Today, Bob Ney dropped his bid for reelection to the House, but after winning his party primary election. Why can he do this but Tom Delay is stuck on the ballot in Texas? The answer is, you have to follow state rules. As the Christian Science Monitor reports today:

Under Ohio election law, the party faced an Aug. 23 deadline to put a replacement candidate on the ballot. According to the Associated Press, state Sen. Joy Padgett has agreed to take Ney’s place on the ballot. Senator Padgett told the AP that both Ney and House majority leader John Boehner(R) of Ohio asked her to run.

By dropping out before the deadline, Ney has avoided the situation faced by Republicans in Texas seeking to hold on to former Rep. Tom DeLay’s seat. Mr. DeLay, another embattled Republican with legal troubles, resigned from Congress after winning his primary and has lost attempts in court to remove his name from the ballot. He is now appealing to the US Supreme Court, but in the meantime, former Rep. Nick Lampson (D) is running for the seat unopposed.