Tom DeLay can't help behaving like a world class ass

When the late congressional powerhouse Phillip Burton screwed California Republicans to the wall in the state's 1980s U.S. House redistricting, he surveyed the map of meandering constituencies, drawn to maximize Democratic voting strength, and proudly announced: "My contribution to modern art."

Phil admitted that one jagged district, drawn specifically to protect his brother and neighboring representative, John L. Burton, "curls in and out like a snake" through four counties around San Francisco Bay. A wag suggested that its various pieces were contiguous only at low tide.

A California columnist said the statewide map "resembles nothing so much as a jigsaw puzzle designed by an inmate of a mental institution." But Phil crowed triumphantly: "It's gorgeous."

If House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, were not such a self-righteous prig (and if perhaps he were more certain of the outcome), he might own up unabashedly and with similarly appropriate bons mots to the blatant attempt at partisan gerrymandering he has set afoot in Austin.

But, per usual, DeLay and the Republican legislators who have become his specially encrypted robots in this project, are masking their power grab in bilge about boosting minority representation (wouldn't that, if true, be a first), demographic migration and shifting voter preference.

"This is just an honest drawing of population changes in recent decades, taking into consideration the voting patterns of Texas," said state Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, sponsor of the latest DeLay-ordained proposal.

Oh, give the unctuosity a rest, baby cakes. Call Phil Burton's brother, John, who is now state Senate majority leader in California, and let him explain how to be a really bad-ass pol.

Don't talk about "honest drawing" and propose a new, tortured 1st District that, in addition to looking like a dog leg in rigor mortis, would stretch from Panola County down the Sabine River before hurtling 100 or so miles west into the Houston suburbs. What a fine community of interests those voters would have. Maybe DeLay would consent to a federally financed light-rail system to help the new representative and constituents get around to see each other.

With DeLay fancying himself as the Houston area's avenging angel, the metropolis can certainly do with less home-based representation. So King would scatter the outlying bits to disinterested House members who actually come from elsewhere and ship one of the city districts wholesale to the Rio Grande Valley. (Understand, please, that the Republicans have to throw on a thin veneer with regard to increasing Hispanic representation. But, of course, they don't really. Under the King plan, only seven districts -- the same as now -- would be more or less guaranteed for Hispanics.)

And, sure, let's whack Travis County up among four far-flung districts. What better way for Republicans to prove that the People's Republic of Austin is a city they love to hate.

Just to spite incumbent Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, the King plan would make his current 10th District look like the Winged Victory of Samothrace, with one feathery appendage reaching east to Katy and standing, in the south, on Port Aransas.

"Honest drawing," my patootie.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) have said they backed a 2002 legislative provision sought by a Kansas energy company because it fit their deregulatory, free-market philosophy. Good policy, not politics, was their chief concern, they said, and the company's contributions to several Republican committees did not influence their actions.

But the head of a Kansas regulatory agency said the Republican-backed provision was more likely to help the energy company's top executives than its thousands of customers.

The company, Westar Energy Inc., is under federal investigation for alleged fraud. A simultaneous company-initiated inquiry, meanwhile, disclosed e-mails in which top executives last year said they believed Congress would enact the provision -- which would exempt Westar from federal oversight under the Investment Company Act -- if they donated $56,600 to campaign committees associated with four GOP lawmakers, including DeLay and Barton.

"It never ceases to amaze me that people are so cynical they want to tie money to issues, money to bills, money to amendments," said DeLay, whose Texans for a Republican Majority PAC received a $25,000 Westar corporate contribution.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who received Westar contributions as a Senate candidate, this week declined to say whether he would recuse himself from matters involving the company, the Associated Press reported.

Some people just can't help behaving like world class asses
-----BumbleBeeBoogie

Close, but No Cigar
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay chose to smoke before the cheesecake course. (Kenneth Lambert - AP/File Photo)
By Lloyd Grove
Thursday, May 15, 2003; Page C03


House Majority Leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay is a tobacco-chewing, meat-eating Texas Republican who likes to drink red wine and smoke cigars.

We're told that during a recent dinner with about 30 political supporters at a downtown Washington steak house, DeLay walked out on his guests before dessert when the manager told him he could eat and drink but not puff.

The dinner was organized by the leader's daughter and campaign manager, Danielle DeLay Ferro, as a fundraiser for Armpac, Delay's political action committee, at Ruth's Chris Steak House on Ninth Street NW. But because the restaurant leases space in a building owned by a federal agency -- in this case, the Smithsonian Institution -- the law forbids smoking. The prohibition is posted on numerous signs inside and outside the restaurant.

But after the main course, DeLay went into "hammer" mode, trying to compel manager Tom Khandker to flout federal regulations and lift the ban. We hear the conversation went something like this:

Khandker: "I'm sorry, sir, but this is a federal building, and it's against the law of the federal government."

DeLay: "I am the federal government."

But Khandker stood his ground, and DeLay and several cigar-chomping compatriots left for the smoke-filled Caucus Room before the cheesecake course.

Yesterday, Khandker declined to comment, and DeLay spokesman Stuart Roy told us that what his boss really said was, "I'm with the federal government."

Actually, if French weren't a forbidden language among House Republicans these days, DeLay could have honored the grand tradition of snuff-loving Louis XIV by announcing: "L'etat c'est moi."
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The Reliable Source can be reached at [email protected], or c/o The Washington Post, 1150 15th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., 20071.

Real reliable leftist.

Oh, I heard that Hillary Clinton is ugly.