http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/04/wa...gewanted=print
April 4, 2006
DeLay Is Quitting Race and House, Officials Report
By CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON, April 3 — Representative Tom DeLay, the relentless Texan who helped lead House Republicans to power but became ensnared in a corruption scandal, has decided to leave Congress, House officials said Monday night.
Mr. DeLay, who abandoned his efforts to hold onto his position as majority leader earlier this year after the indictment of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a former ally, was seeking re-election as vindication. But he told selected colleagues that he had decided not to try to hold on to his House seat as he faced the possibility of defeat.
"He just decided that the numbers and the whole political climate were against him and that it was time to step side," said one Congressional official with knowledge of Mr. DeLay's plans. The official did not want to be identified because Mr. DeLay's formal announcement was scheduled for Tuesday in Houston.
His decision was first reported Monday by MSNBC and by the Web site of Time magazine, which had posted an interview with Mr. DeLay, as did The Galveston County Daily News. "I'm very much at peace with it," Mr. DeLay told Time of his decision.
He told the Galveston paper he planned to step down from his seat by late May or June.
Congressional aides said Mr. DeLay had informed his Texas colleagues and other Republican leaders, including Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, as well as President Bush.
One DeLay ally said that the lawmaker had been considering leaving Congress since he gave up his leadership post in January and that he had been persuaded to make the break last week, when his former deputy chief of staff, Tony Rudy, pleaded guilty to corruption charges. He was also said to have been influenced by troubling poll numbers in his district in the Houston area.
Mr. DeLay won a primary election last month. But the victory against a field of virtual unknowns was not overwhelming, and he faced a potentially well-financed Democratic opponent and a blizzard of opposition advertising from outside groups.
Officials said Mr. DeLay's decision to leave now could create complications in finding a Republican replacement, since he won the primary and would now have to be disqualified. He could accomplish that by changing his residence to his Virginia condominium.
Bill Miller, a leading Austin lobbyist close to the Republican leadership, said that Mr. DeLay called Gov. Rick Perry Monday night. Mr. Miller quoted Mr. DeLay as saying "I don't want to be a distraction" and as maintaining that his decision to drop out of the race had nothing to do with any pending criminal action.
In an interview Monday night, Richard Cullen, Mr. DeLay's principal criminal defense lawyer, also said that his client had been pondering a withdrawal from the race for some time but that "it had nothing to do with any criminal investigation."
"The decision had absolutely nothing to do with the investigation," Mr. Cullen said. "It was a very personal decision and a political one."
Though Mr. DeLay had moved into the background since leaving the majority leader's office, his decision to leave Congress could rattle House Republicans already anxious about their prospects in November, partially because of the cloud of ethics problems caused by the Abramoff scandal and Mr. DeLay's former inner circle.
Mr. DeLay is under indictment in Texas on campaign-finance related charges for his role in a state redistricting plan that gained Republican House seats in the state but focused national scrutiny on his political tactics. The indictment forced him to step aside from his leadership post, but he had intended to return if he beat the charges.
Mr. DeLay, who served most of his time in the leadership as the whip, was known for his ability to deliver Republican votes on contentious issues and for fund-raising power that helped Republicans hold the majority for the past decade. He became majority leader in 2002, serving alongside Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, the man Mr. DeLay helped ascend to the speaker's position in 1998.
With Mr. Rudy's guilty plea last Friday, he became the second former DeLay aide to admit wrongdoing in the corruption investigation centered on Mr. Abramoff, who has also pleaded guilty to conspiring to corrupt public officials, including members of Congress.
Mr. Abramoff, Mr. Rudy and the other aide, Michael Scanlon, who had been Mr. DeLay's press secretary in the House, are all cooperating with the Justice Department, which is investigating whether Mr. DeLay and other members of Congress accepted travel, gifts or money from Mr. Abramoff and his associates in return for legislative favors.
Mr. Rudy's plea agreement, which covers actions he took on Mr. Abramoff's behalf both while on Mr. DeLay's staff and after leaving the House to work as a lobbyist, did not allege any wrongdoing by Mr. DeLay or say that Mr. DeLay knew of any criminal activities by Mr. Rudy.
Mr. DeLay was indicted last September in Texas on unrelated charges involving violations of state election laws including money laundering and conspiring to funnel illegal corporate contributions to Republican statehouse candidates in 2002. The charges, later scaled back by a state judge to the money-laundering counts and remain the subject of an appeal set for argument on March 22.
In the fall of 2004, Mr. DeLay was admonished by the House ethics committee on three issues involving misuse of his influence, including an offer to support the House candidacy of the son of a former Republican representative from Michigan, Nick Smith, in return for Mr. Smith's vote for a Medicare prescription drug benefit.
Mr. DeLay, a one-time pest exterminator, was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1978, where he helped ignite a Republican resurgence in long-Democratic Texas.
Ralph Blumenthal contributed reporting from Houston for this article, and Philip Shenon from Washington.
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