WASHINGTON -- In 2002 just after then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott announced that he would step down amid a furor over his seemingly pro-segregation comments at a birthday party for Sen. Strom Thurmond, Lott got a call from another Republican power broker who offered his sympathies.

	David J. Phillip, Associated Press House Majority Leader Tom DeLay Related articles Allegations against DeLay Charges haven't hurt DeLay's fund-raising

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Lott recalls, was on the line telling his Senate colleague he thought Lott had been treated unfairly and that he felt terrible. Lott interrupted. "I said, 'Tom, I really appreciate it. But let me tell you, my friend -- be careful, because you are next.' "

DeLay's troubles have been dominating the headlines from Capitol Hill. Democrats last week held high-profile press conferences aimed at sweeping DeLay's alleged ethics violations and controversial comments about the judiciary into a broader charge that Republicans are "abusing their power." Republicans, including the president, created their own media waves by expressing support for DeLay.

Although most members of Congress remained focused on the routine business of energy, spending and other legislation, the big question about DeLay lingered in the wings. Is he about to reach the tipping point that distinguishes a leader under fire who survives, from one who faces a controversy so radioactive that he is forced to step down?

"I don't know that there's, you know, a magic moment," said Lott, the fallen Senate leader who has forcefully defended DeLay this past week. "When I felt like I became a shadow, I stepped aside. But if it reaches the point where Tom thinks he has become a shadow and he asks me, my advice would be: 'Stay.' There are some things more important than being in the majority."

So far, some of the usual signs that DeLay's power has eroded irretrievably have not surfaced.

Just one Republican House member has called for DeLay to step down: the maverick Christopher Shays of Connecticut, who has long had a prickly relationship with more conservative party leaders.

Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee, another moderate Republican, noted last week that questions about DeLay's conduct have created a cloud over the party and could create problems in tough 2006 races like his own.

Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, No. 3 in the Senate Republican leadership, has suggested DeLay lay out his case before the American people, but he also has consistently underscored that he thinks DeLay is an effective leader.

Among DeLay's troops in the House, where real fissures could endanger his post, members have been publicly supportive, carefully sticking to their talking points about a left-wing conspiracy targeting DeLay.

Privately, some acknowledged that the steady tick of questions about DeLay's expensive foreign trips, fund-raising practices and relationships with powerful lobbyists under investigation, are "a distraction," but most say they believe the strong power base DeLay has built will sustain him.

Elected majority whip in 1994, DeLay helped orchestrate the Republican rise to a now-comfortable margin in the House -- where there are now 232 Republicans, 202 Democrats and one independent -- and he has masterfully marshaled Republican votes on issues important to the Bush White House. With a difficult legislative agenda facing Congress this year, DeLay's ability to keep Republicans on track may be his greatest asset.

Lott's last straw

The final straw for Lott was the president's criticism of Lott's remarks at Thurmond's party, where the Mississippi senator said if the former segregationist candidate Thurmond had been elected president in 1948 "we wouldn't have had all these problems." Despite Lott's extensive explanations that the comments were taken out of context, White House officials eventually helped maneuver Lott's ouster.

At the convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors Thursday, when Bush was asked whether DeLay had become a liability to his party or to the president's agenda, Bush answered, "No."

He noted that DeLay had expressed willingness to speak to the House ethics panel -- a committee that is currently not functioning because Democrats will not accept weakened ethics rules pushed through by Republicans earlier this year. Bush said DeLay had been "a very effective leader."

Political scientist Ross K. Baker, of Rutgers University, argued that the timing of the controversy favors DeLay. If it had started boiling in the spring of 2006 instead of this year, DeLay would be in "serious trouble," he said.

"Individual members of Congress judge whether their leader is an asset or an embarrassment in terms of how this affects their re-election chances," Baker said. "If they sense their careers are being jeopardized by something that's happening to their leaders, they'll push them over the side fast enough, but I think at this point, he's not close to the rail.

"Republicans are in firm control of the House," Baker added. "There's been little overt slippage in his support. A lot of people owe him."

Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas in Austin, said there was "no substitute for DeLay in terms of delivering Republican votes in the House. So I think that keeps him alive for the time being."

On the Senate side, Santorum acknowledged in an interview late last week that the stories centered on DeLay's alleged ethical missteps and his heated criticisms of the federal judiciary after the death of Terri Schiavo, were complicating the Republican agenda in the Senate.

Santorum is actively pushing for a change to Senate rules that would bar Democrats from blocking Bush's judicial nominees -- they have blocked 10 with a procedural move known as a filibuster. The change would allow Bush's 10 nominees to get an up-or-down vote, but Democrats have argued that it would be an abuse of power by radical Republicans -- this week they swept DeLay under that umbrella.

"It's never good to have distractions from the point you are trying to get across," Santorum said. "And obviously, comments about individual judges and the things they did, the reaction of Congress, takes you off the subject.

"I think we'd be better off if we had a debate about what the role of the Senate is and the confirmation process," Santorum said. "Anything that distracts from that I think tends to muddy the waters."

But Santorum said it was too soon to tell whether DeLay's issues and his comments about judges would have any long-term effect.

Buchanan said he thinks the most troubling signs for the House Majority Leader may be back in his home state.

In a Houston Chronicle poll conducted by Zogby International and released at the beginning of April, 40 percent of the people polled in DeLay's district said they had a less favorable opinion of DeLay than they did last year. About 49 percent of the 501 respondents said they would vote for another candidate if DeLay were up for re-election today and 39 percent said they would vote for him.

DeLay, who is from Sugar Land, Texas, won with 55 percent of the vote in his last election; two years before, he won with a 63-35 margin over his Democratic opponent (though his district's makeup was altered between the 2002 and 2004 elections).

Buchanan said while he doesn't think voters in Texas -- or across America where DeLay's name is less well known -- are paying attention to the particular allegations, the longer it goes on, the more difficult DeLay's political prospects may become.

"Usually the shelf life of stories like this is short," Buchanan said. "What gets public attention is not any particular violation so much as ... a continuing spate of press attention, especially to ethical kinds of questions. I think that does eventually wear down."

"So far," he added, "this story has legs."

But Lott, who joked about how he was one of the few who had been through this kind of firestorm before, predicted DeLay would keep his post.

"I think he's going to survive," Lott said. "He's tough."