Although a court ruling is not expected until next week, comments made yesterday by the federal judge who will decide whether Tom DeLay's name can be replaced from the ballot for Congress in TX-22 are promising. Indicted Tom DeLay received a paltry 63% vote in the Republican primary and faced a very tough race against Democrat Nick Lampson.
Rather than fight the tough fight, or withdraw before the primary so Republican voters could select a different nominee, DeLay won the primary, then announced that he had moved to Virginia and was no longer eligible to serve as a representative from Texas. The Republican party now wants to name a replacement on the ballot - deciding behind closed doors who its strongest candidate would be. The Democratic party went to court, arguing that DeLay had not proven he was ineligible and that his name should remain on the ballot. The Republicans were enjoined from naming a replacement until the court makes its decision.
Now predicting how a judge will decide anything in advance is a fools game and I have gone back and forth several times over whether even to write this. But comments of the judge published in the Houston Chronicle suggest that we have grounds for optimism.
The federal judge hearing a ballot dispute indicated that he thinks that DeLay "withdrew" from the November election, "indicating potential trouble for Republicans who want to name a replacement candidate."
"He is not going to participate in the election and he withdrew," said U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, who did not issue an official ruling after a daylong trial regarding DeLay's status as the GOP nominee for the 22nd Congressional District.
Jim Bopp, a lawyer for the Republican Party of Texas, disagreed, telling Sparks "there's been no withdrawal." Bopp said that instead, DeLay moved to Virginia, making him ineligible and triggering a state law that allows the party to select a new nominee.
Sparks also said that if political parties are allowed to replace primary election winners with more popular candidates, "the abuse would be incredible."
http://www.chron.com/...
If Judge Sparks (a Republican judge appointed, I believe, by George Bush I), finds that DeLay's name must stay on the ballot, then this seat becomes much better for the Dems. Dem candidate Nick Lampson is a former congressman who lost his seat after the 2003 DeLay-engineered redistricting in Texas. Polls before the primary showed that he was leading DeLay. And with DeLay under indictment and facing a criminal trial, his candidacy will be very weak. I have no inside information, but I have to believe that if DeLay thought he could win, he would not have gone through such a bizarre exercise as to "move to Virginia" after the primary to allow the R's to put a different name on the ballot.