posted April 06, 2005 04:50 PM              

Published: April 6, 2005

David J. Phillip/Associated Press
Tom DeLay of Texas and his wife, Christine, who has been paid by his political action committee.

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1. Editorial: The Judges Made Them Do It
2. Op-Ed Columnist: An Academic Question
3. Op-Ed Contributor: The Price of Infallibility
4. It's a Flat World, After All
5. Political Groups Paid Two Relatives of House Leader
Go to Complete List

ASHINGTON, April 5 - The wife and daughter of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, have been paid more than $500,000 since 2001 by Mr. DeLay's political action and campaign committees, according to a detailed review of disclosure statements filed with the Federal Election Commission and separate fund-raising records in Mr. DeLay's home state, Texas.

Most of the payments to his wife, Christine A. DeLay, and his only child, Dani DeLay Ferro, were described in the disclosure forms as "fund-raising fees," "campaign management" or "payroll," with no additional details about how they earned the money. The payments appear to reflect what Mr. DeLay's aides say is the central role played by the majority leader's wife and daughter in his political career.

Mr. DeLay's national political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, or Armpac, said in a statement on Tuesday that the two women had provided valuable services to the committee in exchange for the payments: "Mrs. DeLay provides big picture, long-term strategic guidance and helps with personnel decisions. Ms. Ferro is a skilled and experienced professional event planner who assists Armpac in arranging and organizing individual events."

Mrs. Ferro has managed several of her father's re-election campaigns for his House seat.

His spokesman said that Mr. DeLay had no additional comment. Although several members of Congress employ family members as campaign managers or on their political action committees, advocacy groups seeking an overhaul of federal campaign-finance and ethics laws say that the payments to Mr. DeLay's family members were unusually generous, and should be the focus of new scrutiny of the Texas congressman.

Mr. DeLay, whose position as majority leader makes him the second-most-powerful House member, has offered a vigorous public defense in recent weeks to a flurry of ethics accusations from Democratic lawmakers and campaign watchdog groups, including charges that he violated House rules on travel. The executive director of Americans for a Republican Majority and a major fund-raiser for the committee were indicted in Texas last year on charges of illegal fund-raising, and prosecutors there have refused to rule out the possibility of charges against Mr. DeLay in the continuing inquiry.

In recent weeks, public interest groups have called on the House ethics committee and the Justice Department to review lavish, privately financed overseas trips for Mr. DeLay and his aides, including a 1997 trip to Russia that was underwritten by a conservative education group closely linked to a powerful Republican lobbyist who often boasted of his influence with the majority leader.

The payments to Mr. DeLay's family have continued into 2005; the latest monthly disclosure filed by Americans for a Republican Majority shows Mrs. DeLay was paid was paid $4,028 last month, while Mrs. Ferro received $3,681. Earlier statements show that the two women received similar monthly fees from the political action committee throughout 2003 and 2004.

Mrs. DeLay has been involved in her husband's political career and his fund-raising operations in Washington and Texas. In an interview in 2003 with Roll Call, a newspaper on Capitol Hill, a spokesman for Mr. DeLay explained Mrs. DeLay's role as "the final signoff of Tom's travel schedule, what events he attends and what his name appears on."

Mrs. Ferro has also helped manage Mr. DeLay's charity operations. Financial disclosure statements filed by Mr. DeLay's House campaign committees, which are separate from Americans for a Republican Majority, show that Mrs. Ferro and her political consulting firm, Coastal Consulting of Sugar Land, Tex., received $222,000 from 2001 through last year, reflecting her role in the re-election campaigns.

Although there has been no suggestion from prosecutors that Mrs. Ferro is under investigation by the grand jury in Austin, her records were subpoenaed in the inquiry, which is focused on the fund-raising activities of Texans for a Republican Majority, a state political action committee modeled on Americans for a Republican Majority. Mrs. Ferro received about $30,000 in fund-raising and consulting fees from Texans for a Republican Majority, the committee's records show.

CONTINUED:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/06/politics/06delay.html?hp&ex=1112846400&en=f4d1a399b234e303&ei=5094&partner=homepage

posted April 06, 2005 05:28 PM            

All roads in the CBS memo scandal traverse Travis County. Dan Rather was the special guest at a 2001 fundraiser for the Travis County Democratic Party, and his daughter is active in the organization. Former National Guardsman Bill Burkett, the unstable Bush-baiter, who now claims he was the source of the forged documents, is represented (and many believe directed) by David Van Os, the former Travis County Democratic Party chairman.

Now Travis County district attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat with a history of bringing politically motivated indictments, has indicted three DeLay aides who ran a political action committee called Texans for a Republican Majority PAC. Perhaps recognizing that indicting DeLay himself 41 days before an election would be just too transparent, Earle instead indicted the three underlings for allegedly directing corporate contributions to Texas legislative candidates in 2002.

At stake in 2002 was control of the Texas legislature, which was to redraw Congressional district lines. Corporate contributions to legislative candidates are illegal in Texas. The DeLay aides stand accused of violating that prohibition, along with eight companies like Sears Roebuck that provided the funds. The corporate money, however, never went to the candidates. Instead, it went to a much larger fund for state elections controlled by the Republican National Committee in Washington. That committee made contributions to Texas legislative candidates, constituting what Earle now charges is "money laundering."

The only problem is that similar transactions are conducted by both parties in many states, including Texas. In fact, on October 31, 2002, the Texas Democratic Party sent the Democratic National Committee (DNC) $75,000, and on the same day, the DNC sent the Texas Democratic Party $75,000. On July 19, 2001, the Texas Democratic Party sent the DNC $50,000 and, again on the same day, the DNC sent the Texas Democratic Party $60,000. On June 8, 2001, the Texas Democratic Party sent the DNC $50,000. That very same day, the DNC sent the Texas Democratic Party $60,000.

Earle's last foray into politicized prosecution in 1993 turned into a huge embarrassment when he went after Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), who was then Texas Treasurer. Earle made a series of trumped-up charges, including that the demure Hutchison had physically assaulted an employee.

Earle dropped the case during the trial.

DeLay has been the target of previous legal harassment. Four years ago, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, under the chairmanship of Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) filed a lawsuit under RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. RICO was designed as a tool against organized crime, but Kennedy argued that DeLay's relationships with Washington lobbyists amounted to "extortion."

Even some liberal commentators criticized the suit as frivolous. It was eventually thrown out.

This year, lame duck Rep. Chris Bell (D-TX), who lost a March primary, filed a Complaint with the House Ethics Committee, citing many of the same circumstances in the Earle indictments. For good measure, Bell echoed Kennedy's "extortion" allegations and claimed DeLay "misused" his office by asking the Federal Aviation Administration and Justice Department to help find Texas legislators who fled to Oklahoma to deny Republicans a quorum needed to pass the redistricting plan. Since Bell had, in effect, been redistricted out of his seat, his allegations were colored, but did not stop the media from repeating them.

Ironically, DeLay's Democratic counterpart in the House, Nancy Pelosi, has been involved in wholesale and indisputable election law violations, but has been absent from the headlines. Pelosi is a champion of what is called "campaign finance reform." The clearest and most fundamental tenet of current election law is the limitation of contributions. Yet, Pelosi's committees have engaged in a massive circumvention of the limitation, even as Pelosi was a key player in passing additional "reform" measures such as McCain-Feingold.

Earlier this year, the Federal Election Commission fined two so-called leadership PACs associated with Pelosi in response to a Complaint by the National Legal and Policy Center. The purpose of leadership PACs is to make contributions to the campaigns of other Congressional candidates. House and Senate Leaders are allowed one leadership PAC in addition to their own campaign committee.

Pelosi set up two. Her second PAC made $5,000 contributions to 36 campaigns that had already received the $5,000 maximum from the first. The treasurer of both PACs candidly admitted that the "main reason" for setting up the second PAC was to "give twice as much (sic) hard dollars."

posted April 06, 2005 05:32 PM            

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi helped secure $3 million last year for a nonprofit transportation-research organization whose president gave money to her political action committee as the group was paying for a European trip for one of her policy advisers.

Transportation adviser Lara Levison's nine-day, $4,475 trip to Spain and Germany last April to learn about hydrogen-fuel cells for buses was primarily paid for by WestStart-CALSTART.

But just days before the trip, WestStart-CALSTART announced that Mrs. Pelosi had helped the nonprofit group secure $1 million from the Federal Transit Administration for a bus rapid-transit program. A month after the Levison trip, the group sent out a press release thanking her for a $2 million grant for a fuel-cell program.

According to campaign records, WestStart-CALSTART Chief Executive Officer John R. Boesel also gave $1,000 to one of Mrs. Pelosi's political action committees in 2003 and $1,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Both Mr. Boesel and Mrs. Pelosi's spokeswoman, Jennifer Crider, said there is no link between the staffer's trip and the grants.
"This trip was completely within the House rules. The two projects were long-standing projects we've worked on," Ms. Crider said.
Both she and Mr. Boesel said Republican staffers also were on the European trip.
Mr. Boesel said Mrs. Pelosi has supported his projects for more than a decade, adding that the programs have drawn support from both parties and that his political donations have gone to both parties.
But the trip is raising questions from some Republicans, who say the California Democrat and some ethics-watchdog groups are being hypocritical when they criticize House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on ethics charges.
"Given the actions of the minority leader vis-a-vis the majority leader and other Republicans, I'm having a little trouble finding where the outrage is coming from these groups that continue to pound on Republican members," a senior Republican lawmaker said on the condition of anonymity.
The lawmaker said nothing distinguished Mrs. Pelosi's actions from those of Mr. DeLay and other Republicans that she has criticized. He also said the questions about Mrs. Pelosi rise to the point of an ethics complaint.
"I think the minority leader ought to be subject to the same type of scrutiny as other members," he said.
Campaign-watchdog groups said it doesn't appear that Mrs. Pelosi or her staff member broke any rules, but said the timing looks bad.
"Anytime a member of their staff gets trips to Europe, it raises questions," said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. "Add to it the idea that the organization is thanking Pelosi, it just adds to it."
Ken Boehm, chairman of the conservative National Legal and Policy Center, which has challenged Mrs. Pelosi's campaign fundraising in the past, said the trip looks shady.
"I think it looks like she's doing legislative favors for donors, because she is," he said.
Mr. Boehm said Mrs. Pelosi's actions are starting to look like a pattern. He has questioned Mrs. Pelosi's earmark in early 2003 of $1 million to a University of San Francisco research center named after Leo T. McCarthy, who has been treasurer of her political action committees.
The questions about Mrs. Pelosi come as Republicans have vowed to fight back against what they think is a coordinated attack by her and allied groups on Mr. DeLay.
The Texan was admonished three times by the House ethics committee last year, and news reports have raised more questions this year, including about a 2001 trip paid for by a registered foreign agent. Mrs. Pelosi later had a staff member take a trip paid for by the same group.
In this newest charge, Ms. Levison's trip, from April 11 to 19, 2004, took her from Washington to Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, then to Heidelberg and Stuttgart in Germany.
Total transportation was $2,200, lodging cost $1,400 and meals cost $875, according to the disclosure form, which erroneously lists Mrs. Pelosi as making the trip.
Ms. Levison paid for two weekend days of the trip herself -- a fact that Ms. Crider said shows the rest of the trip was for legitimate business purposes.
"It's within the House rules that if you do anything that's not trip-related, that is personal, you pay for it. And we fully complied. It's actually counter to the argument that she was there for fun," Ms. Crider said.
She also chided Republicans for not making their charges against Mrs. Pelosi publicly.
"Republicans threaten and threaten and threaten, but aren't willing to use their name to stand up and make the case," she said.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050405-123505-7189r.htm

posted April 11, 2005 12:54 PM            

On March 24, former Congressman Bob Livingston was sent an e-mail by a New York Times editorial page staffer suggesting he write an op-ed essay. Would Livingston, who in 1998 gave up certain elevation to be House speaker because of a sexual affair, write about how Majority Leader Tom DeLay should now act under fire? In a subsequent conversation, it was made clear the Times wanted the prominent Republican to say DeLay should step aside for the good of the party.

Livingston in effect declined by responding that if he wrote anything for the Times, it would be pro-DeLay. But this remarkable case of that august newspaper fishing for an op-ed piece makes it appear part of a calculated campaign to bring down the single most powerful Republican in Congress. The Democratic establishment and left-wing activists have targeted DeLay as the way to end a decade of Republican control of the House.

Ironically, this campaign's intensity may protect DeLay from Republicans who in their secret hearts would like to see the sometimes-overbearing Texan fall. No GOP politician wants to be the handmaiden of DeLay's Democratic detractors. Last Wednesday's closed-door caucus of House Republicans gave DeLay a standing ovation. Contrary to claims on leftist Web sites, no Republican member has called for the majority leader's resignation.

Accusations of DeLay going on junkets funded by private sources and putting relatives on non-government payrolls reflect common congressional practice. The assault on DeLay did not begin until he redistricted Texas congressional seats, which changed the 2004 election from a net loss to a net gain for House Republicans. That accomplishment, however, makes it much harder to rip holes in DeLay's House GOP support.

At least 18 news organizations now have assigned reporters to cover DeLay, but the quest by The New York Times for a prominent Republican to suggest his resignation may cross a line. Livingston, a Louisiana congressman who was Appropriations Committee chairman, was set to succeed Newt Gingrich as speaker in November 1998, when he stunned Washington by announcing his resignation from Congress after allegations of a sexual affair.

New York Times editorial page staffer Tobin Harshaw sent the March 24 e-mail to Livingston, now a Washington lobbyist. Chris Terrell, a principal in The Livingston Group, declined to give this column a copy of the message but read it to us. Harshaw, reached in New York, confirmed he had a conversation with Terrell, but added: ''We don't comment on assignments, written or unwritten.''

According to Terrell, Harshaw's e-mail suggested Livingston might want to write ''a short op-ed on DeLay's political future.'' Terrell said he telephoned Harshaw, saying his boss would ''write a favorable piece,'' then asked: ''Is that really what you're seeking or is that what you would print?''

It clearly was not. While Harshaw asserted ''we would welcome any thoughts'' by Livingston, Terrell quoted him as saying ''we are seeking those who would go on the record or state for the good of the party he (DeLay) should step aside.''

The importance of such a column by so prestigious a Republican as Livingston would break a solid GOP front supporting DeLay. Potential Republican defectors have stayed loyal to DeLay because of Democratic leaders. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, abandoning traditions of at least minimum courtesy between party leaders, has led the campaign against her Republican counterpart. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the aggressive new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has made this the cornerstone of efforts to recapture the House in 2006.

The one crack in the pro-DeLay alliance was a March 28 editorial in The Wall Street Journal charging the majority leader with ''betraying the broader set of principles that brought him into office.'' To be accused of imitating the ethical standards of the Democrats he deplored was viewed by DeLay as a ''gut shot.''

The question: Would this editorial start a chain reaction of Republican House members abandoning DeLay, much as Democrats turned against Speaker Jim Wright in 1989? Those defections doomed Wright, whose fall was followed in five years by the Republican capture of the House. Since Bob Livingston would not get the ball rolling, the campaign to get DeLay still needs a major anti-DeLay Republican to go public.
http://www.newsmax.com/r/?http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak11.html

posted April 13, 2005 04:01 PM            

Wednesday, April 13, 2005 12:50 a.m. EDT
Dem Junketeers Make Delay Look Like Piker

Reporters are working overtime trying to convince their readers that three trips abroad taken by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay were suspicious because they were paid for by special interests.

But if the same standard was applied to DeLay's House colleagues, more than a few Democrats would find themselves facing accusations of rampant corruption.

In mid-March - before the Texas Republican became the media's GOP target du jour - the Daily News surveyed the most prolific junketeers in the House's New York State delegation - and it turns out that DeLay can't hold a candle to this crew.

Those with an insatiable wanderlust include:

Democrat Maurice Hinchey, who - according to the News - "has clocked more miles than the other 28 members of [New York] state's delegation." The well-traveled liberal took 27 trips costing private groups $157,000 over the past five years.
And Hinchey traveled in style; luxuriating at resorts like the Four Seasons in Punta Mita and other sumptuous retreats in Morocco, Madrid, Budapest, Helsinki, Tunisia, Cancun, Italy, Vancouver, Shanghai and Grand Cayman Island.

According to the News, Democrat Elliot Engel "has whisked his wife to first-class resorts in San Juan and Las Vegas, Wyoming and Florida - and barely spent a nickel." He even scored a $5,300 junket to New Orleans for his daughter and took his teenage son to Seattle and London and Jerusalem, gratis.

Democrat Charlie Rangel jetted off to the Dominican Republic three times in recent years, courtesy of the Punta Cana Beach Resort in 2001, American Airlines in 2002 and the Dominican/American Roundtable in 2003.

Democrat Gregory Meeks has taken 37 trips in the last five years - 30 privately funded and seven government-paid. Destinations included Jamaica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, Venezuela and Honolulu. Total cost for Meeks' meanderings: $150,000.

Democrat Jerrold Nadler has traveled with his wife, Joyce, courtesy of the Association of American Railroads, on a pair of trips costing $5,500 and $6,600, respectively - while serving on the House Railroad Subcommittee.

Democrat Anthony Weiner took the longest and most expensive taxpayer-paid trip in the delegation - a fact-finding expedition to Antarctica. According to the Daily News, taxpayers wound up shelling out more than $350,000 for the nine-day, 12,500-mile marathon two years ago - with Weiner traveling as part of the 13-member Science Committee.

Democrat Joseph Crowley took the New York delegation's longest trip on record, a 13-day, $8,900 getaway to India and Bangladesh sponsored by an Indian trade group. Crowley has also taken his wife, Kasey, on freebies to India, New Orleans and the Dominican Republic.
Again - those are just the jaunts taken by the House's New York delegation.

What about reports that Tom DeLay paid family members to work on his campaigns?

It turns out he's far from alone. The MediaNews Group reported Wednesday morning:

"Rep. Bernard Sanders [Ind.-VT] used campaign donations to pay his wife and stepdaughter more than $150,000 for campaign-related work since 2000, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

"Jane O'Meara Sanders, his wife, received $91,020 between 2002 and 2004 for "consultation" and for negotiating the purchase of television and radio time-slots for Sanders' advertisements, according to records and interviews."

Ooops.