DeLay to step down early

Succumbing scandal, former majority leader Tom DeLay intends to resign from US Congress within weeks, closing out a career that blended unflinching conservatism with a bare-knuckled political style.

Republican said on Monday night they expect the Texan to quit his seat later this spring. He was first elected in 1984, and conceded he faced a difficult race for re-election.

"He has served our nation with integrity and honor," said Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, who succeeded DeLay in his leadership post earlier this year.

But Democrats said the developments marked more than the end to one man's career in Congress.

"Tom DeLay's decision to leave Congress is just the latest piece of evidence that the Republican Party is a party in disarray, a party out of ideas and out of energy," said Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

A formal announcement of DeLay's plans was expected yesterday at a news conference in Houston.

DeLay under indictment in Texas as part of an investigation into the allegedly illegal use of funds for state legislative races.

Separately, the Texan's ties with lobbyist Jack Abramoff caused him to formally surrender his post as majority leader in January, within days after the lobbyist entered into a plea bargain as part of a federal congressional corruption probe.

More former DeLay aide Tony Rudy said he had conspired with Abramoff and others to corrupt public officials, and he promised to help the broad federal investigation of bribery and lobbying fraud that already has resulted in three convictions.

Neither Rudy, Abramoff nor anyone else connected with the investigation has publicly accused DeLay of breaking the law, but Rudy confessed that he had taken actions while working in the majority leader's office that were illegal. DeLay has consistently denied all wrongdoing, and he capped a triumph in a contested Republican primary earlier this year with a vow to win re-election.

In an interview on Monday with the Galveston County Daily News in Texas, DeLay said his change of mind was based partly on a poll taken after the March Republican primary that showed him only narrowly ahead of Democrat Nick Lampson.

"Even though I thought I could win, it was a little too risky," the paper quoted him as saying.

In a separate interview with Time magazine, DeLay says he plans to make his Virginia condominium his primary residence, a step that will disqualify him from the ballot in Texas and permit Republican officials there to field a replacement candidate.

"I can do more on the outside of the House than I can on the inside right now. I want to continue to fight for the conservative cause. I want to continue to work for a Republican majority," DeLay told the magazine for its online edition.

It was not clear on Monday night whether Texas Governor Rick Perry would call a special election to fill out the unexpired portion of DeLay's term, or whether the seat would remain vacant until it is filled in November.

Either DeLay's concern about the potential loss of a Houston-area seat long in Republican hands reflected a deeper worry among Republican strategists. After a dozen years in the majority, they face a strong challenge from Democrats this fall, at a time when President George W. Bush's public support is sagging, and when the Abramoff scandal has helped send congressional approval ratings tumbling.