DeLay bids House goodbye
Indicted Texan urges GOP to stand strong.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay urged colleagues yesterday to "stand on principle" and ignore the media in a farewell speech to fellow Republicans.

DeLay, facing trial in Texas on campaign money laundering charges, is leaving Congress tomorrow, ending a 21-year career in the House.

Several rounds of applause and cheers could be heard from behind the doors of the Republicans’ weekly private meeting. When the doors were opened to let a congresswoman in, members could be seen on their feet, cheering and applauding.

DeLay said later to reporters that he had advised GOP House members: "Don’t listen to you guys in this town" and "stand on principle."

"We have been able to make history for 12 years, and we’ll do it again," DeLay said he told colleagues.

Later yesterday, three Democrats marked DeLay’s departure with proposed legislation to reform labor laws in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory. Rep. George Miller D-Calif., said DeLay and convicted ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff have thwarted a decade of efforts to lift the islands’ exemption from a range of U.S. labor, wage and immigration laws.

Abramoff, who pleaded guilty in January in a federal influence peddling inquiry, organized a trip for DeLay to travel to the Marianas, one of Abramoff’s clients. After the trip, DeLay said he viewed the islands’ clothing factories as a success and believed they should keep their exemptions.

DeLay is awaiting trial in Texas on charges that he was part of a scheme to launder $190,000 in corporate political contributions raised by a fundraising committee he launched.

The money was allegedly funneled through the Republican National Committee, which gave an equivalent amount to several Texas GOP legislative campaigns. Texas law bans spending corporate money for virtually all campaign expenses. A Texas prosecutor alleges the scheme was an effort to circumvent that law.

DeLay’s associations with Abramoff also have come under scrutiny as federal prosecutors probe Abramoff’s dealings with members of Congress and their aides in a bribery investigation.

Nonetheless, DeLay said he was leaving on a positive note.

"I don’t bear any regret at all. I’m very excited about what the future may hold," he said.

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