Tenor of DeLay Inquiry May Hinge on Key Democrat

Tenor of DeLay Inquiry May Hinge on Key Democrat: "Until this year, the closest Rep. Alan B. Mollohan had come to national notice was when a citizen's watchdog group named him 'porker of the month' in May 2002, for steering millions of dollars in federal funding to his West Virginia district.

But this spring, Mollohan achieved the seemingly impossible. As the senior Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, he forced Republican leaders to back down — twice — from changes they wanted in the panel as it prepared to investigate Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

He did it by leading the committee's five Democrats in a boycott of the panel, shutting it down for six months, even as ethics questions about DeLay and other House members, Democrats and Republicans, went unanswered.

Eventually, Republicans rolled back the measures he opposed.
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