[EL] Tom DeLay's Appellate Argument

[Benjamin Barr]

For those interested on the list, I recently attended the oral
argument in *Delay
v. Texas *concerning the more-than-a-decade long attempt to wrap money
laundering charges around Tom DeLay's and others' attempts to comply with
Texas election law.  Notably, two of the three appellate justices were
sharply critical of the state's theory under two lines of reasoning.
 First, repeat questions abounded against the state to show how corporate
contributions to state PACs were somehow impermissible.  Second, deeper
questions about the vagueness and uncertainty of the law confounded the
state's attorney, forcing her to argue that individuals would have to
follow requirements nowhere stated in the law to comply with the law.  This
line of argument (an already vague law can be made clear by imposing
never-stated requirements for compliance) produced more than a little
skepticism among the justices.

As my colleague, Steve Klein, has pointed out, just as the British
newspaper the Spectator commented around the turn of the 18th century:
“What may be the common law on the case we do not pretend to say, but we
hold strongly that to manufacture an illegal act out of a series of legal
acts is most dangerous.”  I predict the Third Circuit appellate court in
Texas will rule in similar fashion, 2-1, in DeLay's favor.

Information on the Wyoming Liberty Group and Center for Competitive
Politics amicus involvement in the case can be found in these locations:

http://wyliberty.org/highlight2/wyoming-liberty-group-files-friend-of-the-court-brief-in-texas-free-speech-case/

and

http://www.campaignfreedom.org/2011/12/21/amicus-brief-in-delay-v-state/

Forward,

First Amendment Ben
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