{"id":3948,"date":"2005-04-12T09:59:20","date_gmt":"2005-04-12T13:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3948.html"},"modified":"2005-04-12T09:59:20","modified_gmt":"2005-04-12T13:59:20","slug":"delays-twist-on-quid-pro-quo-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/delays-twist-on-quid-pro-quo-violations\/","title":{"rendered":"DeLay’s twist on quid pro quo violations"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times reported<\/a> Sunday that Republicans have begun to “speak privately about their sense that [Tom DeLay’s] standing is in danger, particularly if there are more developments.” I’d argue that DeLay’s multiple ethical and legal lapses should be enough by now, but if the party is looking for yet another development, as luck would have it, we have one<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fundraisers for a political committee founded by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay routinely solicited donations by identifying legislative actions that prospective givers wanted, from video gambling to lawsuit limits, memos show. <\/p>\n

“What companies that you know of would be interested in tort reform in Texas with asbestos problems that might support TRMPAC?” one DeLay fundraiser wrote in a memo prospecting for donors to the Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee (TRMPAC).<\/p>\n

That memo elicited an answer identifying several large companies and interest groups nationwide interested in lawsuit-limiting legislation in Congress and Texas, the documents show.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Usually, in routine political corruption, there are examples of quid pro quo — an interested party will give lawmaker a financial contribution in exchange for a favor from that lawmaker.<\/p>\n

Tom DeLay’s Texas PAC put an interesting twist on this model that makes the corruption even worse — invite<\/i> a quid pro quo by finding out what potential donors might want done for them in exchange for money. The Majority Leader gains points for creativity, but loses points for another ethics violation.<\/p>\n

Federal law and congressional ethics rules prohibit government officials from connecting political donations to their official actions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And speaking of DeLay, USA Today reminded me this morning that DeLay has actually been rebuked by the House Ethics Committee five<\/i> times during his congressional career, the first coming in 1997<\/a> when the panel warned DeLay about creating the impression that campaign contributions would bring “official action or access.”<\/p>\n

I guess some things never change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times reported Sunday that Republicans have begun to “speak privately about their sense that [Tom DeLay’s] standing is in danger, particularly if there are more developments.” I’d argue that DeLay’s multiple ethical and legal lapses should be enough by now, but if the party is looking for yet another development, as luck […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3948\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}