DeLay Reason Enough for Term Limits

Ryan says he won't return money received from DeLay committee

OK, enough with the emails attacking me for ducking the DeLay issue. It is because I am a principled conservative that Free Will is far ahead of my Party on most current events. Back in April, Free Will recognized the political heat Rep. Tom DeLay was inflicting on good, honest GOP Congressmen.

Here and here.

Unfortunately, a political truism holds that the more entrenched a politician becomes, the less likely the politician is to see the storm clouds before the rain falls.

With gerrymandering serving as the hammer of invincibility, the result has been less than 10% of U.S. House districts can be considered competitive. Thus, we have entrenched politicians who become nearly weather-proof to political storms.

Which is why term limits is needed, as the least evil of all current campaign reform measures...

...The Janesville Republican reiterated Tuesday that he won't give back contributions made to his earlier campaigns by a political action committee run by indicted Rep. Tom DeLay because, Ryan said, the contributions were legal, the money was spent and to return it would seem to be a tacit admission that something was wrong.

...Green has said he will return $2,000 of the some $30,000 he received from DeLay if the Texan is convicted of a serious crime. That is all he legally could return because when he converted $1.3 million of federal campaign money to the state campaign, he listed only a $2,000 donation from DeLay's leadership PAC in 2003.

...Ryan was asked why he did not return the money to diffuse the political attacks against him. He replied that he wouldn't do anything that seemed to be an "admission of something that was wrong."

I know Paul Ryan. There is not an unethical bone in his being.

However, if the First District was still as competitive for both Rs and Ds as in the days of Peter Barca and Mark Neumann, or even Paul's first race before redistricting reshaped the First into a lock for Rs, might those DeLay funds be returned with some haste? To avoid attack ads at reelection time?

The defense offered above only proves that the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) successfully researched and distributed talking points to each Member who has ever received PAC checks from DeLay's Leadership Committee (Google it yourself. Every Member is saying the exact same verse).

The bigger issues are -- stockpiling campaign donations from cycle to cycle -- and, the legitimacy of transferring donations received while seeking one office to a campaign effort that seeks a different office -- and, the end-run around contribution limits by establishing so-called leadership PACs, designed soley to buy colleague support or fund travel outside one's state/district.

Take away leadership PACs, carry-over warchests, and endless money transferring, Congress could save itself, from itself.