GOP Worries Ethics Issue May Hurt Party in '06 - The "DeLay effect."

After enlarging their majority in the past two elections, House Republicans have begun to fear that public attention to members' travel and relations with lobbyists will make ethics a potent issue that could cost the party seats in next year's midterm races.

In what Republican strategists call "the DeLay effect," questions plaguing House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) are starting to hurt his fellow party members, who are facing news coverage of their own trips and use of relatives on their campaign payrolls. Liberal interest groups have begun running advertising in districts where Republicans may be in trouble, trying to tie the incumbents to their leaders' troubles.

Republicans hold a 29-seat edge over Democrats in the House (with one vacancy and one independent).

A series of polls in the past two months has shown broad dissatisfaction with Congress in general and the Republican leadership in particular, causing the party's strategists to fret that conditions are ripe for change.

Across the country, lawmakers are being peppered with unwelcome questions from news organizations that are digging into the travel records of their own congressional delegations.

(6-6-05, The Washington Post.)