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Tuesday, November 22, 2005
TX-22: DeLay's Leadership Spot Looking Dicey
Posted by DavidNYCAccording to Hotline On Call, Denny Haster told Tom DeLay that he'd hold the wolves at bay until the new year. That is, no leadership election would be held to permanently replace DeLay as majority leader if he extricated himself from legal trouble by January. DeLay had his fingers crossed that the judge overseeing his case would dismiss the charges, but no such luck.
The fact is, criminal charges are very rarely dismissed before trial. Why? A judge can't reach a decision on the facts - that's the jury's job. (Unless you've waived your right to a jury trial.) So that means a charge can only be dismissed if somehow it's malformed (eg, doesn't include a necessary element of the crime), or if there is no way any reasonable jury could ever convict (eg, the activity simply isn't covered by the charge in question). Neither are mistakes that a competent, experienced prosecutor like Ronnie Earle is likely to make. On that basis, I feel like Hotline should probably not have passed along anonymous, self-serving spin with apparently no legal or factual arguments to back it up.
Anyhow, at best that bit of misdirection from Tom DeLay bought him a single day, because the judge said that he wouldn't rule on the motion to dismiss the charges until at least December, and that a trial wouldn't be possible until January. So that means DeLay will lose his leadership post - an extra embarassment to deal with in his race against Nick Lampson. If you are interested in the inside baseball of the Republican majority leader race, check out that first Hotline post linked above.
Posted at 03:10 PM in 2006 Elections - House, Texas | Technorati
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Looks like Tom DeLay's legal difficulties are threatening his House Majority leadership: According to Hotline On Call, Denny Hastert told Tom DeLay that he'd hold the wolves at bay until the new year. That is, no leadership election would be [Read More]
Tracked on November 22, 2005 08:13 PM