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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (12896)	10/7/2004 10:01:10 PM
From: Ron	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

Common Cause calls on DeLay to resign as majority leader Common Cause on Thursday called on Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX) to step down immediately as majority leader of the House of Representatives after the Ethics Committee twice admonished him in a week for improper conduct on three separate matters. He also has a third black mark on his record from 1999, when the panel admonished him for yet another matter. Our call for his resignation was echoed by other watchdog groups, as well as House Democratic leaders as the pressure mounted on Rep. DeLay to step aside after the Ethics Committee on Wednesday found that he acted in a way that suggested political donations might influence legislation, and for inappropriately asking federal authorities to track an airplane involved in a political dispute in Texas. The Washington Post and the New York Times have more on DeLay. Common Cause has launched a major nationwide petition to collect signatures from the thousands of people who believe that Rep. DeLay is ethically unfit to serve as a leader in the House and must resign as majority leader. "America has higher standards than to let someone with Tom DeLay's track record lead an institution as prestigious as our Congress," Common Cause President Chellie Pingree said. All five Republican members of the Ethics Committee joined the five Democrats on the panel in unanimously agreeing that Rep. DeLay's actions "went beyond the bounds of acceptable conduct." In an extraordinarily sharply worded paragraph of the six-page letter, Ethics Committee Chairman Joel Hefley (R-CO) and Alan Mollohan (D-WV) wrote: "…it is clearly necessary for you to temper your future actions to assure that you are in full compliance at all times with the applicable House Rules and standards of conduct. We remind you that the House Code of Official Conduct provides the Committee with authority to "deal with any given act or accumulation of acts, which, in the judgement of the committee, are severe enough to reflect discredit on the Congress. Click here to read the full letter The Ethics Committee made it clear in is 38-page investigative report that the complaint filed in June by Rep. Chris Bell (D-TX) was not a political vendetta, as Rep. DeLay has tried to claim, stating repeatedly that the complaint and ensuing investigation raised serious questions and concerns. We plan to keep the pressure on Rep. DeLay until he has no choice but to resign as majority leader. If you have ideas and suggestions of what we should do, please visit our blog and share them with us. commoncause.org