Published on Saturday, March 19, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Tom DeLay: Don't Resign
by Ralph Nader
The Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, Cong. Tom DeLay of Texas, and I agree on one issue dear to his mind and heart. We do not want him to resign from Congress in the midst of deepening scandal surrounding his aggressive political and fundraising activities.
Stay put, Tom. The Republican Party needs you a whole lot longer so that the media can expands its coverage of the Party's corrupt rule on Capitol Hill and its dancing with corporate lobbyists bent on greed and harm to the interests of the people.
Tom DeLay came to Congress in 1984 because he was outraged at environmental regulations that applied to his pest extermination business. He rose up the ladder because he would do things and say things that other Republicans shied away from. He was a ruthless arm twister and soon earned the name "The Hammer."
In a page one story a few years ago, The Washington Post described how K Street corporate influence-peddlers would shudder at the prospect of visiting his office because he would demand campaign contributions, while discussing their agendas, in too direct a manner. Companies like a little subtlety and indirection attached to their buying our national legislators. DeLay came across as an abrupt shakedown-artist, a cash-register political extortionist.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0319-23.htm