Remember when Tom DeLay’s office orchestrated a scheme whereby federal officials were used to track down Texas Democrats breaking a quorum? There’s an ongoing lawsuit over the affair — and there are a few questions DeLay will have to answer under oath.
Lawyers for a Texas state representative this week subpoenaed House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) to testify in a civil suit over GOP efforts to use state and federal resources in May 2003 to hunt down state Democratic lawmakers during a struggle over the redrawing of Texas congressional districts.
The subpoena reflects the bitter partisan feelings that persist after the Republican-led Texas House, acting on a plan developed by DeLay, last year redrew the state’s districts with an eye toward ensuring a continued GOP majority in the U.S. House.
The most controversial moment in the redistricting effort, which finally succeeded last October, occurred when DeLay intervened to help state Republicans locate Democrats who were seeking to boycott a key vote. For the vote to be held, the GOP needed a quorum of legislators present.
DeLay has acknowledged ordering his staff to get help from the Federal Aviation Administration and to determine if the Justice Department could intervene against the state Democrats, actions that two weeks ago led the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to write a letter of admonishment to DeLay that cited him for potentially violating House rules.
This is a civil suit, not a criminal matter, but it’ll put DeLay on the hot seat. Again. We already know DeLay was in contact with Texas officials at the time about getting federal agencies to intervene in this mess, and now we’ll get a sense of just how much DeLay was involved.
DeLay’s response, and I use the word loosely, was hardly persuasive.
[A] spokesman for DeLay, Stuart Roy, denounced the subpoena as “a cheap publicity stunt on something that has no connection to Tom DeLay.”
“It’s a frivolous matter that’s already been rendered moot and everyone should consider the source,” he said.
I think poor Stuart Roy has one pre-written response to every DeLay scandal, which he opens, changes the date, and sends out to reporters about once a month. In this case, it really doesn’t work. There’s nothing “moot” about this scandal — the civil suit is just getting under way, the House Ethics Committee could re-open its investigation of the matter if new information comes to light, and the U.S. Supreme Court, just last week, ordered a lower court to reconsider a Dem lawsuit about DeLay’s scheme. And of course this has a “connection” to DeLay — it was his office that recommended federal involvement in the first place.
This isn’t “moot”; this is just getting interesting.