DeLay's Name on Ballot Prompts Texas Showdown

In the aftermath of Tom DeLay's resignation from Congress, Republicans and Democrats are fighting in court over whether his name will remain on the ballot in November in his Texas district.

DeLay resigned this month and moved to Virginia, but he won renomination in the Texas primary in March. DeLay's decision to resign from Congress and not run again means the GOP could name a replacement candidate without holding a special election.

It was preparing to do so when Texas Democrats, calling DeLay's departure a "sham vacancy," obtained a court order June 8 barring the Republicans from naming a new candidate for two weeks.

That move denied the Republican challenger a chance to start raising money to catch up with the more than $2 million the Democrat, Nick Lampson, has already raised.

A state judge set a hearing date for this Thursday, but last week state Republicans filed to move the case to federal jurisdiction, saying federal courts are more experienced in handling election law questions. Democrats were trying to determine their response.

James Bopp Jr., a lawyer representing the Republicans, said the Democrats are trying to win the election "by litigation rather than having the voters decide." He added: "The Democrats hope that lightning will strike . . . and that [Lampson] will run unopposed."

But Democrats say the Republicans are trying to manipulate the election.

"Tom DeLay and the Republican Party willfully and intentionally conspired to run a bogus primary to allow DeLay to raise funds for his legal defense, hoping to use state law to have a handful of party bosses handpick their nominee instead of the voters," said Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie.

A Magazine for Democrats

The Democratic Party's strategy for winning in 2006 and beyond is debated vigorously on blogs, in Washington magazines and among party officials.

But by launching a new online magazine and blog -- called the Democratic Strategist ( http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org ) -- a few prominent Democratic thinkers and consultants are trying to bring some intellectual cohesion to those debates.

It's the brainchild of Ruy Teixeira, an author and liberal intellectual; Stan Greenberg, a Democratic consultant; and William Galston, a Brookings Institution fellow.

"The Democratic Party has got bogged down in a dispute between centrists and populists," Teixeira said. "We've been trying to approach the question of strategy for the Democratic Party in an empirical way" by using demographic, voting and other data to test various strategies.