Contentious conservative Representative Tom DeLay (R-Texas) announced his intention to resign from Congress in a videotaped message to his constituents that first aired on the morning of April 4. The resignation will occur in late May or June, depending upon the congressional calendar.

"The voters in the 22nd District of Texas deserve a campaign about the vital national issues they care most about ... and not a campaign focused solely as a referendum on me," he said.

DeLay won a multi-way Republican primary last month with 62 percent of the vote. However, polling numbers did not look good for the general election in the Republican district, in part because former Representative Steve Stockman had dropped his Republican affiliation and was running as an independent. He likely would have pulled Republican votes in what was shaping up as a three-way general election battle.

DeLay, who turns 59 on Sunday, gained the sobriquet "The Hammer" for the discipline he exercised over the Republican caucus as party whip and then majority leader, and the forceful way he dealt with political adversaries over his 21 years in the House.

He is a "born again" Christian who promoted the causes of social conservatives and was viscerally antigay. The Human Rights Campaign has continuously given him a rating of zero on issues they deemed of importance to the LGBT community.

His downfall is linked to that of disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to federal charges of influence peddling. DeLay himself is fighting charges of violating Texas campaign finance laws.

Under House Republican rules, any member who is under indictment must temporarily step down from a leadership position until that legal matter is resolved, which DeLay did last year. In January, he announced that he would not seek to return to that post and Representative John Boehner (R-Ohio) was elected majority leader.

Last week, DeLay's former deputy chief of staff, Tony C. Rudy, pleaded guilty to charges of corruption. Michael Scanlon, a former DeLay press secretary who later worked for Abramoff, pleaded guilty to similar charges last fall and is cooperating with ongoing investigations.

In what many have taken to be another gay angle, the highly compensated and single Scanlon also served as a part-time lifeguard at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, the favored summer retreat for gays from Washington to Philadelphia. The Cape Gazette in the neighboring town of Lewes wrote, "While Scanlon was known as ruthless in Washington, he was also a generous friend to many Rehoboth Beach lifeguards." He let them use his house and took some to Daytona Beach, Florida for a lifesaving competition, "aboard Scanlon's private jet."

HRC spokesman Jay Smith Brown said, "DeLay was one of our biggest opponents, not only consistently scoring zero but actively working against us at every turn. It's good to see him go."

National Stonewall Democrats released a statement that reflected the party line. Interim Executive Director Jo Wyrick said, "It is regrettable that Tom DeLay has assigned his resignation to politics rather than to personal responsibility. The corruption that he cultivated as a Republican House leader continues to poison his party, as does the unnatural influence of the antigay lobby that he desperately courted throughout his career."