Topeka ? Westar Energy Inc. and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, were linked Thursday in an exploding political scandal revealed by an ethics committee report that provided a detailed view of money, power and politics.

“Mr. DeLay did indeed sell his vote,” said Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor and executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Her remarks were echoed by other public watchdog groups and Democrats who called on DeLay — a partisan political brawler and champion fund-raiser nicknamed “The Hammer” — to resign his No. 2 position in the U.S. House.

DeLay, who represents the Houston suburb of Sugar Land, said he had no intention of giving up his post. He added that the ethics committee action amounted to dismissal of a complaint that fell short “not because of insufficient venom but because of insufficient merit.”

The dispute centers on campaign contributions made in 2002 by Topeka-based Westar and several company executives to DeLay and other House Republicans working on a sweeping energy bill.

Westar, the largest electric utility in Kansas, sought provisions in the bill that would deregulate aspects of the company.

As a House-Senate conference committee was working on the bill, DeLay convened a private golf fund-raiser at a Virginia resort with executives from Westar and a handful of other major energy companies.

The price to tee up with DeLay? For Westar, it was a $25,000 check to a DeLay political-action committee called Texans for a Republican Majority, which worked to get GOP candidates elected to the Texas Legislature.

Westar gladly paid as part of a strategy “to get a seat at the table,” according to a May 2002 internal company memo from former Westar executive Doug Lawrence. Led by Republicans, the House conference committee members working on the energy bill inserted the provision Westar wanted.

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The plan unraveled, however, after Kansas utility regulators complained the proposal would hurt ratepayers and word spread that Westar management was under federal investigation.

Not a bribe

The ethics committee essentially said the golf game donations were foul smelling but weren’t illegal.

“At a minimum, DeLay’s actions created the appearance that donors were being provided with special access to him with regard to the pending energy legislation,” the ethics committee report said in admonishing DeLay.

But the committee of five Republicans and five Democrats rejected the complaint’s allegation DeLay took a bribe.

While his actions may have looked bad, the committee said, “the information we have obtained indicates that neither Rep. DeLay nor anyone acting on his behalf improperly solicited contributions from Westar, and Rep. DeLay took no action with regard to Westar that would constitute an impermissible special favor.”

The committee also posted on its Web site facsimiles of memos and other documents detailing how Westar executives were asked to write personal checks to help gain favor with key legislators.

Rep. Chris Bell, a Texas Democrat who filed the ethics complaint against DeLay, said the substance of the committee’s report on the Westar contributions belied the committee’s conclusion to issue only an admonition.

Probing DeLay’s relationship with contributors is like stirring an anthill with a stick, Bell said.

“What they (the committee) did find when they started stirring around was his conduct was inappropriate,” Bell said.

During the investigation, DeLay and Lawrence denied anything improper was going on between the company and the conference committee working on the energy bill.

Contributions halted

On Thursday, Westar officials said the ethics report cleared the company from allegations it paid for political favors.

“The conclusion, fundamentally, was there was no quid pro quo,” said Jim Ludwig, vice president for public affairs.

But Ludwig said Westar’s current management had adopted different policies about making campaign contributions than the Westar of 2002, which was run by David Wittig, who is facing federal charges of looting the company.

Since Wittig’s departure, Westar has decided against making any more corporate contributions, Ludwig said.

The ethics committee rulings are not the end of the allegations.

The $25,000 Westar check to DeLay’s PAC is at the center of a grand jury investigation in Austin, Texas.

Westar is one of eight companies indicted on charges of making an illegal campaign contribution. Prosecutors allege the $25,000 from Westar ended up in the campaigns of Republican legislators in Texas, where corporate contributions are illegal.