Tom DeLay’s tangled legacy lives on

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay looked like a new man when he appeared on MSNBC’s “Hardball” to discuss his selection for ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.”

The man known as “The Hammer” when he ruled House Republicans with an iron fist was sun-tanned and jovial as he bantered with host Chris Matthews.

But the old DeLay re-emerged when Matthews raised an area where the former Texas congressman’s political legacy is alive and well: the “birther movement,” which questions President Barack Obama’s legitimacy to serve as president.

“I would like the president to produce his birth certificate,” DeLay declared. “Most illegal aliens here in America can. Why can’t the president of the United States produce a birth certificate?”

Obama has produced an official Hawaiian document certifying he was born there. The state’s director of health has said she has seen the original paper certificate. His name has appeared in the birth columns of Honolulu’s two newspapers. Though that hasn’t satisfied the “birthers,” it strains credibility to suggest someone plotted to ensure that this obscure half-white, half-black baby would be legally qualified to seek the presidency one day.

What makes this more than a fairy tale concocted by Obama’s nuttier political enemies is the legitimacy provided by a bill introduced in Congress requiring future candidates — presumably including Obama if he seeks re-election — to present evidence of their legal birth when seeking the presidency.

Six of its 11 House Republican sponsors are Texans. Most owe their seats in considerable degree to the 2003 redistricting plan that DeLay and his fellow Republicans muscled through the Texas Legislature. They are Kenny Marchant of Coppell, Ted Poe of Humble, Louie Gohmert of Tyler, John Culberson of Houston, John Carter of Round Rock and Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock.

To be fair, they have not directly questioned Obama’s qualification for the presidency, which requires only that a person be “a natural born citizen” who is older than 35 and has been a U.S. resident for 14 years.

“I co-sponsored the legislation because I believe the issue needs to be resolved for future presidential candidates, once and for all,” Marchant said in a statement. “Had this legislation been in place, this would not be the distraction it has become for President Obama, whom I do believe was born in Hawaii.”

McCain’s birthplace

He also noted that, in the past, questions have been raised about the eligibility of other candidates, such as whether John McCain was disqualified by being born in the U.S.-owned Panama Canal Zone.

Those issues were, in fact, clear-cut, as is Obama’s case. Indeed, the only people creating a “distraction” — or pushing what Gohmert called “conspiracy theories” — are the president’s political enemies, like conservative talk show radio host Rush Limbaugh.

Beyond the immediate issue, this matter is a reminder of the political impact of the DeLay redistricting. It’s something to keep in mind when district lines are redrawn again after the 2010 census.

If the 2003 redistricting only meant replacing one group of lawmakers with another, it might not matter as much. Unfortunately, it helped to reduce Texas’ congressional influence by substituting freshman Republicans for senior Democrats who would now be committee chairs.

Former Reps. Martin Frost of Dallas, Jim Turner of Crockett and Charlie Stenholm of Stamford would head the Rules, Homeland Security and Agriculture committees. Stenholm and Turner would be significant “blue dog” Democrats trying to restrain their more liberal colleagues.

Fortunately for Texas, Rep. Chet Edwards of Waco survived the DeLay purge in a district that backed President George W. Bush 2-to-1 and remains a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. Rep. Sylvestre Reyes of El Paso heads the Intelligence Committee; five other Texans chair subcommittees.

In the Senate, the state soon will lose senior Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, when she resigns to pursue a gubernatorial campaign. Her successor will start No. 100 in seniority, though the state’s other senator, John Cornyn, is a rising Republican power.

Long after Tom DeLay displays his dancing prowess on network television, the state will continue to pay the price for his past political success.

X Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.