Letter to Richard Lugar concerning Tom Delay

Below is a copy of a letter I sent to Senator Lugar concerning the expanding scandals involving Tom Delay. Note that I wrote the letter from the point of view of a leftist Republican -- rather than the independant I am...

Dear Senator Lugar,

Republicans in Congress should remove Tom Delay as Majority Leader because of his repeated and flagrant ethical misconduct. I'm counting on you to help.

Delay’s record doesn’t suggest a single case of bad judgment. Rather, he’s repeatedly tainted his party and what it means to be an American:

• Paid family members more than $500,000 out of campaign contributions
• Promised a role in drafting legislation to a corporate donor
• Tried to coerce a Congressman for a vote on Medicare
• Diverted funds from a children's charity for celebrations at the Republican convention
• Stacked the House Ethics committee by purging members who had rebuked him and replacing them with representatives who have contributed to his legal defense fund
• Accepted trips from gambling corporations and later helped kill legislation they opposed
• Accepted trips from the lobbyist for a foreign government in violation of House rules
• Sought a rule change that would have no longer "required leaders to step aside temporarily if indicted"

Every day Mr. Delay is in a position of leadership, he makes a mockery of the moral bedrock of the Republican Party.

I'm afraid we've allowed the Republican Party to devolve into what we most loathe: a free-spending, fiscally-irresponsible party that now relies on divisive social issues to rally our base.

When we're done demonizing gays, trial lawyers, and squelching any remaining dissent, all that will be left is a legacy of record deficit spending, un-American attacks on constitutional separation of powers, and an over-reliance on religious intolerance.

President Reagan famously quoted "I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me." I feel like the same thing is happening to too many people within the Republican Party. We're abandoning the core of the Republican Party the same way the Democratic Party left its core before Reagan took office.

It's time for some spine, for some honest self assessment. Do the right thing. Fire Tom Delay.