A roomful of Washington liberals plotting to get back in power is
just the place to be when news comes down the pike that Tom DeLay's
been indicted. Simon Rosenberg made the announcement to a round
of applause at the latest New Politics Institute forum
-- good events worth coming out to if you happen to be based in
D.C. You can lay hands on the video from the last one, if you're
favorably inclined to chatter about the "Post Broadcast Media" world
(not as boring as it sounds); unlike the live performance, the .wmv
version doesn't come
with free lunch.

But I bring up NPI to bring up Tom DeLay, and I bring up the Hammer to bring up the law of unintended consequences.

Our friends and neighbors at OMB Watch have already been running a campaign
to prevent the FEC from clamping down on charities' ability to air
advocacy messages. (This is the last day of the public comment period,
so get yours in stat. There's more issue background here.)

Now
comes word that the GOP congressional leadership might be eyeballing a
bill to choke off all issue advocacy from any nonprofit that gets
federal grants (it's already illegal to use federal grant money for
advocacy, so we're talking strictly private funds here). This
"defund the left" proposal has long been a hobbyhorse of the right -- including the new Chief Justice -- whose most pungent expression is the Global Gag Rule outlawing open discussion of abortion among family planning grantees.

What do you know? Turns out the Bug Man has been holding up the gag rule for domestic grantees bill all this time.

With
new sheriffs in town, OMB Watch hears that gagging federal grantees is
back on the table. It issued an urgent e-mail appeal (no web
presence I can find of it yet) to its list of nonprofit colleagues for
immediate calls and faxes to the House leadership of both parties in
opposition to the Republican Study Committee proposal for H.R. 1461.

It's not just NGOs with a finger in the federal pie that should be
worried. If this goes down, the next Heritage
Foundation policy paper on deck probably cuts you off at the knees, or the next one after that.

Here are those phone numbers:

Speaker of the House of Representatives

Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL)

Phone: 202-225-0600

Fax: 202-226-1996



House Majority Leader (Designated)

Rep. Roy Blount (R-MO)

Phone 202-225-6536

Committee Direct Dial: 202-225-0197

Committee Policy Fax: 202-226-1115



Office of the Minority (Democratic)

Rep.Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Phone 202-225-4965

Fax: 202-225-4188

Fax 202-225-8259



Minority Whip

Rep. Steny Hoyer

Whip's office phone: 202-225-3130

Phone 202-225-4131

Fax 202-225-4300



Committee Chair Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH)

Direct Dial: 202-225-7502 (Committee)

Phone 202-225-2676

Fax: 202-226-0577

Update: If you really can't resist kicking the Majority Leader-in-Exile while he's down, there's a party going on over at Public Citizen's Dethrone DeLay.