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Sweet Charity

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The Dallas Morning News quoted an unnamed lobbyist explaining, "Tom DeLay has a whole package you can buy starting at $15,000 or $25,000 and going up to $75,000 or $100,000…If you bought into one of those big-time packages, you're going to be invited to the train. There's a lot of members there and very few lobbyists. It's very exclusive."

Campaign finance reform would make all of that illegal.

But DeLay had a backup plan. In September, right around the time he was "breaking ground" for the Oaks at Rio Bend, he announced he was starting a new charity called Celebrations for Children.

The charity would employ some of the same people who'd made DeLay's political machine such a success: Republican fund-raiser Rob Jennings, longtime DeLay adviser Craig Richardson and DeLay's daughter Dani DeLay Ferro.

And, like DeLay's political committee had once done in 2000, the charity planned to host a series of events at the Republican National Convention for big-time donors: a golf tournament, Broadway shows, a reception during President George W. Bush's acceptance speech, a late-night party with a "big name national act" -- and plenty of access to DeLay.

As the plans were unveiled, spokesman Grella explained, "Here's a guy who has a history of raising money for abused and neglected children, and now he's going to do it at the convention. That's how you raise money for charity."

But if its brochure was any indication, Celebrations for Children put a much bigger premium on luxury than on helping kids. A donor contributing in the "Upper East Side" category of $500,000, for example, could get a private dinner before the convention, another dinner after the convention and a private yacht cruise, all with the majority leader. The events were described with Trump-like excess: The party "promises to once again be the hottest ticket at the GOP Convention." The reception for donors to mingle during the president's speech was in a "luxury suite." Even the Broadway tickets were to be "premier."

After all that, the children seem like an afterthought. "Net proceeds," the brochure noted, "will be disbursed to charities dedicated to abused and neglected children." There was no mention of which charities, which kids or what good it would do.

The brochure drew fire almost immediately. Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, publicly urged the IRS to reject Celebrations for Children's application for nonprofit status: "In an attempt to evade the soft money restrictions applicable to him under the new law, Representative DeLay has created Celebrations for Children…and is misusing it as a vehicle for private political benefits."

Rick Cohen, director of the National Committee for Responsible Philanthropy, trashes the concept. "I'll accept the idea that Tom DeLay and his wife really do care about kids," Cohen says. "But this particular use of charity, where people use it as a mechanism to give money to lawmakers and not have to report those gifts, and to use them as a mechanism to get face time, we think that's a real concern -- and a misuse of philanthropy."

Critics charged that the group would allow lobbyists to pay for House members to hit the links and party down -- with no one being any wiser.

"There are better opportunities to raise money and put it in children's programs," Cohen says. "Even if you're saying, 'This goes to the kids,' there are questions of accountability here that people need to be concerned with."

DeLay's previous maneuverings to help his charity drew little attention outside Washington, but that has not been true of Celebrations for Children. Never a media favorite, DeLay couldn't have been surprised by negative reactions from The New York Times and The Washington Post (which called the plan "a particularly repulsive" loophole to campaign finance laws). Still, he couldn't have expected a similar tarring from the Wichita Eagle and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. ("Leave it to creative politicians to invent new ways to sully the world around them," the Post-Gazette opined.)

"I cannot overstate the amount of fire and vitriol and hatred we've received from Democrats and the media," Grella says.

The critics refused to pull back their guns. Common Cause and the National Center for Responsible Philanthropy repeatedly asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate. "We acknowledge and respect Congressman DeLay's commitment to disadvantaged children, but this has nothing to do with that," says Mary Boyle, the press secretary for Common Cause. "He's using the guise of a charity to host a political fund-raiser. It's clearly an end run around campaign finance reform.

"I think America is getting tired of this."

Gary Lewi is a public relations gun-for-hire with spin to spare. Television personality Kathie Lee Gifford reportedly turned to him to handle her sweatshop scandal. The Catholic Diocese of Rockville Center hired him during the height of the priestly pedophilia charges that rocked the church two years ago. When the Long Island Press compiled its list of the "50 Most Powerful Long Islanders," it put Lewi at 14 -- two places ahead of Bill O'Reilly.

So it was perhaps a sign that Tom DeLay's critics were making headway when Lewi popped up in a new role: spokesman for Celebrations for Children.

It hasn't been an easy eight months for DeLay. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has been investigating allegations of campaign financing violations against the DeLay-backed Texans for a Republican Majority.

At the same time, the congressman has been hammered over the Celebrations for Children plan. And though the group applied for tax-exempt status months ago, it has yet to hear from the IRS, Lewi says -- not great news for a charity created specifically to host events this August.

In April, Lewi insisted the plans were still good to go. There was nothing to worry about, he promised the Houston Press. Upscale donors could see the partisan attacks for what they were, he suggested, with the smoothness that once rehabilitated Kathie Lee.

"There's a recognition on the part of these potential donors that this criticism is coming from partisan critics. It has nothing to do with this charity, and everything to do with political posturing."

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