In 1994, the Republicans ran an incredibly successful campaign against the entrenched and corrupt Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives. Their signature campaign issue was the Contract with America — a list of reforms designed to strengthen the ethics and accountability of Congress. They won control of the House that year and implemented several changes to increase the country’s faith in its legislature.

How times have changed.

The person most responsible for dirtying the Republican’s reputation as a party of principle is House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. During the past year, it seems as though he has made every ethical slip one could possibly make.

His Political Action Committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, is under investigation for funding irregularities and other potential violations. Several people close to DeLay have been indicted. There is an apparently good chance of DeLay himself being targeted next. This led the House Republicans to vote to change a rule barring individuals under indictment from serving in a leadership position.

DeLay likes to blame this on activist, partisan district attorneys, but the person investigating his PAC previously worked to take down a powerful Democratic leader in the Texas legislature.

DeLay also has several ties to one of the biggest scandals unfolding in Washington right now — one involving a lobbyist named Jack Abramoff. In a nutshell, this case involves one casino lobbying against the creation of another, and potentially illegal gifts to and fund-raisers for members of Congress may be going unreported. Former DeLay staffers were intimately involved in the effort, and the majority leader himself was one of the beneficiaries.

Then there is the dismantling of the House Ethics Committee. This committee served up three rebukes of DeLay in the past year, for issues described here and others. When committee assignments came up in 2004, the chairman was dismissed, and two other independent-minded Republican members were replaced with members who had donated to DeLay’s legal defense fund. For good measure, the party also changed the rules to make it harder for ethics charges to be considered.

There is plenty more where this came from — illegal trips from registered foreign agents, DeLay’s bizarre behavior during and after the Terri Schiavo affair, and so on. Even the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page has criticized DeLay, saying that the constant questions of corruption have caused him to develop an “odor.”

The Republicans would do well to distance themselves from DeLay, lest the entire party take on that odor. Removing him as majority leader would be a good start.