Ethics: A Leader's Triple Slap
Newsweek

Oct. 18 - Can house majority Leader Tom DeLay survive three strikes?
Last week he received a rebuke, his second in six days, from the House
ethics committee over charges he abused his office and engaged in
questionable fund-raising tactics.

The bipartisan panel admonished DeLay for contacting the Federal
Aviation Administration in 2003 to help locate a plane carrying
Democratic state legislators who had fled Texas to boycott a vote on a
GOP-supported redistricting plan. The committee also criticized his role
in a June 2002 fund-raiser sponsored by Westar Energy.

According to e-mails obtained by the ethics panel, Westar executives
felt the most "beneficial way to spend" money lobbying was by "joining
the fold" of DeLay. "How does one play for a more reasonable dollar
amount?" wrote one Westar executive. DeLay says neither he nor his staff
remembers talking to any Westar executives, and a provision the company
wanted was nixed. It was the third time the Texas lawmaker has been
cited by the ethics panel. DeLay called the investigation a "smear
campaign."

His GOP colleagues--for whom DeLay has raised millions of dollars in
campaign cash--are supporting him, for now. The day after the ethics
ruling, DeLay was back on the fund-raising trail, hosting a D.C.
reception for Rep. Randy Neugebauer, a freshman Texas lawmaker who
benefited from the redistricting plan DeLay advocated.

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.