Free Republic

Hutchison choice softens intensity of GOP primary ASSOCIATED PRESS AUSTIN (AP) - With Gov. Rick Perry and Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn now strapping up for what promises to be a fiery gubernatorial campaign, expectations of shifting across the Republican primary have all but fizzled out. The GOP holds every statewide elected office in Texas and party leaders had been gearing up for a grand game of political musical chairs in case U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison jumped into the 2006 governor's race. Instead, Hutchison opted for another run at the Senate, leaving most GOP office holders sitting right where they...

Self-inflicted wound District attorney's poor judgment in speaking at a Democratic fund-raiser provides an unintended boost for DeLay's defenders. Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has spent the past year investigating corporate funds collected by political action committees connected to U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. So far, a grand jury has indicted three of the Sugar Land representative's associates for violating Texas election laws. Republicans have accused the veteran prosecutor, a Democrat, of conducting a partisan witch hunt. Earle's attendance and remarks attacking DeLay at a Democratic fund-raiser last week in Dallas damaged the credibility...

In the decades after Watergate, Washington figures in legal or political hot water heard some familiar words of wisdom: The coverup is almost always worse than the crime. Never hunker down. Above all, never lie. Lately, though, the evidence is mounting that this tried-and-true advice may no longer be true. Recent evidence suggests that hunkering down can sometimes work just fine, in a political and news media environment that has changed significantly in recent years. Examples include legal controversies involving prominent Democrats as well as the Bush White House. Even people who got caught in falsehoods have resolved their cases...

WASHINGTON -- MoveOn.org, the left-wing activist group leading the fight against Rep. Tom DeLay, has claimed there is a Republican clamor to replace him as House majority leader that does not actually exist. "Now," said an e-mail dispatched by MoveOn, "some Republicans in Congress are speaking out against DeLay." In fact, however, no Republican in Congress has criticized DeLay publicly, not even on an off-the-record basis. The e-mail also declares unequivocally that "DeLay illegally used corporate funds in support of his plan to redistrict Texas." Actually, DeLay has not been convicted, tried or even formally accused of breaking the law.

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's legal expense fund accepted improper contributions from two registered lobbyists in 2001 and this week returned the checks, totaling $3,500, fund trustee Brent Perry said Tuesday. House rules prohibit lobbyists from making contributions to a member's legal defense fund. The Tom DeLay Legal Expense Trust has raised more than $900,000 since its creation in 2000, said Perry, a Houston attorney. The reimbursement was prompted by Public Citizen, a Washington-based watchdog group, which combed through DeLay's fund and identified the improper contributions. Asked why it took the fund so long to return the checks,...

Earlier this year, Tom DeLay correctly diagnosed the disease that infects his congressional majority. "If 1994 was the year we stopped thinking like a permanent minority," DeLay told Republicans gathered for a February party retreat in Philadelphia, "2004 is the year we start thinking like a permanent majority: unified, aggressive, rightfully confident of victory." DeLay, of course, thought permanent-majority status would be a good thing for the GOP, but nine months later he's become the symbol of a party corrupted by its lock on power. When House Republicans voted last month to allow members who have been indicted to keep...

The first thing that crossed my mind when ethics charges were lodged against Rep. Tom DeLay (R., Texas) was: "I wish Mary McGrory were still alive." McGrory, the pungent liberal columnist who died last April at the age of 85, was, improbably enough, a Tom DeLay fan. Why did this scourge of Nixon and Reagan appreciate "the Hammer" from Texas? She liked him because she was able to put aside partisan and philosophical differences in the name of a greater good. That greater good was a love of children. McGrory volunteered at St. Anne's Infant and Maternity Home and was...

...Now come these curiously timed indictments from Mr. Earle's office. Just six weeks before an election, he charges a trio of DeLay associates with illegal fund-raising activities in connection with Texans for a Republican Majority, a political action committee founded by Mr. DeLay in 2002. Of course, Mr. DeLay himself isn't named in the indictments and by Mr. Earle's own reckoning isn't even a target of the investigation. But don't think those minor details will stop the prosecutor and the media from mentioning the Majority Leader's name in connection with the case as often as possible between now and November....

The Washington Post's top story on Monday led with a hyperventilating revelation that Enron donated money to political campaigns, including some with ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R., Texas). (Shocking, isn't it?) The story goes on to reveal that after Enron donated money to political causes close to DeLay, he deviated wildly from his limited-government, conservative principles and supported deregulation legislation — an obvious, open-and-shut case of quid pro quo. This effort to make DeLay radioactive by associating his name with Enron as many times as possible in one article is characteristic of the way the majority leader's...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Texas Democrat who is losing his House seat because of redistricting engineered by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is filing ethics complaints against the Republican leader. Rep. Chris Bell is charging that DeLay, R-Texas, provided legislative favors to a company that made campaign contributions to DeLay and other Republicans, laundered other corporate donations to illegally help Texas GOP candidates and improperly used his office in asking the Federal Aviation Administration to track down a private plane used by Texas Democrats. "The charges are very serious and well documented," said Bell's spokesman, Eric Burns. DeLay's press secretary,...

PHARR, Texas - Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, forced to run in a new and unfamiliar district after the Republicans redrew Texas' congressional map to their liking, is up against a judge in Tuesday's primary. But his REAL opponent, he tells the voters, is U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. It was DeLay, a Texas Republican, who played a major behind-the-scenes role in the redistricting battle that could give the GOP seven more congressional seats and break the Texas delegation's 16-16 split. The new map was adopted by the GOP-controlled Legislature last year after months of turmoil that included two out-of-state...

Oct. 4, 2003, 1:34AM Scheme to confuse voters in mayor's race is thwarted By JOHN WILLIAMS Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Political Writer An aborted scheme to dilute support for a major candidate by putting another man with the same name on the Nov. 4 ballot has touched two campaigns and is roiling the rhetoric in Houston's mayoral race. It is a bizarre tale that includes a Democratic U.S. congressman, a secret tape recording, a $5,000 campaign check and a floppy straw hat sold for $1,200. And it is a tale that raises as many questions as it answers. At the...

In Search of Bogus Bill How a would-be dirty trick became campaign comedy BY TIM FLECK Even by Houston's offbeat political standards, it was a very strange meeting indeed. In Internet whistle-blower Brenda Flores's humble Spring Branch-area bungalow sat an unlikely confab of political power: Congressman Chris Bell, mayoral candidate and millionaire executive William H. "Bill" White and Metro board member Janie Reyes. They had come calling on a Sunday afternoon, the day before the municipal election filing deadline, to implore Flores not to follow through on her confessed scheme to recruit another Bill White to run for mayor. In...

Texas House Republicans on Monday unveiled a new redistricting map that would give the GOP a majority in the state's congressional delegation at the expense of white Democratic incumbents. Locally, the district represented by freshman Houston Democrat Chris Bell would be removed from Harris County altogether and would become a new Hispanic seat in South Texas. The plan would divide Harris County in such a way that the number of districts including parts of the county would increase from eight to nine. Houston's influence in Congress could diminish, though, because some of the districts would cover much larger areas and...