Here is just a partial list of Delay's know scandals...
"DeLay has admitted offering to endorse Sen. Nick Smith's son Brad, who was running for Congress at the time, in exchange for Smith's "yea" vote on the Medicare bill.
The House ethics panel rebuked DeLay for using government resources to help locate a private plane he thought was carrying Texas Democratic legislators. DeLay was trying to force the legislators back to the capitol so he could push through his congressional redistricting."
DeLay used a children's charity, Celebrations for Children Inc., as cover for collecting soft money from anonymous interest groups, some of which was used for "dinners, a golf tournament, a rock concert, Broadway tickets and other fundraising events" at the Republican convention in New York. Because the money was supposedly for charity, companies wishing to curry favor with DeLay were able to do so without revealing themselves as campaign donors.
The House Ethics Committee cited the belief on the part of executives at an energy company, Westar Energy Inc., that a $56,500 contribution to a political action committee associated with DeLay would get them a "seat at the table" where key energy legislation was being drafted.
DeLay "took a $100,000 check from a private prison company" - the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) - at a fundraiser for his children's charity, the DeLay Foundation for Kids. CCA - whose 20-year history has been "fraught with malfeasance, mismanagement, and abuse" - was part of an ongoing lobby for a bill that would privatize up to half of Texas's jails.
In 1999, DeLay received a "private rebuke" for threatening retaliation against the Electronic Industries Association when the trade group named a Democrat to head its Washington operation.
DeLay enjoyed a luxurious vacation at the Four Seasons Hotel in London in mid-2000, paid for by an Indian tribe and a gambling services company, both of which opposed gambling legislation DeLay voted against two months later. The payment was funneled through lobbyist Jack Abramoff, best known for teaming up with right-wing religious fundamentalist Ralph Reed to close down a Texas casino operated by the Tigua Indians in 2002, then persuading the tribe to pay the two of them $4.2 million to lobby Washington lawmakers, including DeLay, to reopen it.
DeLay accepted an expense-paid trip to South Korea which, in direct violation of House rules, was paid for by a South Korean lobbying group.
DeLay and his allies in the House have sought to cripple the House Ethics Committee. The committee, which rebuked DeLay three times last year, was purged of its most "responsible" members last month and is currently "paralyzed" by a proposed rules change.
DeLay was the driving force behind the decision by House leaders to abandon an 11-year-old party rule that "required leaders to step aside temporarily if indicted.
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