House GOP in turmoil after DeLay indictment

Resistance to Dreier leads to Blunt
At the same time, conservative lawmakers quickly made known their unhappiness with Dreier as a potential stand-in for DeLay.

At a private midday meeting, several conservative lawmakers argued that Dreier’s voting record was too moderate. According to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, some participants in the meeting said the Californian had voted in favor of expanded federal funding for stem cell research and against a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. There also was grumbling that the Californian favored a less restrictive policy on immigration than many conservatives.

“There was a lot of discussion in that room about will ... he advance the conservative agenda?” said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., who attended the meeting and said he personally would have been comfortable with Dreier in the post.

Dennis Cook / AP Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

Other officials said a show of hands near the end of the session showed support for a postponement in selecting a temporary majority leader if it were to be Dreier. A delegation was dispatched to inform Hastert, who in the meantime had decided to recommend Blunt instead.

The speaker presented his recommendation not long afterward at a closed-door meeting of the rank and file, saying it was designed as a stopgap solution.

But even then some lawmakers expressed concern about inadvertently making an open-ended commitment, and Hastert pledged that the issue could be reopened in three months’ time.

Little time to clear his name
That leaves DeLay little time to clear his name and reclaim his post before a potential round of elections in which Blunt, Cantor or others face challenges, with the winners emerging with clear mandates of their own.

DeLay flashed defiance during the day as he embarked on a round of post-indictment media interviews. Summoning reporters to his office in the Capitol — the one he would soon vacate — he denounced Texas prosecutor Ronald Earle as “an unabashed partisan zealot.

“I am innocent. Mr. Earle and his staff know it. And I will prove it,” he added.

“Our job is to prosecute abuses of power and to bring those abuses to the public,” Earle responded in Texas. Rebutting charges of partisanship, he said he has investigated four times as many Democrats as Republicans.

DeLay, 58, was indicted on a single felony count of conspiring with two political associates — Ellis and John Colyandro — to violate state election law by using corporate donations illegally. Texas law prohibits use of corporate contributions to advocate the election or defeat of candidates.

DeLay is the highest-ranking member of Congress ever to be indicted, according to Don Ritchie, a Senate historian.

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