Facts on the Attack?

Mike Soraghan writes up Colorado Rep. Bob Beauprez's #2 spot on the DeLay rankings in today's Denver Post. Beauprez spokesman Jordan Stoick calls the rankings the work of "an attack group," and refuses to respond to the fact that Beauprez has taken $20,000 in campaign contributions from ARMPAC, given $1,000 to DeLay's legal defense, and voted with the Majority Leader 96% of the time.

From the Associated Press:

Two Republican members of the House ethics committee will not participate in any investigation of Majority Leader Tom DeLay because they contributed to DeLay's legal defense chairman, the ethics panel chairman said Wednesday.

Friends to the End?

Wes Allison of the St. Petersburg Times writes that Delay has spent a lot of money cultivating the kind of friends who’ll stand by you when your ethical shortcomings become a distraction from your work.

"He takes very good care of his members, he understands their needs, and then when he needs to get votes for an issue, he's got a lot of good will built up," said Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo.

There's a lot of news coverage on the ethics rules reversal by Hastert and DeLay, but a couple of stories caught my eye this morning.

The big news this morning was Tom DeLay's six-page, single-spaced letter to his Houston constituents imporing them to listen to the "real story" about, well, there's a long list: the luxurious overseas trips he took paid for by lobbyists including Jack Abramoff, under investigation for bilking Indian tribes out of millions of dollars; changing the rules governing the House Ethics Committee and ousting Rep. Joel Hefley (R-CO) as chairman; etc. etc.

During last year’s election, DeLay claimed ultimate power in advancing his own agenda, telling a reporter, “As majority leader, there isn’t a piece of legislation that makes it to the floor of the House without me saying so.” When the Senate was considering the bankruptcy bill in early March, the Majority Leader pledged fast action: “We will grab hold of it just like we did class action if it is a good and clean bankruptcy reform bill.” That's exactly what the Senate did.

Thanks to the folks at DriveDemocracy.org, here's a story to pass along:

The Texas Observer runs a piece today that gives us all more to chew on about DeLay's state political action committee, TRMPAC. They're reporting that more of the subpeonaed documents from the civil trial against TRMPAC officials show clear intent to use corporate donations for political purposes. Here's how the story begins:

This is how he tries to keep them loyal.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) will receive an overwhelming outpouring of support — in cold, hard cash — from his fellow GOP lawmakers at tonight’s Retain Our Majority Program (ROMP) fundraiser.

DeLay has raked in more than $1.5 million from his fellow lawmakers and will funnel that money to the 10 most vulnerable colleagues, as identified by House leadership.

2 Political Junkies write up GOP Pennsylvania Rep. Melissa Hart's DeLay problems.

There's a bad bankruptcy bill being debated in the Senate this week. Tell your Senators you oppose it.

Today's New York Times has a new twist on it -- there is a big, gaping loophole for wealthy Americans in the bill: