By BJ Austin, KERA News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-944747.mp3
Dallas, TX – Tom DeLay, former House Majority leader from Texas, gets three years in prison in a scheme to funnel illegal "corporate" money to Texas candidates in 2002. KERA's BJ Austin reports.
Tom DeLay could have received "life" in prison for his conviction on money laundering charges. SMU political scientist Cal Jillson says a life' sentence was not in the cards, but three years is enough to show strong disapproval for DeLay's brand of what Jillson calls cutthroat politics.
Jillson: What he did was try to reconstruct Texas politics in order to give him a better hand to play in Washington, and he stepped over the line in doing that.
Jillson says DeLay funneled corporate money to Texas House candidates. That created the first Republican state house majority since Reconstruction. That majority - through redistricting - then increased Republican seats in Congress - helping DeLay's power base.
DeLay maintains his innocence, and calls the sentence a miscarriage of justice.
University of North Texas political science professor Matthew Eshbaugh Soha says there's a message in the DeLay prison sentence and the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to allow corporate money for political ads, but not directly to candidates.
Eshbaugh-Soha: This case with Tom DeLay and the Supreme Court case suggest that the next wave of any kind of campaign finance reform is going to deal with the corporate contributions. One, campaign finance laws should be clear, more cut and dried, as best as they can get it; and, there are consequences if you misuse funds.
But Eshbaugh-Soha says he doesn't see campaign finance reform on Congress' radar right now.