Rep. DeLay has been accused of taking illegal campaign contributions, using his contributions illegally, and illegally redistricting Texas to gain seats for the Republicans just 3 years after redistricting had been done. Did the Republicans who control the House ask him to step down from his post as Majority Leader to assure people that they were not being lead by someone who is at best taking money and advice from people who have been convicted of crimes and at worst is one of these criminals himself? No. They reprimanded each time these situations came to light, but did not ask him to take less of a role in leading their party.
The Washington Post reports that "In 2003, at DeLay's behest, the Texas legislature redrew the state's congressional lines without waiting for the next census (in 2010), the customary occasion for redistricting. With the new districts, which still face court challenges, Texas elected five additional Republicans to the U.S. House last November, accounting for all of the party's net gain.
DeLay's new district wound up several percentage points less Republican than his previous one, and it has a substantial and growing Asian American population.
'When you're drawing the lines, you have to set the example,' DeLay explained late last week as he traveled' his district during the Presidents' Day recess. 'If you're going to maximize the number of Republicans that are elected, everybody can't have an 80 percent district. If you're the guy that's sort of leading the effort, you can't tell your members, 'Well, I'm going to dilute yours, but I'm going to pack mine.' "
The Representatives that were unseated allege that a political action committee begun by DeLay improperly spent about $600,000 in corporate contributions to implement the redistricting plan.
DeLay, his wife, Christine, and close aides had traveled the world with Jack Abramoff, who once was one of the Republican Party's most powerful lobbyists and now is facing criminal and congressional investigations for millions of dollars in fees he received from casino-operating Indian tribes seeking to influence the federal government. The National Center for Public Policy Research, which had Abramoff as a board member, paid for DeLay's trips in 2000 to Scotland and London, where he stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel, and to Russia in 1997.
This is the leadership of the Republican party. This is why I fear that special interests and corporations who have most of the money have created an unfair, undemocractic, money first aristocracy and destroying the founders' ideals of a free republic that put individuals first and made America great. People with money pay candidates to put their plans ahead of the best interests of the people that they are going to represent. |
