Few of us will shed tears over former Republican U.S. House Majority Leader Tom “The Hammer” DeLay after his conviction last week on money-laundering and conspiracy charges, his fun and footloose appearance on “Dancing With the Stars” notwithstanding. Even among Republicans, his image as a ruthless partisan leader who hung out with lobbyists at resorts and counted on them as money machines is bad news. The fact that DeLay also presided over a period of reckless growth in the size of government and irresponsible spending, despite his Republican credentials, doesn’t exactly help matters.

There’s very little doubt he was obviously skirting election laws by engineering a plan in 2002 to illegally funnel otherwise legal donations to state Republican legislative candidates back home in Texas. In doing so, he ensured that Republicans took control of the Texas Legislature, thereby ensuring the embarrassing and dubious redistricting redo of 2003, redrawing boundaries (under DeLay’s direction) to ensure the defeat of several congressional Democrats. Of those singled out for the lethal gerrymandering, only U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, survived in 2004.

GOP apologists like to harp on the shameful exodus of Democrats to Oklahoma in a failed bid to stop this gerrymandering. But they ignore the fact that a great deal of corruption on the part of Republicans resulted not only in the takeover of the Legislature but the scandal of redistricting for a second time that decade. We don’t believe Republicans should have to engage in such shenanigans to win elections — not if they’re to stand as a party of truth, honor and integrity.

But DeLay was right last week when he labeled his conviction a “criminalization of politics.” To convict him of criminal money-laundering charges rather than a violation of election code suggests the corporate cash donated in the first place came from criminal activities. It did not. The engineering of such cash to candidates when state law forbade it is, however, a violation.

DeLay could go to prison for life. We would hate to see that. Such a sentence would only raise further questions about this conviction. Yet, we do have to wonder about the intelligence of those involved in this caper: DeLay’s PAC donated $190,000 to the Republican National Committee, which then sent that exact same amount to help seven Republican Texas House candidates in 2002. How smart was that?

DeLay vows to appeal his conviction. Whatever happens, his story clearly stands as another example of why money, rather than principle, dictates our politics these days — and why many Americans have given up on those lawmakers so quick to hold themselves above the law.