The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party

The powerful Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, Tom DeLay (R-TX) embodies government by divine guidance:

He [God] is using me, all the time, everywhere, to stand up for a biblical worldview in everything that I do and everywhere I am. He is training me.

Articles

The Religious Right's 800-Pound Abortion Gorilla, Talk To Action, August 8, 2006

Court Rules DeLay's Name Stays on Ballot, The Associated Press, August 3, 2006

Tom Tancredo, (R-Colorado) Agrees With Theory Alleging Catholic Church Plot, Talk To Action, August 8, 2006

DeLay's Mission Continues, Truthdig, June 13, 2006

DeLay Exits, Stage (Hard) Right, Washington Post, June 12, 2006

Retirement Account of DeLay's Wife Traced With Disclosure, Family's Known Benefits From Ties With Lobbyist Exceed $490,000, Washington Post, June 7, 2006

Church Leader Says He Was Lured into Abramoff Web, NPR Morning Edition, May 23, 2006 -- This is a story of how some innocent evangelical leaders were exploited by another evangelical leader in the name of "bringing God into government." The winners were a Russian oil tycoon, an Indian gambling casino, the textile mills of the Mariana islands, and Tom DeLay's PAC.

DeLay's Next Mission From God, Washington Post, April 9, 2006

A Partisan Leaves; Will an Era Follow? New York Times, April 5, 2006

I, DeLay, By Sidney Blumenthal, The Guardian UK, April 4, 2006, posted on Truthout

Ex-DeLay Aide Pleads Guilty in Lobby Case, Washington Post, April 1, 2006

Redemption Among the Faithful, Washington Post, March 29, 2006 -- Report on the War on Christians Conference where Tom DeLay was hailed as the most persecuted of Christians

Bush, DeLay And Texas, TomPaine, February 9, 2006

Under Fire, DeLay Steps Down, The Associated Press, January 7, 2006

'DeLay Inc.' Lobbying Firm Has Links to Three Capital Scandals, Bloomberg, January 6, 2005

The DeLay-Abramoff Money Trail, Washington Post, December 31, 2005

Redistricting Tom DeLay, New York Times, December 14, 2005

Judge Upholds Money Laundering Charges against DeLay, Reuters, December 5, 2005

Muted Support for GOP Change Grows, Washington Post, December 3, 2005

DeLay Asked Lobbyist to Raise Money Through Charity, New York Times, November 4, 2005

DeLay Reports Record Funds for Defense, ABC News, November 2, 2005

DeLay in Court; Lawyers Request New Judge, The Associated Press, October 21, 2005

 DeLay Was Offered Deal before Indictment, Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2005

The Case Against Tom DeLay: What Has Happened To Grand Jury Secrecy In Texas? John Dean, Findlaw, October 7, 2005

DeLay, Blunt Traded Secret Donations, The Associated Press, October 6, 2005

Texas Prosecutor Cites New Input on DeLay, Washington Post, October 5, 2005

DeLay's Influence Transcends His Title, Washington Post, October 3, 2005

The War Against Tom DeLay, New York Times, October 2, 2005

DeLay Charges May Be Overshadowed by Abramoff Probe, Bloomberg.com, September 29, 2005

The Hammer Gets Hit, TomPaine.com, September 29, 2005

The Hammer Falls, Salon, September 29, 2005

Earle Has Prosecuted Many Democrats, Washington Post, September 29, 2005

DeLay Indicted in Campaign Finance Probe, Washington Post, September 28, 2005

Indictments Added in GOP Fundraising Case, Washington Post, September 14, 2005

DeLay PAC Indicted in Scandal, Reuters, September 8, 2005

Firm Fined for Channeling Donations to GOP, Washington Post, August 19, 2005:

The Federal Election Commission yesterday fined Westar Energy Inc., two former corporate officers and the firm's lobbyist a total of $40,500 for their roles in channeling contributions to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) and other Republicans.

FEC Faults Accounting at DeLay's PAC, Washington Post, August 12, 2005

DeLay to Be on Christian Telecast on Courts, New York Times, August 3, 2005

Justice Sunday II. It's official. Tom DeLay is a speaker.

DeLay, Energy And Secrecy, TomPaine.com, July 28, 2005

House Ethics Chairman May Quit, Officials Report, New York Times, June 23, 2005

House Ethics: A Study in Flatlining, New York Times, June 20, 2005

Meet Team DeLay, The New Republic, June 20, 2005

Broken Hammer? Salon, June 16, 2005

Judge Rules against DeLay Group Official, Associated Press, May 26, 2005

The Right's Counteroffensive Against DeLay Critics, Washington Post, May 22, 2005

As Vote Nears, DeLay Attacks Bill Expanding Stem Cell Research, New York Times, May 19, 2005

U.S. Audit Is Said to Clear Committee Run by DeLay, New York Times, May 19, 2005

DeLay Takes the Offensive in His Address to Supporters, New York Times, May 13, 2005

Two Amigos And Their Gulag Archipelago, TomPaine, May 12, 2005

Few Republicans in House Are Expected at DeLay Event, New York Times, May 12, 2005

Increasingly Embattled, DeLay Scales Back Usual Power Plays, Washington Post, May 9, 2005

Tom DeLay's Empire of Favors, New York Times, May 8, 2005

DeLay Tries, Without Much Success, to Duck the Media Pack, Washington Post, May 5, 2005

DeLay investigation triggering 'ethics war', Christian Science Monitor, May 3, 2005

Golfing with Tom DeLay, Salon, May 2, 2005

House GOP Bows to Pressure on DeLay, The Herald News, April 29, 2005

House Overturns New Ethics Rule as Republican Leadership Yields, New York Times, April 28, 2005

DeLay Is Likely to Be Found Culpable, Washington Post, April 28, 2005

Some Who Got Checks via DeLay Gave to His Defense, New York Times, April 28, 2005

Making Their Moves Without DeLay, Washington Post, April 28, 2005

Fan Invites DeLay to Hitch a Ride Aboard Air Force One, New York Times, April 27, 2005

GOP to Reverse Ethics Rule Blocking New DeLay Probe, Washington Post, April 27, 2005

DeLay Woes Prompt Rush to Refile Forms, Washington Post, April 26, 2005

A Texas-Sized Problem, The American Prospect, May 6, 2005

GOP Offers Probe Of DeLay's Actions, Democrats Unsatisfied by Rules, Washington Post, April 21, 2005

DeLay Continues Attacks on Federal Courts, Truthout, April 20, 2005

Conservative Groups Mobilize for DeLay, Dallas Morning News, April 18, 2005

With Friends Like These... Newsweek, April 18, 2005

Get Tom DeLay to the Church on Time, New York Times, April 17, 2005

DeLay's Ability To Raise Funds Seems Unhurt, Washington Post, April 17, 2005

Ex-Lawmakers Accuse House of Protecting DeLay, Reuters, April 15, 2005

DeLay Asks House Panel to Review Judges, New York Times, April 14, 2005

MTBE Gas Additive Protection, DeLay at Center of Energy Debate, Associated Press, April 13, 2005

Bringing Down The House, TomPaine.com, April 13, 2005

DeLay Seeks GOP Senators' Support, Washington Post, April 12, 2005

Historic Parallels as DeLay's Woes Deepen, Chistian Science Monitor, April 12, 2005

2 in GOP Take Aim at DeLay, Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2005

DeLay's Backers Launch Offense, Washington Post, April 10, 2005

 Broken Hammer? Salon, April 8, 2005

DeLay Says Federal Judiciary Has 'Run Amok,' Adding Congress Is Partly to Blame, New York Times, April 7, 2005

DeLay steps up his attack on federal judiciary, Seattle Times, April 8, 2005

As DeLay Faces Ethics Questions, GOP Circles Its Wagons, Washington Post, April 7, 2005

The Passion of the Tom, New York Times, April 7, 2005

A 3rd DeLay Trip Under Scrutiny, Washington Post, April 6, 2005

Political Groups Paid Two Relatives of House Leader, New York Times, April 6, 2005

DeLay Wants Panel to Review Role of Courts, Washington Post, April 2, 2005

DeLay's Disgrace, TomPaine.com, April 1, 2005

DeLay vs. Rove? DailyKos, March 30, 2005

DeLay Had Own Tough Quality-Of-Life Choice, Associated Press, March 28, 2005

DeLay Quietly Steps Out of the Schiavo Spotlight, New York Times, March 26, 2005

Tom DeLay's Cri de Coeur, New York Times, March 25, 2005

Delay And Company, Time Magazine, March 21, 2005

House Member May Face DeLay Probe Conflict, New York Times, March 17, 2005

DeLay Ethics Allegations Now Cause of GOP Concern, Washington Post, March 14, 2005

Gambling Interests Funded DeLay Trip, Washington Post, March 12, 2005

S. Korean Group Sponsored DeLay Trip, Washington Post, March 10, 2005

Documents Suggest Bigger DeLay Role in Donations, New York Times, March 9, 2005

A New York Times Editorial on the decision by Republican Lawmakers to change their rules so Tom DeLay can maintain his leadership position:

The Republicans also seem bent on reining in the ethics committee for having had the temerity to rebuke Mr. DeLay for some of his more outrageous conduct. The party's Rules Committee chairman, David Dreier, recently sent a letter to House members signaling that he plans to make it even harder than it already is for members to file an ethics complaint, and for outside groups to be heard in the process. Rumors also abound that come January, when the next Congress is seated, all five Republican members of the ethics committee, including its current chairman, Representative Joel Hefley, may be replaced.

"DeLay is motivated more than anything by power," says Jan Reid, coauthor with Lou Dubose of The Hammer, a just-published biography of DeLay. "But he also believes in the power of the coming Millennium [of Jesus Christ], and it helps shape his vision on government and the world."

From Lou Dubose, Double Trouble, Tom DeLay and his bid to buy the Texas Legislature, LA Weekly, October 15-21, 2004:

The House Ethics Committee has just handed DeLay two reprimands within one week. Three fund-raisers working for a political-action committee he set up in Texas have been indicted and face long stretches at the Big Rodeo - one as long as 99 years. DeLay's former press secretary and one of his closest advisers are being investigated by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee for a scandal involving the $66 million they billed (or bilked) six Indian tribes for lobbying and PR work. A federal grand jury in Washington is looking into the same billing (more than General Electric and the pharmaceutical companies paid for lobbyists during the same time.) Sometime this month, DeLay's daughter Danni Ferro will be subpoenaed by lawyers representing former Texas legislators who claim DeLay's Texas PAC illegally raised the money that defeated them in 2002. It's been a tough autumn for the majority leader. Winter will be even worse.

From Working for Change, July 21, 2004:

Tom DeLay, the Republican House Majority Leader representing Sugar Land, Texas (a suburb outside Houston) -- who literally got his start snuffing out roaches and other vermin and is now known as "The Hammer" -- is the most powerful man in Congress.

Paul Krugman, the New York Times, July 13, 2004:

The Texas redistricting, like many of Mr. DeLay's actions, broke all the usual rules of political fair play. But when you believe, as Mr. DeLay does, that God is using you to promote a "biblical worldview" in politics, the usual rules don't apply.

Mr. DeLay and his fellow hard-liners, whose values are far from the American mainstream, have forged an immensely effective alliance with corporate interests. And they may be just one election away from achieving a long-term lock on power.  

Tom Delay, R-TX, Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives is under investigation. From the Washington Post, July 12, 2004:

In May 2001, Enron's top lobbyists in Washington advised the company chairman that then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was pressing for a $100,000 contribution to his political action committee, in addition to the $250,000 the company had already pledged to the Republican Party that year.

DeLay requested that the new donation come from "a combination of corporate and personal money from Enron's executives," with the understanding that it would be partly spent on "the redistricting effort in Texas," said the e-mail to Kenneth L. Lay from lobbyists Rick Shapiro and Linda Robertson.

The e-mail, which surfaced in a subsequent federal probe of Houston-based Enron, is one of at least a dozen documents obtained by The Washington Post that show DeLay and his associates directed money from corporations and Washington lobbyists to Republican campaign coffers in Texas in 2001 and 2002 as part of a plan to redraw the state's congressional districts.

Delay, considered the most powerful leader in the U.S. Congress was quoted in the Washington Post, April 20, 2002 as saying:

"Only Christianity offers a comprehensive worldview that covers all areas of life and thought - every aspect of creation. Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world - only Christianity."

The House Majority Leader was a speaker at Worldview Weekend, a conference designed to teach fundamentalists how to bring government under religious control.

From Church and State,"What About The Constitution? "

"...political leaders need not hold hearings, engage in debates or empower fact-finding commissions to determine public policy. All of the answers are in the Bible - or, more accurately, someone's interpretation of the Bible.

That approach is troubling, to say the least. Even if everyone agreed on how the Bible is to be interpreted, that would not change the fact that the Bible is not and never has been the basis of our government.

...we are on the verge of scrapping a principle that has worked well for America for more than 200 years in favor of a claim that religion can achieve wonders if it just gets some government help."

For the First Time in 130 Years

NPR reported that "a key political action committee connected to Tom DeLay is under investigation by a Texas grand jury." The report cites the work of a political action committee Delay formed to help elect a Republican majority to the Texas State Legislature. Texans for a Republican Majority, or TRMPC succeeded in helping Republicans capture the Texas House of Representatives for the first time in 130 years. Republicans

"steered hundreds of thousands of dollars into 22 key races in the Texas House. The result was a resounding success, throwing the balance of power in Austin to the GOP."

Once he secured a Republican majority in both houses of the Texas state legislature, the House Majority Leader went to Texas with a new map of Congressional districts to add as many as seven Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressional lines are drawn after each census -- every ten years -- but with his Republican majority in Texas, DeLay changed the district lines three years after the redistricting process had been completed.

To read a letter from Texas State Senator, Rodney Ellis, written from exile about DeLay's power grab, click here.

On January 2, 2004, special three-judge federal panel in Austin found no constitutional grounds to intervene with the Republican Congressional district map.

On January 16, 2004, the Supreme Court refused to block the mid-decade redistricting plan.

The court may still decide to hear an appeal later this year from congressional Democrats, minority groups and others who contend the map promotes the Republicans' electoral chances by breaking up minority communities and submerging them into overwhelmingly conservative, white districts.

However, in declining to hear the Democrats' emergency appeal for now, the justices cleared the way for this year's congressional elections to proceed ...

New York Times, June 16, 04:

A seven-year-old unofficial truce discouraging House members from filing ethics complaints against one another disintegrated Tuesday when a freshman Democrat accused one of the most powerful members of Congress, the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, of "bribery, extortion, fraud, money laundering and the abuse of power."

DeLay made a trip to Israel to speak to the Israeli Knessett in opposition to President Bush's road map.

From Salon.com, "Republicans for Kerry":

DeLay has used the allocation of committee chairs to punish those who swerve even a little bit from his party line. "This is why moderate Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., who generally supports DeLay, was blocked from becoming chair of the Government Reform Committee, a move even he says he knew would be a consequence of his support for campaign-finance reform," Thompson wrote. "Rep. Marge Roukema, R-N.J., simply left Congress after DeLay boxed her out of several positions. In several primaries, DeLay has also worked against several moderate Republicans in favor of less electable conservatives, showing that the Texan would sometimes rather lose with a conservative than win with a moderate."

Tom DeLay's War Against the Poor

Some Crazy Guy, Paul Krugman, New York Times:

Maybe Mr. DeLay's public profile will be raised by his success yesterday in sabotaging tax credits for 12 million children. Those tax credits would cost only $3.5 billion. But Mr. DeLay has embedded the credits in an $82 billion tax cut package. That is, he wants to extort $22 in tax cuts (in the face of record budget deficits) for every dollar given to poor children.

Updates and Links

Texas Trial Begins Against Treasurer of DeLay Group, Washington Post, March 1, 2005

DeLay PAC Trial Looks at Money-Laundering Claims, Washington Post, March 4, 2005

DeLay Moves To Protect His Political Base Back in Texas, Washington Post, March 3, 2005

Testimony at Texas Trial Focuses on Use of Donations, New York Times, March 3, 2005

Texas Trial Begins Against Treasurer of DeLay Group, Washington Post, March 1, 2005

As DeLay's Woes Mount, So Does Money, New York Times, March 14, 2005

The God Racket, From DeMille to DeLay, New York Times, March 27, 2005

To read about Tom DeLay's web of destruction, click here.

Quotes by DeLay

From dKosopedia, the free political encyclopedia:

In order to allow Northeastern Republicans to appear moderate to their constituents, DeLay allows these "moderates" to take turns voting against controversial bills - a technique called "catch and release." If a Congressman says a bill is unpopular in his district, DeLay will only make him vote for it if his vote is necessary for passage - if his vote is not needed, he or she will be allowed to vote against the party without reprisal. You can see "catch and release" at work every time a bill passes by one vote. In the 108th Congress, a preliminary Medicare vote passed 216-215, a vote on Head Start passed 217-216, a vote on vouchers for DC passed 209-208. "Fast track," aka "trade promotion authority," passed by one vote as well.

And on Christian Zionism:

In foreign policy, DeLay has been a strong Christian Zionist supporter of the State of Israel, saying, "The Republican leadership, especially that leadership in the House, has made pro-Israel policy a fundamental component of our foreign policy agenda and it drives the Democrat leadership crazy--because they just can't figure out why we do it!"

On a 2003 trip to Israel, DeLay toured the nation and addressed members of the Knesset. His opposition to land concessions is so strong that the far-right National Union Party deputy Aryeh Eldad revealed "As I shook his hand, I told Tom DeLay that I thought I was the farthest to the right in the Knesset." Former Mossad chief Danny Yatom said "The Likud is nothing compared to this guy." ( The Hammer , 236)