Author: Chris Bell

Chris Bell is a former Democratic Congressman from Houston.  On June 15, 2004, he filed an ethics complaint against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.  Bell is currently exploring the race for Governor of Texas in 2006.

One year ago today, I filed an ethics complaint against Tom DeLay before the House Ethics Committee.  No one, not the pundits, Republicans, my own Dem leadership, or DeLay himself gave it much of a chance.  Heck, even I didn’t think much would come of it, but I did it anyway because it was the right thing to do.  To the outsider, I’m sure that DeLay’s ethical misconduct and abuse of power seemed blatant and undeniable, but inside the Beltway his behavior was often dismissed as just politics-as-usual.  There were even leaders in my own party who urged me to back down from my complaint in order to preserve the “ethics truce” that had held for seven years.  Only in Washington, D.C. would an “ethics truce” make sense…

A lot has changed in the year since I filed the ethics complaint.  Despite my initial doubts, the Ethics Committee handed down two unanimous admonishments against DeLay in response to the complaint.  Two of his top lieutenants are now under criminal indictment here in Texas.  Last month, a Republican-appointed judge ruled that DeLay’s TRMPAC violated Texas election law by funneling illegal corporate money to state candidates in 2002.  DeLay subsequently saw his win margin plummet in 2004 and he’s going to face the toughest re-election fight of his career in 2006.

No, Tom DeLay isn’t gone yet.  We still have a lot work to do in 2006 to defeat DeLay and his friends.  But what we’ve accomplished in the last year is a good start.  We’ve succeeded in shining a light on DeLay’s abuses, and just as importantly we’ve put the issues of ethics and integrity back in the center of the national political debate.  Democrats up and down the ballot will be running on a message of reform next year, and that’s something that we as a party should be proud of.

But true reform means more than just speaking out against the ethical misconduct that has become the norm in Tom DeLay’s Washington.  It also means reforming the way that we as Democrats run campaigns.  Reform means recommitting ourselves to being a true grassroots party, a party that listens to mainstream voices instead of the voices of big-money lobbyists and partisan ideologues.  Reform means seeking common ground and embracing new ideas and solutions. And reform means rejecting the broken Washington-style politics that values partisanship above all else.

A friend of mine asked me other day what lesson I’ve taken away from the Tom DeLay saga.  My answer was this:  We can’t wait around for others to step up.  I didn’t know whether my complaint would end up having any impact at all, but I did know that I couldn’t just stand by and let DeLay’s blatant abuse of power go unchallenged.  Likewise, we as Democrats may be discouraged, but no one else is going to stand up and fight these battles for us.  We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for.

It’s this same principle that has led me to form an exploratory committee to look at the governor’s race.  Under the leadership of DeLay ally Rick Perry, the proud Texas traditions of bi-partisan cooperation and civility have been replaced by the worst Washington traditions of ethical bankruptcy and win-at-all-costs partisanship.

Make no mistake: Democrats can win in Texas next year.  Rick Perry’s spectacular failures in the recently completed legislative session and his sub-40 approval ratings are a clear indication that Texans are ready for a new direction in our state.  But it’s up to us to stand up now and fight for change.

This past weekend, more than 150 people came together at house parties across the country to join with me in this fight and take a stand for clean government.  It was the first time that a statewide campaign in Texas had brought people together like this, and the enthusiasm and energy of guests around the state was an encouraging sign that Texans are ready for the kind of true grassroots campaign that I want to run.

The house parties were part of our drive to raise $30,000 through our website by midnight tonight, marking both the anniversary of my stand against DeLay and the next chapter in the continuing fight to clean up Texas politics.  As of this morning, we’re within $4,000 of our goal, and right now I’m asking you for your support to help put us over the top.

Rick Perry is going to raise millions of dollars for this campaign from lobbyists, insiders, and state contractors looking for special favors. I don’t think that’s the way government ought to work. I want this campaign to be built on the support of mainstream Texans whose only special interest is a new direction for our state.

Looking back on the whole DeLay saga a year later, what makes me proudest is seeing Democrats across the country once again embracing a message of reform and advancing the cause of ethics in government.  But let’s commit ourselves on this anniversary to taking the reform mandate one step further and changing the way we run Democratic campaigns are run in this state.  The top-down, closed-door system of the past has failed us, but a campaign that captures the energy and the commitment of the grassroots will not fail.

Just remember one thing:  We can’t wait around for others to step up.  It’s a fight worth fighting and it’s a fight we can win, but it starts with you.

[Chris Bell is a former Democratic Congressman from Houston who filed the ethics complaint against Tom DeLay in 2004.  He is currently exploring the race for Governor of Texas]

The 79th Session of the Texas Legislature that concluded last week will long be remembered for its failures – the Republican majority’s failure to govern, Rick Perry’s failure to lead, and a collective failure of vision on the part of the partisans and ideologues in Austin.  Rick Perry came into this session with a GOP-dominated Legislature and a mandate – from both the voters and from the courts – to revitalize a public education system that has been declared unconstitutional.  Moreover, he came into this session with a golden opportunity to capitalize on the statewide focus on public education by proposing real, substantive reforms and making the investments necessary to support them.

He of course failed to achieve a school finance solution.  But as the Dallas Morning News pointed out, the real failure occurred long before the last-minute negotiations broke down; it occurred when Rick Perry decided that no real investment in education was necessary and that this whole debate should be reduced to a discussion of property tax reform.
All of the education experts I’ve been talking to in the past few months have said that for all the shortcomings of our public schools, one major push from Austin could still put our schools back on track to being among the best in the country.  Rick Perry’s inability to piece together even a bare minimum fix was an embarrassing failure of leadership, but his unwillingness to even consider bold new solutions was an equally unforgivable failure of vision.

The fruits of these failures are all too visible as we look around the state.  We see it in the thousands of kids who have been kicked off the CHIP rolls, in the hundreds of kids who have died of abuse and neglect because Child Protective Services is too underfunded to protect them, in graduation rates and SAT scores that continue to lag well behind national averages.

This isn’t the Texas that I had the privilege of growing up in, nor is it the Texas I want my two young boys to grow up in.  And if there’s anything that we can take from this past legislative session, it’s that Rick Perry is simply not up to the task of getting things moving back in the right direction.  

Those of you who visit my website regularly are probably aware that we’ve launched a fundraising drive to raise $30,000 online by midnight on June 15.  The deadline coincides with the first anniversary of the ethics complaint I filed against Tom DeLay last year, but the focus of this fundraising drive is looking forward, not backwards.  The purpose of this drive is not only to raise funds.  Certainly every dollar makes a big difference this early in the game, but just as importantly, this fundraising drive will also be an early indicator of whether Texas is ready for the type of campaign I want to run.

I want to run a campaign that captures the energy and the vision of the true grassroots, the mainstream Texans who aren’t content to sit idly by while Rick Perry’s failed leadership erodes decades of progress and growth.  I want to run a campaign that draws all Texans into a true conversation about what direction we want for our state.  And I want to run a campaign that firmly rejects the closed door, smoke-filled room politics of the old Democratic Party and fully realizes the potential of the new Democratic grassroots.

I launched this exploratory campaign because I needed to answer some fundamental questions before deciding whether to commit fully to this race, a decision I plan to announce in July.  The first of these questions concerns Democratic viability in a statewide election, and that question has been answered resoundingly as everyone from Texas Monthly to former Republican Governor Bill Clements has started talking openly about the prospects of a Democratic revival in 2006.  But the question I now need to answer is whether this growing Democratic grassroots has the numbers, the strength, and the commitment necessary to sustain a campaign through the fight ahead.

That’s why I need to make a hard ask right now for you to help us reach our goal.  The house parties that are being organized around the state to take place on June 12th are the heart of this online fundraising drive, but for those of you unable to attend or host a house party this Sunday, I still need your help today.  I have every confidence that the progressive netroots is going to be the heart and soul of this campaign to give Texas a new direction.  For this to happen, we need to send a clear signal around the state that you’re engaged and committed for the fight ahead.

This is rather uncharted territory for Democratic statewide campaigns in Texas.  Netroots progressives have begun to notch a few victories in local and legislative races around the state, but no statewide campaign has yet won by fully engaging this emerging community.  With your help, we can change that in 2006.

I will look forward to visiting with you during the house parties this Sunday.