Cheney to Speak at DeLay Fundraiser, DeLay heads to Court
On December 5, Dick Cheney is scheduled to speak at a big-time fundraiser for Tom DeLay's 2006 re-election campaign.
Some of the highest-ranking Republicans in Texas, including Gov. Rick Perry and Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, are serving as chairs of the fundraising event.
For $4,200, a donor gets an invitation to a VIP reception, a photograph with Cheney, and recognition at the event. For $2,100, attendees can rub elbows at a "congressional reception" and have their photo taken with DeLay. Regular tickets to the event cost $500.
DeLay returns to court in Houston Tuesday, for a hearing on his motions to dismiss the state indictment against him. Here are the issues he has raised:
- Whether, in 2002, money laundering applied only to cash, not the $190,000, because it was a check. The defense lawyers contend that the state's money laundering statute, which referred to "funds" in 2002, applies only to cash transactions, an argument they have lost in front of another judge.
- Whether the state election code's ban on corporate money is so vague that it is unconsti- tutional.
- Whether prosecutors are using the law so broadly that it chills free speech by limiting some groups' ability to spend freely on political campaigns.
- Whether, in 2002, the charge of conspiracy could be applied to what the defense argues is simply allegations of an election code violation. The Legislature changed the law in 2003 to allow conspiracy charges to apply to the election code, but lawyers disagree over whether that's evidence that conspiracy didn't apply beforehand or whether lawmakers simply were clarifying the law, as the new law's author has said.
- Whether Travis County grand juries wrongly indicted DeLay on conspiracy to commit money laundering as an attempt to prosecute him under the state's penal code. Under the election code, the Republican prosecutor of DeLay's home county — not Earle, a Democrat — would have jurisdiction.
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