Republican calls for DeLay to resign as majority leaderTexan's ethics woes are detrimental to GOP, Shays says
Monday, April 11, 2005
Rep. Christopher Shays said yesterday that fellow Republican Rep. Tom DeLay should step down as House majority leader because his continuing ethics problems are hurting the GOP.
"Tom's conduct is hurting the Republican Party, is hurting this Republican majority and it is hurting any Republican who is up for re-election," Shays told The Associated Press yesterday.
DeLay, R-Texas, has been dogged in recent months by reports of possible ethics violations. There have been questions about his overseas travel, campaign payments to family members, and his connections to lobbyists who are under investigation.
Shays, a moderate Republican from Connecticut who has battled with his party's leadership on a number of issues, said that efforts by the House GOP members to change ethics rules to protect DeLay only make the party look bad.
"My party is going to have to decide whether we are going to continue to make excuses for Tom to the detriment of Republicans seeking election," Shays said.
Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, said yesterday that DeLay needs to answer questions about his ethics.
"I think he has to come forward and lay out what he did and why he did it and let the people then judge for themselves," Santorum told ABC's This Week. "But from everything I've heard, again, from the comments and responding to those, is everything he's done was according to the law."
DeLay's spokesman, Dan Allen, said yesterday that the congressman looks forward to "sitting down with the ethics-committee chairman and ranking member to get the facts out and to dispel the fiction and innuendo that is being launched at him by House Democrats and their liberal allies."
DeLay was admonished three times last year by that committee, which has been in limbo since March, when its five Democrats balked at adopting rules developed by Republicans.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said last week that the controversy was distracting DeLay from dealing with more pressing problems before Congress.
Santorum, however, said that DeLay is "very effective in leading the House" and "to date, has not been compromised."
A senior Democratic senator, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, had this advice for the Republicans who control both the House and Senate: "Be careful about how closely you embrace Mr. DeLay."
Dodd cited the new rules for the ethics committee that House Republicans rammed through in the wake of DeLay's difficulties. Those rules require a bipartisan vote before an investigation can be started.
"Unfortunately, in his particular case, there's a process that he's tried to change so they could actually reach a determination as to whether or not he's innocent or guilty of the things he's been charged with," Dodd said. "But this is not going to go away."
DeLay, who took center stage in passing legislation to keep Terri Schiavo alive, also has found that President Bush and congressional colleagues are distancing themselves from his comments about the judges involved in her case.
"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior," DeLay said, raising the prospect of impeaching members of a separate and independent branch of government. Later, he complained of "an arrogant and out of control judiciary that thumbs its nose at Congress and the president."
Bush, declining to endorse DeLay's comments, said Friday that he supports "an independent judiciary." He added, "I believe in proper checks and balances."
