Sidney Blumenthal | I, DeLay

By Sidney Blumenthal
The Guardian UK

Tuesday 04 April 2006

The fall of Tom DeLay, the most powerful Republican leader in the Congress, creates a crisis for his party and the political machine he built.

The resignation of Tom DeLay is the crashing conclusion of his garish career but hardly the end of his legal troubles or the demise of the partisan political machine he constructed. The former majority leader of the House of Representatives has been the Republican strongman in the Congress, known as "The Hammer." As the party whip, he hung a bullwhip on his wall as a symbol of intimidation. The style of the former exterminator from Sugar Land, Texas was bullying and crude. He called the Environmental Protection Agency "the Gestapo," ran a smear operation out of his office that would have won the admiration of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and grabbed whatever he wanted as his right of lordship. When a meek restaurateur in a Capitol Hill steakhouse politely asked DeLay to put out his large cigar because of the city's no smoking law, DeLay bellowed, "I am the government!" And he was not wrong.

DeLay enforced harsh discipline on the Republicans, bondage they savoured as the essence of power. In return, anything a loyal House member wanted, he would provide. "The Hammer" was also known as "The Concierge." Rules, including the House's own, meant nothing to him, irritating hindrances to be broken at his will. In order to gain passage of a bill favouring the big drug companies - preventing the Medicare elderly prescription drug program from negotiating lower rates - he extended debate long past the deadline and was accused of offering the bribe of a campaign contribution to a wavering Republican. DeLay stomped on the Ethics committee, stopping it from meeting to investigate this episode until public outcry forced him to back off. He greeted slaps on his wrist as badges of honour.

DeLay walked over bodies in his own party to reach his pinnacle. He led coups against the Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, tribune of the right, yet too amenable to negotiation with President Clinton as far as DeLay was concerned.

DeLay most notable achievement was coercing the impeachment of President Clinton. Without his arm-twisting, impeachment would have certainly failed. There was a sizeable group of relatively moderate Republicans opposed. They saw no merits in the ridiculous charges and understood impea?hment was being pressed out of crude partisanship. But DeLay threatened their financial supporters (whose business interests would be blackballed from receiving congressional relief), and threatened to bankroll rightwing candidates against the moderates in Republican primaries to bleed them white. So one by one, they caved in. A moderate Republican was a moderate when Tom DeLay told them they could be moderate. Under DeLay's thumb, the House Judiciary committee voted for impeachment after refusing to establish any constitutional standards for their action. The constitution was swept away in his exercise of power. President Clinton was acquitted by the Senate, but DeLay was unblemished by his abuse. Fear of him was never higher.

Over more than a decade, DeLay forged a political machine that he called the "K Street project," after the downtown avenue in Washington DC of steel and glass building housing the large law and lobbying firms. DeLay kept a black book in which he noted who gave money to and hired Republicans. When a trade association tried to employ a Democrat, it was issued a warning that it would be punished. From the "K Street project" to the Republicans flowed tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions. Meanwhile, the contracts from corporations for lobbying and legal work went to these Republican firms. It was a perfectly designed system of legal graft.

When President George W. Bush assumed office, one-party rule commenced. DeLay served as Bush's "Hammer." Back in Texas, between the political operations of both of them, the Democrats had been shattered as a party. Now DeLay and Bush worked together nationally to accomplish the same goal. Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, who had been instrumental in the Texas takeover, was the go-between in the relationship. And the go-between in the Rove-DeLay relationship was a lobbyist named Jack Abramoff.

While exercising absolute power in the House, DeLay was determined to augment it further by thoroughly rigging the outcome of congressional elections in Texas. He created a political action committee, raised millions from his K Street allies, and poured the money into the Texas legislature, which in turn redrew the lines of congressional districts to wipe out the existing Democrats. DeLay's scheme succeeded in giving him an even bigger Republican margin. But the district attorney of Travis County, Texas investigated and indicted two of his aides and finally DeLay himself for illegally using corporate campaign funds.

As this scandal unfolded, the many-sided corruption of Jack Abramoff came under scrutiny by federal prosecutors. The ring tightened around DeLay, whose dealings with Abramoff were extensive and who called him one of his "closest friends". DeLay's former press secretary turned state's evidence. And his former communications director, an Abramoff business partner, pleaded guilty in a deal with the prosecutors. Last week, DeLay's former deputy chief of staff, another lobbyist, pled, too, his sentence to be decided on the basis of his cooperation. Thus surrounded, DeLay quit. His worst days lie ahead.

The Republican machine and its "K Street project" hum without its conductor. But the Republicans face the most difficult election cycle since they took control of the Congress in 1994. DeLay's further tribulations will illustrate the corruption endemic to the operation he built. The Republicans must hang on the hope that the campaign funds they raise through the DeLay devised system will enable them to overcome his corrupt taint.

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