2004-10-08 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and a host of groups promoting ethics in government called Thursday on Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, the powerful House Republican majority leader, to step down or be ousted after his third rebuke from the ethics committee in a week.

Republicans fired back, charging that the allegations brought against DeLay were payback by Rep. Chris Bell, an angry freshman Democrat from Texas who lost his seat in a House redistricting plan engineered by the majority leader.

The rising tide of anger in the House, coming just before the Nov. 2 elections, could inject the issue of ethics into congressional contests around the country, particularly if Pelosi can make DeLay a symbol of what she says is the Republican majority's arrogance. DeLay is a prodigious fund-raiser who has earned the nickname "The Hammer" for his ability to keep his Republican caucus in line.

The issue is especially poignant for House Democrats because their former leaders' ethical lapses helped Republicans end four decades of Democratic control in 1994.

"Mr. DeLay has proven himself to be ethically unfit to lead his party," Pelosi said at a news conference one day after the ethics committee issued its latest rebukes of the Republican leader. "The burden now falls upon his fellow House Republicans.

"Republicans must answer: Do they want an ethically unfit person to be their majority leader, or do they want to remove the ethical cloud that hangs over the Capitol?" she asked, flanked by other House Democratic leaders.

In its latest finding, the 10-member, bipartisan ethics committee cited DeLay for creating an appearance of giving donors special access by hosting a June 2002 fund-raising golf outing for energy lobbyists while Congress considered energy legislation. It also rebuked DeLay for using the Federal Aviation Administration to try to track a plane that Democratic state legislators in Texas flew out of state during last year's redistricting battle to stall a vote.

The committee put off acting on a third matter involving alleged money laundering of banned corporate donations to GOP campaigns in Texas. DeLay aides have been indicted in Texas in that case, and he may be the subject of continuing probes.

Last week, the ethics committee admonished DeLay for his role in the House passage of Medicare drug benefit legislation in November. Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., said DeLay had offered to help Smith's son in a primary race if he would vote for the bill. Smith voted against the bill, but House Republican leaders kept the vote going until the middle of the night, when they finally secured passage by one vote.

In 1999, DeLay was rebuked for threatening to retaliate against a Washington lobbying group if it hired a Democrat for an executive position.

To Republicans, the latest committee findings smacked of a vendetta. They wouldn't even concede the bipartisan committee had disciplined DeLay.

"Tom DeLay is a good man," Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said in a statement. "He fights hard for what he believes, but he has never put personal interests ahead of the best interests of the country."

"The ethics committee made the right decision to dismiss two out of the three counts, and I am confident that they will reach the same conclusion in the final one," he added.

Technically, Hastert is right about the dismissal of charges, because the committee didn't call for disciplinary action against DeLay.

However, the committee's letter to DeLay left no doubt that it was chastising his behavior.

"In view of the number of instances to date in which the committee has found it necessary to comment on conduct in which you have engaged, it is clearly necessary for you to temper your future actions to assure that you are in full compliance at all times with the applicable House rules and standards, " it wrote.

DeLay also said he considered the complaint against him dismissed but accepted the committee's guidance.

Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, said Democrats were going after DeLay for political ends. "The House majority leader makes an attractive target for those who seek to play the politics of personal destruction," he said. "He has been effective; they have not. He has led; they have not. But smear campaigns will effectively lead to an erosion of credibility, as I suspect will be the case here with Mr. Bell and the Democrat Party."

But Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said she couldn't understand how Hastert and DeLay could say the complaints had been dropped.

"Either Tom DeLay didn't read the report or he's suffering from some kind of delusion," she said.

Mark Clack of Public Campaign, a group trying for new restrictions on political fund raising, said, "We find it very hypocritical that Mr. DeLay, who helped lead a revolution in the House in 1994 and attacked (Democratic) Speaker Jim Wright, now finds himself embroiled in the same sort of controversy."

Wright got in trouble over alleged financial wrongdoings stemming from a book deal.

While the Republicans defended DeLay, Sloan predicted he wouldn't survive. "Tom DeLay will go," she said. "It's a question of when."

    The breakdown
    Republicans hope to keep control of Congress in next month's elections.
                    House*    Senate**
   Republicans       227        51
   Democrats         205        48
   Independents        1         1
    ** There are 34 seats in the Senate up for election this year.