Considering? With what this cost the state, the state should go after them too for the waste of taxpayer money! Why isn't there an"downside" or "accountability" in this "new brave world?"
You can't say it was a "waste of taxpayer money", because 2 plead guilty.
The fact that Jim Ellis and John Colyandro(Tom Delay's aides) plead guilty allowed Tom DeLay to plausibly deny that he knew anything about the campaign money being laundered thru the RNC.
A lot of people lose sight of what these court decisions were actually about. The Appeals Court decision and Court of Criminal Appeals decision were not about Tom Delay's guilt or innocence, but about what evidence could be used.
But as you point out it is also another example of the Democrats getting their partisan advantage financed by the public. Another example, when teachers dues were compelled to be paid to Democrat unions which were then washed and funneled to Democrat candidates who then obligingly passed legislation favoring Democrat teachers unions. Eric Holder has converted the Justice Department into another arm of communism in America, all funded by us. The entire edifice of federal grants and subsidies to universities, federal student loans etc. is a way of getting the public to pay for Democrat think tanks.
One might even view the entire federal income tax structure as a way of extorting money from Wall Street and big business to pass relief legislation, a disreputable practice which favors politicians of both flavors but especially Democrats.
The list goes on and on and Tom Delay is just one more victim among, literally, millions who have fallen to this practice one way or another.
My sense is in Texas this can be pursued against them individually.