4-07-05, 9:04 am

To an already long list of ethics violations, questionable conduct, abuse of power, and influence peddling, you can add hefty payments amounting to over $500,000 to family members of embattled Texas Republican Congressman Tom Delay's pattern of behavior.

According to press reports, DeLay's wife, Christine, and daughter, Dani DeLay Ferro, accepted over a half of a million dollars from Americans for a Republican Majority (ARM), a political action committee (PAC) directly controlled by DeLay for 'long-term strategic guidance' and 'personnel decisions.'

The cash was paid out since 2001, meaning that DeLay's family added an average of $100,000 dollars to its combined income from funds raised specifically for getting Republicans elected to office.

Campaign finance reformers have criticized the payment of this large sum of money as beyond the normal standards for members of Congress who employ family members.

But padding family income with campaign contributions is only a scratch on the surface.

Separately, DeLay's daughter received an additional $30,000 from Texans for a Republican Majority (TRM), a DeLay controlled PAC modeled after ARM. DeLay Ferro's records related to payments from TRM were subpoenaed by a grand jury in Austin that indicted three officials of that organization on 32 counts in 2004.

Two of those indicted also worked closely with DeLay at ARM.

A press statement by Texans for Public Justice, a non-profit, non-partisan research and advocacy organization that filed a 2003 complaint against DeLay's PAC, argued that TRM illegally failed to report to the Texas Election Commission over $600,000 given to it by corporations in the 2002 election campaign.

Though TRM denied getting corporate money for campaign contributions, the grand jury found that enough evidence existed that at least 30 corporations gave DeLay's Texas-based PAC over $600,000 in 2002 to warrant criminal proceedings.

DeLay defended himself by claiming that he had no role in the day-to-day fundraising at TRM. Publicly available documents show that this claim wasn't true, however, according to the New York Times.

E-mails made public during the investigation show that DeLay asked for lists of lobbyists attending TRM fundraisers, personally forwarded at least one corporate contribution check to TRM, and was in close contact with contributors and lobbyists seeking to build their influence in the Republican Party in Texas and nationally.

Evidence for this role at TRM indicates that DeLay lied about his work in that organization and that his involvement with illegal activities deserves further investigation.

DeLay's position as House Majority Leader and his reputation as an iron-fisted party loyalist who has openly threatened GOP House members who didn't toe the party line on various issues make the political action committees he controls very influential.

Few politicos doubt that in order for any special interest group to advance their agenda in the House of Representatives they have to go through DeLay's office and their checks have to find their way into Republican coffers and to PAC's like DeLay's ARM. DeLay is also being scrutinized for accepting privately funded trips to Russia, Britain, and South Korea in 1997, 2000 and 2001 respectively. The trips were paid for by corporations in those countries through Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist connected to DeLay through Ed Buckham, founder of Alexander Strategy Group. Buckham's firm has numerous large international and national corporate clients.

Buckham apparently used his connection to DeLay to advance the interests of his client, the South Korea-based Hanwha Group, a massive corporation that dabbles in several different economic sectors. DeLay regularly 'agrees to meetings with corporate officials on Buckham's recommendation,' says the Washington Post.

Buckham also arranged meetings between his South Korean client and President Bush.

While in Seoul, DeLay's itinerary included shopping, golf, and touring. According to the Post, the cost of DeLay's trip was the fourth largest for any single trip by a member of Congress since January 2000.

Ed Buckham and DeLay have a long and close history. Buckham helped DeLay found the infamous 'K Street Project' designed to reduce the influence of lobbyists who were pushing liberal oriented goals by punishing their firms with less access to Capitol Hill.

Russian energy corporations and investors financed the 1997 trip in order to get DeLay's (and Washington's) vocal support for privatization policies in Russia that sped up the sale of state-owned assets to these companies.

DeLay's Russian trip also included golf, fancy dinners with Russian business executives, and meetings with Russian church leaders. The 6-day trip totaled over $57,000 for him and his four staffers. While DeLay reported that the trip was financed by a non-profit lobbying firm based in DC, the Post reports that the non-profit was a cover for the Russian company executives who funneled the money through an outfit in the Bahamas.

DeLay this past week tried to duck criticism that he used a failed congressional intervention in the Terri Schiavo case to rally political support to his defense against continuing charges of ethics violations and influence peddling.

DeLay's cynical tactics haven't played well in his home district based in conservative, suburban Sugar Land, Texas. A poll conducted last week by the Houston Chronicle showed that only 38 percent of voters in his district said they would vote for him if the election were held now.

DeLay's disapproval rating has quadrupled, reports the Chronicle, among all voters in his district over the last year. Only 5 of 8 self-described conservative voters said they would vote for him again (as compared with the 8 of 10 who actually voted for him in 2004).

Interestingly, more than half of those polled identified themselves as Republicans, while only one-third claimed to be Democrats.



--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and may be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.