maybe the AG should stop being a tool of the republican party and as the top cop of the state enforce the laws of the state. or sorry. thats just wishful thinking. July 19, 2006, 5:26PM Texas AG to weigh in on DeLay ruling By R.G. RATCLIFFE Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle AUSTIN — Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott plans to ask the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a federal judge's ruling that Republicans cannot replace former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay on the ballot, a Democratic lawyer involved in the case said today. ADVERTISEMENT Democratic Party General Counsel Chad Dunn said Abbott's solicitor general, Ted Cruz, told him he will file an amicus brief on Friday defending the state election law that Republicans want to use to replace DeLay. Abbott spokeswoman Angela Hale confirmed that Cruz will file a friend-of-the-court brief on either Thursday or Friday. "Because the district court issued an injunction against the Secretary of State and declared a portion of the Texas Election Code unconstitutional, Secretary of State Roger Williams will be filing an amicus brief in Fifth Circuit defending the constitutionality of Texas law," Hale said. Republicans want to remove DeLay, who resigned last month, from the ballot and replace him with a new candidate. Democrats want to block any action by the Republicans, claiming they are trying to manipulate a state election law that is supposed to keep political parties from switching candidates after they receive a primary nomination. U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks earlier this month ruled that state Republican Chair Tina Benkiser could not rule DeLay ineligible under state law because he had moved his official residence to Virginia. Sparks said DeLay's eligibility is set by the U.S. Constitution and can only be determined by whether he is an inhabitant of Texas on election day. Dunn said Cruz told him he will file a brief that outlines a schedule for when a replacement candidate for DeLay must be picked and also will argue that the state law for determining how a candidate may be replaced on the ballot is constitutional. "It looks like they are going to 'me-too' Tom DeLay's position," Dunn said. Dunn said the Texas Democratic Party in its lawsuit against Benkiser has never claimed the state election law is unconstitutional, just that she wants to apply it in an unconstitutional manner. "It's going to be interesting if the attorney general files a brief with the 5th Circuit saying, 'We encourage candidates to manipulate the election law,'" Dunn said. State election law allows a political party to replace a candidate if the candidate dies, becomes medically incapacitated or becomes ineligible for office. Benkiser declared DeLay ineligible after he registered to pay Virginia income taxes and changed his voter registration and driver's license to that state. But DeLay continues to maintain a home in Sugar Land. Sparks said the question of residency and eligibility for a federal candidate rests solely with the U.S. Constitution. Sparks said a party probably could legally replace a state legislative candidate who became ineligible by moving out of their district. Dunn said Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams filed a brief with Sparks' court outlining the time line for when the Republican Party could replace DeLay. Dunn said Williams took no position on how Sparks should rule. Republicans in Harris, Fort Bend, Brazoria and Galveston counties had started the process of picking a new congressional candidate for DeLay's seat, but halted when Sparks issued his ruling. r.g.ratcliffe@chron.com http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4057962.html
Texas attorney general to intervene in DeLay ballot question Democrats complain that state's lawyer doing the GOP's bidding in federal case. By Laylan Copelin AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Thursday, July 20, 2006 The political theater surrounding the future of Tom DeLay, the Democratic Party's favorite fundraising tool, got a new character Wednesday: Attorney General Gregg Abbott. The state's top lawyer is intervening in the legal battle over whether the GOP can replace the Sugar Land Republican on the ballot. The former House majority leader retired from Congress in June and moved to his Virginia condo after winning the GOP nomination three months earlier. The intervention by Abbott, a Republican, had Democrats complaining that the attorney general is doing the bidding of his political party instead of the state, a charge his staff denies. Abbott will ask the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a ruling that said the GOP cannot replace DeLay, who is facing money-laundering charges from his campaign activities in 2002. Democrats sued to keep DeLay's name on the ballot because they think they can more easily defeat an indicted Republican in the heavily Republican district in the Houston area than a new candidate. They also want to use DeLay's lighting-rod name identification to raise money nationally. "I think the attorney general is acting as an arm of the Republican Party," said Amber Moon, the Democratic Party's press secretary. "I think this is an overtly political move." Angela Hale, Abbott's communications director, said her boss had no choice: "They've declared one of our statutes unconstitutional." Moon disagreed, saying U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks never ruled the election code unconstitutional, only that state GOP Chairwoman Tina Benkiser has abused the law. In Sparks' court, DeLay testified that his wife remains in their Sugar Land home while he has moved to the Virginia condo they have owned for 12 years. He said he plans to live indefinitely in Virginia, having registered to vote and pay state taxes there. He testified that he moved no belongings except a car. Benkiser testified that she could replace DeLay because he became ineligible when he moved from Texas. Sparks, however, said the only residency requirement for U.S. House candidates is that they be inhabitants of the state "when elected," generally interpreted to mean on Election Day. He said that the Republicans' administrative decision is a de facto state residency requirement and that it cannot supersede the Constitution. The Republican Party of Texas appealed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, and DeLay warned Democrats that he might return to Texas to campaign if he is forced to stay on the ballot. Abbott's involvement could give the GOP side a boost. Abbott is hardly a stranger to the controversies surrounding DeLay and the 2002 elections. During that pivotal election, when Republicans finally took over the reins of state government completely, DeLay and his allies are accused of illegally spending corporate money in connection with campaigns. That year, DeLay and Abbott shared a consultant. John Colyandro, who was an adviser to the Abbott campaign, also was the executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority, DeLay's political action committee that spent $600,000 of corporate money on fundraisers. Last fall, a Travis County grand jury indicted Colyandro along with DeLay and another associate on charges that they laundered $190,000 of corporate money into campaign donations by sending it through the Republican National Committee. The defendants have denied wrongdoing, saying the transaction involved different money. State law generally bars corporate money in campaigns. In the final weeks of the 2002 campaign, Abbott also benefited from an out-of-state ally to Texans for a Republican Majority. The Law Enforcement Alliance of America paid for statewide commercials touting Abbott and criticizing his opponent, former Austin Mayor Kirk Watson. The group used corporate money, saying the commercials were issue ads and not political. After the election, Democrats fought back. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, began his four-year investigation and prosecution of DeLay and his allies. At the same time, lawyers representing Democratic candi- date sued — and won — a decision that Texans for a Republican Majority had violated the election code. Abbott could have sued those groups on behalf of the state but chose not to, a decision criticized by Texas House Democrats. And then last week, Abbott, on behalf of the state's Republican leadership, filed a proposed new congressional map in federal court that would split Austin's Democratic base between three Republican incumbents. Hale, Abbot's communications director, said criticism by Democrats is off-base. His intervention in the DeLay case, Hale said, "has nothing to do with anything." lcopelin@statesman.com; 445-3617 http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/07/20delay.html
Court: DeLay must remain on the ballot NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- A federal appeals court panel on Thursday refused to let Texas Republicans replace Tom DeLay's name on the November congressional ballot. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, who said in July that DeLay name had to stay on the ballot even though he quit from Congress and moved to Virginia. http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/03/delay.ballot.ap/index.html
Delay tries one last time to get off the ballot by appealing to GOP good buddy on the Supreme Court! And dam if Scalia didn't actually uphold the law! Scalia rejects Texas GOP appeal on DeLay http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle...0807/ap_on_el_ho/scotus_delay_s_replacement_4 The bugman stays!
Sweet! Now, unless the people of his district are brain-dead, always a possibilty, I look for Democrats to pick up two House seats in Texas, and for Democrats to hold serve on the seats they have. That's 2 seats unlooked for... a huge bonus in trying to take back the House of Representatives in November. Keep D&D Civil.
I have to admit - it would be pretty funny if Delay ended up winning somehow. The Dems would never hear the end of it...
Weird Any links to polling? I can't seem to find anything. If he does it will only reinforce one of the reasons I left Texas. And I LOVE TEXAS!!!! [edit] My word Cheetah! Whatever will bigtexxx do?
Man! This Delay guy is one weird mofo... DeLay to make way for write-in candidate WASHINGTON - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay intends to withdraw as a candidate for Congress, a Republican strategist said Tuesday, a step that would allow the party to field a write-in candidate in hopes of holding his seat. The development came one day after Texas Republicans lost a court battle in their bid to replace DeLay on the November ballot. There will be no Republican candidate to face Democrat Nick Lampson, a former House member. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060808...QcF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--
Chalk one up for the Democratic Party. There is no way Lampson is going to lose to a write-in opponent. No way. Bonilla is toast, IMO, so I definitely see 2 unlooked-for House seats coming out of Texas. Sweet! Keep D&D Civil.
Here's a quote from the Austin American-Statesman about it. Bonilla really is toast: Bonilla, a Republican whose support among Latinos has been eroding, saw his district become more Hispanic and Democratic. It was the Legislature's attempt in 2003 to save Bonilla that earned the Supreme Court's reprimand. State lawmakers replaced 100,000 Latinos from Laredo with 100,000 mostly Anglo residents in the Hill Country to make Bonilla's district more Republican. As compensation, the Legislature created the Travis County-to-Mexico rubber-band district with a Latino majority. The Supreme Court didn't buy it. Bonilla already has one Democratic opponent and might get another. Former U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, who lost the 2004 Democratic primary to Cuellar under the DeLay map, said he is "definitely" considering challenging Bonilla. "We're crunching the numbers right now," Rodriguez said. Bonilla made the best of picking up a swath of San Antonio's south side, which is full of Democrats: "The court has given me the opportunity to represent my old neighborhood, the school I attended, the house I grew up in and so many old friends." http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/08/5redistrict.html Latino voters were gerrymandered out of the original district to give Bonilla, the "Latino" GOP candidate, only 50.9% Latino voters in his district. The courts tossed that out. Adios, Bonillla. Keep D&D Civil.
according to the san antonio express rove is coming down next weekend to fundraise. the only thing that really concerns me is that bonilla has 2 million in the bank.
