearly subverted democracy in the name of partisan politics and legislative totalitarianism. "DeLay has taken radical steps, at the expense of democracy, to centralize power in the House. He has used the arcane rules process to prevent legislation from getting a full hearing. Often the House leadership will make drastic revisions to a bill late in the evening. Although in such circumstances House rules require 48 hours to go by before the House takes action, in many cases the rules declare these bills to be “emergency” measures, eliminating this requirement. Sometimes bills are considered with as little as 30 minutes notice. According to American Prospect editor Robert Kuttner, “On several measures, members literally did not know what they were voting for.” Under DeLay’s leadership, there has been a huge increase in the number of bills that come up for consideration with rules prohibiting House members from offering amendments during floor debate. DeLay has also worked to exclude Democrats from conference committees, whose job it is to reconcile differing versions of House- and Senate-approved bill. While new issues are not supposed to be added in conference committee, according to Kuttner, under DeLay major provisions, such as the Medicare bill, have been added without any prior debate or Congressional Review. (Source: Robert Kuttner, "America as a One-Party State," The American Prospect, February 1, 2004)"

There's more and it continues to get more awful with each story I read. Here we have a man who is jumping on the Terry Schiavo "let her live" bandwagon while he was part of the decision to remove life support from his own father. While hypocritical as that is, it isn't nearly as disingenuous has comparing the "assault" on Terry Schiavo's life to his own battle with charges of ethical violations. "One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America," Mr. DeLay told a conference organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group. A recording of the event was provided by the advocacy organization Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

"This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others," Mr. DeLay said.

Mr. DeLay complained that "the other side" had figured out how "to defeat the conservative movement," by waging personal attacks, linking with liberal organizations and persuading the national news media to report the story. He charged "the whole syndicate" was "a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in." (Credit politick.info)

Yes Mr. DeLay, your ethical violations and prosecution there of are just like a woman being starved to death after allegedly being in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years. A statement like this is beyond political, it's heinous to the point of making him and Texas Republicans far and wide look repugnant.

American Justice is blind and sometimes slow but eventually the mighty fall and we cannibalize our own. Mr. DeLay's days of usurping power for himself are numbered as I'm sure his carcass will be dragged from the halls of Congress in due course. To leave him in power is to admit that Congress is no longer in the business of representing Americans.