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Donors to DeLay Fund Put on Ethics Panel
Wed Feb 2, 2005 7:39 PM ET
By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two donors to U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay's defense fund were named on Wednesday to the House ethics committee, which twice last year admonished the Texas Republican.
In a shake-up of the bipartisan panel that critics called part of a purge and a "shutdown" of ethics enforcement, Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, also replaced the ethics chairman, Joel Hefley, a Colorado Republican, with Washington state Republican Doc Hastings, who was already on the panel.
Hefley's term as chairman was up. Though it could have been extended, Hastert decided to replace him for the 109th Congress, which began last month.
Hastert appointed to the panel Republican Reps. Lamar Smith of Texas and Tom Cole of Oklahoma. Both have donated to a defense fund DeLay created in 2000 after Democrats filed a civil racketeering suit -- later dismissed with the agreement of both sides -- over his fund-raising network.
Smith donated $10,000 and Cole donated $5,000, according to the government-watchdog group Public Citizen.
The ethics committee last year admonished DeLay in two separate reports, on a total of three matters: a 2002 fund-raiser that it said gave the appearance of donors getting special access; enlisting the help of a federal agency in a Texas political spat, and offering a political favor to a member in an effort to win passage of the Medicare drug bill.
Three of DeLay's associates were indicted by a Texas grand jury in September in connection with illegal fund raising. The prosecutor has said the investigation is not finished. DeLay has said he is confident he will not be indicted.
PURGE
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said, "By ousting Mr. Hefley as chairman ... and replacing him with a party loyalist, the Republican leadership is sending a chilling message. It is further evidence that there is a purge under way of any Republican who does not precisely toe the party line."
Craig Holman of Congress Watch, a citizen's watchdog group, added: "This is clearly an attempt by Tom DeLay and the House Republican leadership to shut down House ethics enforcement."
Republicans rejected such criticism and said it was time to replace Hefley