DeLay is STUCK on Ballot! GOP comments Ridiculous!

Thanks to FortBendNow.com for the following article about Delay getting stuck on the ballot. Amazing, the GOP's trying to claim that Democrats are attempting to control the GOP candidate selection. Ridiculous! The GOP primary voters elected DeLay to the ballot and now the federal courts won't let them change their minds simply because he's bound to lose because of ethics violations!

Judges: DeLay Must Stay On Ballot; GOP Heads To Supremes

by Bob Dunn, Aug 03, 2006, 02 46 pm

An appeals panel upheld a federal judge’s ruling Thursday that either Tom DeLay must appear on the November ballot for Congressional District 22, or the Republican Party of Texas cannot field a candidate for the race.

Tom DeLay

In affirming a July ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges said Texas GOP Chairman Tina Benkiser violated the U.S. Constitution when she declared on June 8 that DeLay was ineligible to run on the general election ballot.

Shortly after the ruling, one of Benkiser’s attorneys said she would file an expedited appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The court held that the Texas Democrat Party could seek to control who is the nominee of the Republican Party,” said attorney Jim Bopp, who represents Benkiser in the case. The appeals panel ruling “is incompatible with a viable two-party system. Voter choice demands candidates from both parties.”

DeLay, who won the Republican Party primary election by garnering 62% of the vote in a four-way race, announced in April he would resign from Congress. He later stated his intention to move to Virginia and thus become ineligible to be on the Republican ballot.

The day before DeLay was scheduled to resign his congressional seat, Benkiser said she had documentation including a copy of DeLay’s Virginia driver’s license, that led her to conclude he was ineligible to be on the ballot.

But the Texas Democratic Party filed suit against her in Travis County District Court, arguing that the U.S. Constitution establishes eligibility of congressional candidates, stating only that a candidate must be “an inhabitant” of the state he or she intends to serve, “when elected.”

Judge Sparks agreed with that argument, after the GOP successfully had the case moved to U.S. District Court in Austin. Thursday, the 5th Circuit panel concurred.

The three-judge panel “found that Tina Benkiser and the Texas Republican Party violated the Constitution and violated state law,” said Chad Dunn, general counsel for the state Democratic Party. The appeals court ruling leaves in place an injunction preventing the Texas GOP from acting to select a replacement candidate for DeLay.

“When Benkiser reviewed the public records sent by DeLay and concluded that his residency in Virginia made him ineligible, she unconstitutionally created a pre-election inhabitancy requirement,” judges Fortunato Benavides, James Dennis and Edith Clement said in their ruling. ”

The Qualifications Clause in the Constitution “only requires inhabitancy when that candidate is elected,” the judges wrote. “Given this language, Benkiser could not constitutionally find that DeLay was ineligible on June 7, the date she made her decision. Therefore, her application of the ineligibility statute to DeLay was unconstitutional.”

The panel of judges said their ruling conforms with the Texas principle that any constitutional provision restricting the right to hold office “must be strictly construed against ineligibility.” Also, they said, their ruling is supported by past decisions in the 9th and 10th circuits “that struck down pre-election day residency requirements.”

In a prepared statement late Thursday afternoon, Bopp said the appeals panel made a “fundamental error” by ignoring “the fact that the Texas statute only shifts the burden to the candidate to reaffirm his eligibility and thus is not a conclusive bar to his candidacy.

“Tom DeLay, of course, does not intend to return to Texas. He testified that he intends to live in Virginia indefinitely,” Bopp said.

DeLay could not be reached for comment.

Bopp said Texas Democrats are asking for one of two things: Either DeLay withdraws from the ballot so that Democratic challenger Nick Lampson “can run unopposed,” or DeLay must remain on the ballot and run for re-election, even though “he doesn’t want to run.”

State Democratic Party attorney Cris Feldman said the GOP’s “burden for extraordinary relief from the Supreme Court is extremely high, and their arguments are getting more and more creative.

“After five judges have looked at this and upheld our position…it’s time to let the voters speak,” Feldman said.

The appeals panel said the GOP contends DeLay’s declaration of ineligibility was permissible under the law because he is a “frivolous” candidate, and “removing frivolous candidates from the ballot constitutes ‘protection of voters’ under Supreme Court precedent.”

However, the 5th Circuit judges said in their ruling, “this argument fails” because the Supreme Court has discussed the prevention of such “frivolous” candidates from appearing on the ballot in context of people who likely would “only receive minimal support in an election.”

And, the judges said, “There is no evidence that DeLay, the incumbent candidate of a dominant political party, will receive only minimal support.

“Here, we fail to see how removing DeLay from the ballot would protect the voters, inasmuch as it was the voters themselves who selected DeLay as the Republican candidate for the general election.”

The Texas Republican Party faces a tight deadline in gaining a ruling from the Supreme Court. Democrats’ attorney Dunn said Sept. 1 is a “hard deadline” by which Texas counties must have ballots printed including all the candidates’ names.

Bopp said the Supreme Court could rule that the Texas GOP “is going to suffer irreparable harm if we do not have a replacement candidate,” and could allow such a candidate to be selected and put on the ballot.

“Then we can argue after the election” whether that move was proper, he said.

The House of Representatives “can ultimately determine the qualifications of the nominees,” and if the replacement candidate was determined ineligible for office, a special election could be held, or the House could determine that the Democratic nominee be seated, Bopp said.

Texas Democratic Party Executive Committee member Don Bankston of Richmond saw the case in simpler terms.

“We’re pleased the rule of law has been upheld,” he said. “Mr. DeLay may think he’s the federal government, but he still needs to follow the Constitution.”

Lampson echoed Feldman, saying Thursday the case has dragged on long enough.

“Our country is at war, we are facing issues like unsecured borders, skyrocketing foreign debt, and we are in the middle of hurricane season,” he said in a statement. “Yet, Texas’s 22nd Congressional District currently has no voice in the House of Representatives. Texans have waited long enough for an outcome on this case. It is now time for us to move ahead with the election. Regardless of what Tom DeLay decides to do, I look forward to a vigorous issue-based campaign.”