TX-22: Scalia declines to do DeLay a favor

If he could have gotten away with it, then he would have!  But Justice Antonin Scalia's rejection of a last-minute plea that would have allowed the Supreme Court to get involved in the Tom DeLay ballot issue was the only ruling to make.  As a long-time hunting buddy of Vice President Dick Cheney, Scalia was always thought of as a judicial activist whose sole purpose was to rubber stamp GOP policies.  Had he accepted the DeLay case, it probably would have triggered Judiciary Committee hearings in both houses, adding yet another item to the laundry list of GOP scandals as we get closer to November.

Just in case you need a little refresher on what happened, DeLay won his party's primary in March, making him the GOP nominee in the 22nd District of Texas.  Then, after realizing that he might lose to Democratic challenger Nick Lampson this November, DeLay suddenly bowed out.  The Democrats argued that because DeLay won the primary, he had to be the nominee.  And if he refused to be on the ballot, then no other Republican could run.  In short, here is how the court battle went down:

A Republican federal judge in Texas ruled in favor of the Democraticargument last month, and that ruling was upheld by the U.S. Court ofAppeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans last week. With the electionless than 100 days away, Texas Republicans appealed to the SupremeCourt yesterday to stay the appeals court ruling and allow them to picka new candidate to stand against Democrat Nick Lampson in November.That appeal was routed to Scalia, who denied it just two hours after itwas received.

That brings us to where we are now.  With Tom DeLay staying on the ballot, he will have to put his dream of becoming a K-Street lobbyist on hold.

This seat is up for grabs, and the Democrats can pick it up.  Volunteers at the Nick Lampson Campaign down in Texas are working hard to defeat Tom DeLay: the poster-boy of corruption.  The Lampson Campaign can use our help!  Please contribute or volunteer in any way that you can.  We need to win this seat to help kick the corrupt GOP out of the House and hold the Bush Administration fully accountable for putting America's future in danger.
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Other sites blogging about this story: Copeland Institute for Lower Learning, Injustice Anywhere, Jurist, Suburban Guerrilla, The Green Knight, Left Word, Hill Country Gal, AmericaBlog.