U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugarland, is expected to respond within the next two weeks to an ethics complaint filed against him by U.S. Rep. Chris Bell, D-Houston, according to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.
Bell's 187-page complaint accuses DeLay of taking money for political favors, illegally using corporate funds to finance the campaigns and abusing his position as majority leader by influencing the Texas Legislature, Bell said.
The complaint is the latest in a series of political feuds that have been heating up in Texas. Since the congressional redistricting battle last year, three criminal complaints have been filed, with members of both parties accusing each other of using corporate donations to political action committees to finance party election campaigns. According to the watchdog group Texans for Public Justice, Texas law allows corporate donations to be used only by PACs for logistical purposes such as paying bills and rent - not to finance campaigns.
DeLay, the House's reigning Republican, has faced criticism from Democrats who say he supported and unfairly facilitated redistricting in Texas last year. Bell lost his seat in Congress when he ran in the new District 25 Democratic primary.
Bell's complaint ends a seven-year period during which no ethics complaints were filed.
But Democratic leader U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who served on the ethics committee for seven years, said Bell has a right to file a complaint and that she was never "party to any truce."
"A member has a right to file a complaint when they believe there has been a serious ethical misdeed that needs to be addressed," said Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for Pelosi.
The target of an ethics complaint has 30 days to file a response. After 45 days, the committee can give a recommendation regarding the complaint, or has the option of extending review time for another 45 days, said John Vargo, counsel and spokesman for the committee.
"It would make sense to at least look at the response before giving a recommendation," he said.
The committee, headed by U.S. Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., and ranking minority member U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., has accepted the complaint as worthy of review but has not yet addressed the merits of the accusations.
DeLay's office did not return calls, but shortly after the complaint was filed, spokesman Jonathan Grella said in a statement that it contained "factually deficient allegations from a bitter partisan on his way out of office." Democrats playing partisan politics would stop DeLay from continuing to fight for "security, prosperity and family," Grella said.
Bell has denied that his complaint was filed to get revenge, saying he began working on the complaint months before redistricting caused him to lose his seat in Congress.
"If redistricting has done anything, it has given me more time to work on this complaint," Bell said.
The allegations regarding corporate funding in the complaint refer to a criminal complaint in Travis County against a DeLay-backed political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, Bell said. The complaint, which is being investigated by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, alleges that the PAC illegally used corporate funds to finance GOP campaigns in the 2002 elections. Another complaint has been filed against the Texas Association of Business with similar allegations.
Craig McDonald, executive director of Texans for Public Justice, said the non-partisan campaign finance watchdog group simply "called the cops" on TRMPAC when TPJ filed the complaint in Travis County last year.
"We saw it was pretty evident that TRMPAC had illegally funneled corporate money into the Republican campaigns of 2002," McDonald said.
DeLay, he said, has not been named in the criminal complaint, but the congressman's top aide, Jim Ellis, has been named in civil lawsuits by Democrats who lost their seats in 2002.
In May, a similar criminal complaint was filed by Republican state Sen. Robert Deuell in Travis County against another PAC, the Lone Star Fund, backed by U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, D-Fort Worth.
"As [Deuell] saw the Tom DeLay stuff, he thought he ought to point out that the Lone Star Fund is doing the same stuff that Tom DeLay's office is being accused of," said Deuell's spokesman, Todd Gallaher.
Deuell did not file the complaint, he said, as a retaliatory measure.
Since Deuell's complaint, Frost said his office has complied with the county's District Attorney Ronnie Earle and has nothing to hide.
"Unlike Tom DeLay, my leadership PAC, the Lone Star Fund, maintained two entirely separate accounts - one for corporate contributions and one for individual contributions - and no corporate funds were used in any Texas races," Frost said.
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