FIRST, I will say I feel a little better about hearing from Jim Dean about Richard Morrison. It appears DFA had let him know they would support him. Jim was upset as well, but takes his withdrawal as what he said. I feel better knowing DFA did that. He was a great Dean Dozen last year.
http://www.blogforamerica.com/archives/006273.html#moreWednesday, April 27, 2005
Taking on Tom
Chris Bell is a former Democratic Congressman from Houston who filed an ethics complaint against Tom DeLay in June of last year. Listen to Chris Bell speak more about Tom DeLay in a special DFA exclusive podcast.
Ten months ago, when I lodged a formal ethics complaint against Tom DeLay before the House Ethics Committee, you'd be surprised how little enthusiasm my actions were met with up in Washington. Friends of mine in both parties urged me to back off in the hope of preserving the seven-year "ethics truce." Leave it to Washington politicians to argue the merits of an idea as absurd as a truce on ethics. But even those colleagues who fully backed my ethics complaint didn't expect anything to come of it, even though we all knew Tom DeLay was as crooked as a dog's hind leg. Most Washington insiders just didn't think that the public could be rallied to pay attention to anything as trivial as abuse of power, money laundering and gross ethical misconduct.
Ten months later, look how far we've come. DeLay's woes have become one of the year's dominant political stories. His poll numbers back home have plummeted. Prominent Republicans have begun to jump ship and publicly denounce him. And it looks like he's about to become the subject of a full-scale investigation by the House Ethics Committee. After years of dodging and denying, Tom DeLay can no longer escape the truth.
Tom DeLay's fall from grace is a remarkable testament to the growing impact of the progressive grassroots movement. When I filed the ethics complaint, conventional wisdom said nothing would come of it because the public didn't care, and a few years ago maybe this would have been true. But the netroots community refused to let this story get swept under the rug. When the mainstream media was slow to report on the scope and significance of DeLay's misconduct, the progressive blogosphere rose to the challenge. When a frightened DeLay gutted the House ethics rules and purged the Ethics Committee, grassroots activists organized to shine a light on his abuses. DeLay's troubles might be household news now, but you and I—to paraphrase Barbara Mandrel—were fightin' Tom DeLay when fightin' Tom DeLay wasn't cool.
It is imperative that we keep up the pressure in the weeks and months to come. DeLay is certainly not going to go without a fight, and it is up to us to push back against the lies he is spreading. In the talking points email he circulated to supporters last week, DeLay claimed that the ethics complaint I filed against him had been "dismissed" and that I was nothing more than a partisan stalker. I must say it is a source of pride to be singled out for such a personal attack by the esteemed Majority Leader, but the larger issue of the ethics complaint needs to be loudly rebutted. My complaint was hardly "dismissed," but instead resulted in two unanimous admonishments and a third charge being left on the table pending a criminal investigation. The Ethics Committee's letter of admonishment called his behavior "objectionable" and concluded "it is clearly necessary for you to temper your future actions." Only someone as ethically bankrupt as Tom DeLay would gleefully brag about such a stinging bipartisan rebuke.
But as we keep up the pressure on Tom DeLay, it is also important for us to remember that the Republican ethics gap does not start or end with him. Around the country, entrenched partisans who have grown fat on one-party rule are vulnerable to the same type of grassroots uprising that has brought Tom DeLay to the political brink. One of the few bright spots in 2004 was Montana, where now-Governor Brian Schweitzer led just such a Democratic movement in one of the most conservative states in the country.
Since being redistricted out of Congress, I've turned my focus to building this movement back here in Texas, where DeLay ally Rick Perry has done everything but hang a "for sale" sign on the door to the governor's office. Gov. Perry acts like he's taking his ethics lessons from Tom DeLay, and there is a new mainstream emerging in Texas that says enough is enough. We've launched a new website at chrisbell.com, and I urge you to visit. With the continued support of the netroots, the fight that began last year before the House Ethics Committee will be won in November 2006 at the ballot box. Keep up the fight!
—Chris Bell
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