Two Groups Run Ads Demanding DeLay Step Down

03/31/2005

HOUSTON (AP) - Two liberal groups are running TV ads demanding that Tom DeLay resign as House majority leader and urging fellow congressmen to mobilize against the Texas representative, who is under investigation for alleged ethics violations.

The ads focus on the allegations regarding DeLay’s fund-raising practices and travel. DeLay has not been charged with wrongdoing.

“Tom DeLay can’t wash his hands of corruption by involving Congress in one family’s personal tragedy. ... But Congress can certainly wash its hands of Tom DeLay,” the narrator says in one ad, referring to DeLay’s efforts in the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case.

DeLay spokesman Dan Allen dismissed the ads as liberals’"latest attack on a well-organized effort to move America forward.”

The second ad exhorts the congressmen to “clean up Congress - without DeLay.”

The Public Campaign Action Fund paid $25,000 to run ads in the districts of three Republicans: House Ethics Committee chairman Doc Hastings of Washington, Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York and Rep. Rob Simmons of Connecticut.

The Campaign for America’s Future, backed by labor, women’s and civil rights groups, is spending $75,000 to run the Schiavo ad in Washington and in DeLay’s Houston-area district.