They wish they had a hammer: the need to 'get' Tom DeLay, Congress's most effective Republican.

THE single most effective member of the congressional majority is bound to be the top target of the political minority. When he is as aggressive and creative as Majority Leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, his frustrated enemies are as aggressively creative in drumming up allegations in the hope of bringing him down. The most recent charges leveled at DeLay revolve around laws not broken, bad things he didn't do, and the good he does do; these accusations have no more merit than the phony charges DeLay has fought off in the past.

Republican congressman Eric Cantor of Virginia explains why DeLay is the Democrats' target of choice: "He outworks, out-hustles, out-thinks them, and then out-strategizes them when it comes to floor action." Cantor believes that Democrats view a Republican congressional majority as so contrary to the natural political order that only deceit can explain Republican success. One of Cantor's more liberal Republican colleagues, Fred Upton of Michigan, agrees, saying DeLay is a target because "he's kept his head above the foxhole. We've had a ton of victories this year. I think he's damn effective."

Since 1994, owing to DeLay's remarkably effective whip operation, Republicans have repeatedly passed conservative measures despite their narrow margin in the House. DeLay's support in the GOP caucus is based on both his effectiveness as a leader and his careful tending to the morale and political needs of his troops; his genuine popularity among Republicans contradicts Democrats' caricature of him as an abusive ideologue. Upton, a Republican who doesn't reliably toe the leadership's line, dryly notes: "He's not about to put our fingers in the drawer and slam it."

DEMONIZING THE WHIP

No wonder Democrats' frustration with DeLay was the main topic of discussion at a leadership luncheon in early March, where their House leaders discussed their aim of demonizing DeLay, running against him much as they had against Newt Gingrich. An article in The Hill newspaper, "Newtering DeLay Is Dems' Aim," reported on the Democrats' desire to damage Republicans in competitive districts by tying them to their majority leader. Their theory is that DeLay's conservative politics make him unpalatable in liberal GOP districts. Media reports--some sloppy, most hostile--about the charges swirling around DeLay complement this strategy by alleging that the senior lawmaker is a serial lawbreaker.

Before the 2000 congressional elections, the Democratic members launched an abusive lawsuit--accusing DeLay of "extortion" in order to allege a violation under the RICO statute that was designed to help federal prosecutors tackle organized crime. (Never mind that "extortion" under the statute means the threat of the use of force.) The theory was that DeLay had "extorted" money and then in a Tony Soprano-like "enterprise" gave it to groups that hadn't registered properly with the Federal Election Commission. With evidence culled from newspaper clippings, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sued DeLay and a couple of conservative issue-advocacy groups (called "527 committees") whose fundraising letters he signed. Fred Wertheimer, who heads the government watchdog Democracy 21, was one of the few outsiders willing to defend the RICO suit. "You wind up with a choice of doing nothing or looking for creative ways to stop practices like DeLay's," he said. While Wertheimer remains opposed to how 527 groups operate politically, he no longer advocates RICO suits as the remedy.

After the 2000 elections, the Democrats dropped the RICO suit. Insiders admitted that the case was designed to learn what DeLay was up to and to scare off contributors by threatening subpoenas. Defending against the suit cost DeLay and the groups over $600,000. For some Democrats, DeLay's real offense must have been electing conservatives to office: The Democratic lawyer who brought the DCCC's suit against the conservative groups is now defending liberal 527 groups against an FEC complaint filed by the Republicans. (George Soros, incidentally, funds both the liberal advocacy groups and Democracy 21.)

Fred Wertheimer has a new strategy: complaining that the House Ethics Committee will investigate complaints against congressmen only when they are filed by fellow congressmen. Veteran campaign-finance lawyer James Bopp defends the committee's rule. "Filing unwarranted complaints to smear and destroy has become so prevalent that politicians are taking some steps to protect themselves, and I don't blame them," he says. "The RICO suit against Tom DeLay is a prime example" of such unwarranted complaints. In March, Wertheimer sent a formal complaint about DeLay to the Ethics Committee, charging that DeLay plans to misuse a tax-exempt charitable organization, Celebrations for Children, Inc. (CFC), for political purposes by having the charity pick up the tab for his entertaining at the GOP convention in New York. Of course, DeLay will be on the invite list for every lavish event in Manhattan and faces no shortage of rich sponsors for any event he might want to host; no congressman, therefore, has been willing to call for an investigation of DeLay on this ridiculous charge.

THE GOOD GUYS

DeLay has agreed to host some high-ticket events to benefit CFC at the convention; donors will get a tax break for attending them. The charity expects to net over 75 percent of proceeds for its cause, and is in the process of getting approval for its events from the House Ethics Committee. (During convention week, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist plans to host an event to benefit HIV/AIDS charities he has volunteered for over the last years.) DeLay's commitment to this charity is demonstrably sincere. He and his wife have served as foster parents, and his activism in behalf of foster children is credited with raising about $6 million in the Houston area over the past ten years. His own foundation has launched a campaign to raise funds for a 50-acre community in Richmond, Texas, for 240 abused and neglected children. DeLay and Sen. Hillary Clinton have shared honors from the Orphan Foundation of America. "I respect his commitment to these issues," Senator Clinton says.

A few years ago, following the killing of a two-year-old who had been returned to her abusive mother by court order, DeLay successfully fought for reform of the District of Columbia's family-court system. Even the hostile Texas media, in their own way, have taken notice of his commitment to abused children: A columnist for the Houston Chronicle credited DeLay's genuine concern for the D.C. reform, and allowed that even "Beelzebub probably gets one right every millennium or so."

But Democrats are working against DeLay back home in Texas as well. In 2002, Republicans won a comfortable majority in the Texas senate and won control of the house for the first time in 130 years. That same year, congressional Republicans won over 56 percent of the statewide vote, but won only 47 percent of Texas's congressional seats. The redistricting plan approved by the new legislature is expected to add between four and seven Republicans to DeLay's majority.

Naturally, both parties spent lots of money in Texas's high-stakes 2002 elections. Can you guess which party's spending caught the interest of local "watchdog" groups and the local Democratic prosecutor? Over a year ago, Travis County district attorney Ronnie Earle began investigating whether a business PAC and Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC) improperly used corporate donations to influence legislative races. DeLay was one of the founders of TRMPAC and served with four GOP state officials on its advisory board. In 2002, the committee raised about $1.5 million, about a third of it in corporate donations. If there was anything improper about its fundraising, donors, or expenditures, the committee was hiding in plain sight; detailed information about all of its transactions was publicly available from filings with the IRS and the Texas Ethics Commission.

The facts don't appear to be in dispute in the case now being looked at by a third grand jury. Under Texas law, corporations cannot make soft-money contributions to candidates, but can establish and administer corporate PACs. Corporate officers and employees can make individual contributions to candidates through such a PAC. But TRMPAC was not established or administered by a corporation; it was a general-purpose PAC, organized to help Republicans in a manner clearly not contemplated by an election code that only specifically governs campaign spending by corporations and labor organizations.

According to Andrew Taylor, a former first assistant attorney general of Texas, who is representing the business PAC under investigation, "This case falls apart because there is not a single statute in the Texas Election Code that applies to TRMPAC," so the prosecutors "have a legal mountain to overcome." Taylor explains that criminal charges cannot rest on analogies to other kinds of groups whose behavior is proscribed, because "the election statutes all require a finding of knowledge and intent to engage in conduct in violation of the code." Regarding the legal basis for the investigation, Taylor concludes, "If you don't like the law, change the law. But don't use the prosecutor's office to punish those who complied with the law."

Although DeLay is always mentioned in gleeful stories about the investigations, his connection to the kind of decisions now in question is so tenuous that the Houston Chronicle has lamely called him the "guiding spirit" of TRMPAC. According to Taylor, "DeLay did not take part in any of the decisions at issue in this investigation. I fervently believe TRMPAC did nothing illegal whatsoever. I can guarantee if someone disagrees with that, it will never be connected to Tom DeLay."

Texas congressman John Carter, a Republican and a former state judge, says: "It's just an investigation for now. I personally don't think a valid indictment would come out of this." Travis County, he says, is "the heart and soul of the Democratic hierarchy in the state." And as for Democratic DA Ronnie Earle, "This isn't his first rodeo. I think common sense will prevail."

Ronnie Earle has a history. He had already been in office 18 years when, in 1993, he indicted Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Five days after Hutchison's landslide win in a special election, Earle announced an investigation of her tenure as state treasurer and raided her offices. She was charged with one misdemeanor and four felonies for allegedly misusing her office. After she was indicted, and re-indicted, the trial judge finally ordered her acquittal after Earle refused to present his case. Senator Hutchison said at the time that Earle's action was "unconscionable," and an effort to return her Senate seat to Democratic hands through legal action. About Ronnie Earle's current investigation of TRMPAC and the Texas Republicans, Hutchison says, "[He] has shown his willingness to abuse his office for political reasons in the past. I hope he's not doing it again."

Andrew Taylor believes that is exactly what Earle is doing. He explains that owing to fear of being investigated, corporations are spending less soft money for candidates this year than in 2002; the GOP groups have also been vilified in the media. Taylor recounts that within minutes of the delivery of a subpoena from Ronnie Earle's office to his client last year--a document that expressly prohibited its disclosure--a TV camera was outside his client's door and a reporter with his own copy of the supposedly confidential subpoena was on the phone inquiring about it. "In some ways [Earle has] already achieved his goals. If he's crazy enough to indict, judges will throw it out and juries won't convict."

While Tom DeLay may have been the "guiding spirit" of TRMPAC, he has no connection, temporal or spiritual, with the charges swirling around two of his former associates. There is a U.S. Senate investigation of a veteran Republican lobbyist and a public-relations consultant for the $45 million in fees they've been paid by casino-rich Indian tribes over the past three years to represent them on gambling issues. Sen. John McCain rightly calls the fees "disgraceful"--but so too is the repeated, irrelevant identification of the PR consultant, Michael Scanlon, as "a former aide to House majority leader Tom DeLay." According to DeLay's chief of staff, "Scanlon hasn't been in our office for three years. Why would he? Congressman DeLay is against gaming."

It's Democrats who are gambling that some combination of accusations, however lame or unsubstantiated, will finally be the undoing of their nemesis-in-chief. They shouldn't bet on it.