October
3, 2005
Criminalizing Politics
By Robert
Novak
WASHINGTON
-- Last Wednesday afternoon after Tom DeLay's indictment was announced,
the caterwauling began among House Republicans about their own
decision of Jan. 3. By reinstating a rule that a party leader
must resign if indicted, Republican House members complained,
they had placed a gun in the hand of a Democratic district attorney
frantic to use it.
DeLay, praised
and condemned as the epitome of hardness in politics, had taken
the soft position that the House Republican Conference could not
withstand the abuse for having repealed the resignation rule.
Democrats were archetypal hards, determined to use the criminal
process to remove from power so formidable an antagonist. Travis
County District Attorney Ronnie Earle nearly flinched within the
last month, but relentless determination to use the criminal process
against DeLay moved Earle.
Article
Continues Below
In today's
polarized climate, both parties have contributed to the criminalization
of politics. But Democrats, losers in both elections and the world
of ideas, have turned to using the criminal process over the last
two decades. That means depicting DeLay not as a mere reactionary
politician but the cause of national corruption. This resolve
was furthered by the reckless DA in Texas and a retreat by House
Republicans.
The decision
to reinstate the resignation requirement was the subject of Wednesday's
closed-door conference of House Republicans. Rep. Steve Buyer
of Indiana declared that the Jan. 3 decision had empowered Earle.
He complained that moderate members of the conference had forced
the reinstatement. Rep. Tom Feeney of Florida said it was like
putting a red cape in front of a bull.
Moderate
Republicans, referred to as "weak sisters" by their House colleagues,
are poorly equipped to deal with the politics of 2005. On this
issue, former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who through his long career
has been all over the Republican spectrum, was the strict interpretation
ethicist supporting the resignation rule. DeLay decided he could
not subject his members to this kind of pressure, and restored
the rule.
Earle's
reputation was behind the decision by House Republicans Nov. 17,
2004, to end the resignation requirement. Under Texas law, Travis
County (home of the state capital) has special responsibility
for state election issues. That empowers Earle, an intense partisan
Democrat who is routinely re-elected in Texas's most liberal county.
Earle's
most notorious prosecution involved trumped up charges against
Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. When Hutchison won a 1993
special election to the Senate, I was advised by Austin's Democratic
power brokers that she would never be elected to a full term in
1994 because she then would be under indictment. She was, but
Earle's evidence was so insubstantial that the judge tossed it
out of court.
The party
pressure on Earle to indict Hutchison was dwarfed by demands that
he put DeLay in the dock. Texas Democratic politicians could not
forgive DeLay for demolishing their last vestige of power in what
has become a heavily Republican state: the gerrymandered congressional
delegation. Earle impaneled five grand juries before finding a
sixth to indict DeLay on a flimsy charge of conspiracy in financing
his redistricting initiative. As recently as two weeks before
the indictment, Earle was signaling that prosecution of DeLay
was unlikely. According to Texas sources, Democratic leaders made
clear this was simply unacceptable.
That most
of Earle's prosecutorial targets have been Democrats does not
mean he is a straight shooter. A majority consisted of routine
cases, but the big ones were tainted by politics. Earle lost a
1985 case against State Attorney General Jim Mattox, a political
rival who accused the DA of using the case as a "stepping stone."
His 1992 prosecution that drove Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis
out of public life was viewed in political circles as a hit job
influenced by Gov. Ann Richards. Earle investigated but never
brought an indictment against Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, who once called
the prosecutor "a little boy playing with matches."
Earle's
matches last Wednesday set ablaze the normally well-disciplined
House Republican organization. Within minutes after the indictment,
Republicans were wrestling over the succession. Democrats are
ecstatic. The criminalization of politics may work, even if the
case against DeLay is as threadbare as it looks.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
