There is no better way to talk about how the government is not working for the American people than the case of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas -a poster boy for everything that is wrong with politics. His story has unveiled a web of corruption and pay-to-play politics more tangled than the pile of unwashed clothing scattered across my floor and just as rank.
To understand the rise of DeLay, we must understand the Republican revolution of the 1990s. Within a few years, a group of political novices took over the House and Senate from a supposedly out-of-touch, corrupt elite on the promise of moral, responsible government. Republicans accomplished that feat in 1994 thanks in part to DeLay's amazing fund-raising ability. That year DeLay secured not only $780,000 for Republicans through his political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), but according to Salon.com, he admits to having directed over $2 million from lobbyists to Republican candidates. DeLay uses his political influence to sell (with a wink and a nod) legislation for lobbyists and then buys more influence and friends with their massive contributions.
DeLay has received several trips paid for by special interests. The Washington Post reported on a $107,000 educational trip to South Korea for DeLay and his wife, paid for by a foreign agent in violation of House rules. But few things could top DeLay's 1997 Mariana Islands trip. The trip, paid for by officials on Saipan, was part of an effort by former aide Jack Abramoff to stop legislation aimed at cracking down on sweatshops and sex shops in the American territory
according to ABC News. Speaking to business leaders and Saipan officials fighting the legislation, DeLay said, You represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America and insisted that when he became the majority whip he wouldn't put the legislation on the agenda. A moral man indeed.
The lavish trips are just the beginning for DeLay. By 2003, he was raising $12,785 a day, according to the Campaign Finance Reform organization Democracy 21, as reported by Salon.com. The funding has been used to increase DeLay's personal power and to help build his dream of a permanent Republican majority. That goal is so powerful that DeLay and the Republicans are willing to do the most unscrupulous things to achieve it. Abramoff and DeLay's former press aide Mike Scanlon are under investigation and facing a civil suit for making $82 million by lobbying for American Indian tribes with Indian casinos through their close ties to DeLay. As proof of DeLay's clout Abramoff and Scanlon pointed to his role in killing a bill that threatened Indian gaming in 2001. That is not isolated to DeLay: Former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed, who has called gambling a cancer on the American body politic
received millions from a tribal casino laundered through Abramoff. The more we find out, the uglier things become.
In 2004, DeLay was rebuked by the House ethics committee for three charges that included attempting to bribe a congressman with $100,000 for his support of the President's prescription Medicare bill and for using the Federal Aviation Association to track Democratic lawmakers. But the most serious threat DeLay faces concerns one of his political action committees, Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC). TRMPAC was used to fund Republican candidates for the Texas legislature. The new Republican majority in Texas then redrew the congressional districts to add several new Republican seats to Congress. Because TRMPAC used corporate donations, three DeLay associates have been indicted and DeLay himself is under investigation.
Despite those allegations, DeLay has little to worry about from Congress. After the House ethics committee warned DeLay, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) replaced errant Republican members of the Ethics Committee who voted to admonish DeLay with one of his loyalists and two members who had contributed to DeLay's legal defense fund
according to Salon.com. That is not a story of one bad apple but of a few dead fish floating in the river -a sign of something far more toxic happening below. The Republicans have a choice: Retire DeLay or stand by the man who has done so much for them. Even with DeLay polling at 38/45 in his home district, according to The Houston Chronicle, I don't want him reeking until the 2006 election. Americans should give the Republicans a chance to do the right thing, and we should give them hell if they don't.
-Jess Wilhelm is a sophomore astrophysics major in the Honors Tutorial College. Send him an e-mail at jw176503@ohiou.edu.
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