Are you sitting down? ‘Cause if your not, I suggest you do so before you read any further. You should probably swallow anything you’re drinking too, unless you’re comfortable being a cliché when you spray coffee everywhere.
Ready? OK. The system worked—for the good guys. Tom Delay is stepping down as House Majority Leader. And he might actually go to jail. For fraud. Because there’s clear evidence of wrongdoing. I know, I know; it sounds crazy—there’s actually a level of corruption that’s so high even a Texas Republican can’t get away with it. Just imagine such a thing!
As with Al Capone, the crime that’s threatening to bring Tom Delay down is among the man’s least sexy. It all starts with what up until today I would have sworn was an oxymoron: a Texas law designed to limit the influence of corporations in government. The law states that candidates for the state legislature can’t take any corporate contributions for their campaigns. Again, just so we’re clear: this is a law that prevents Texas politicians from suckling at the corporate teat (I told you needed to be sitting down for this article).
Enter Delay. Remember, if you will, the scene. 2001: control of the houses of Congress is divided between the two parties—the House is led by the Republicans of Dick “The Dick” Armey and his deputy whip Tom “The Hammer” Delay, and the Senate by Tom “The Wet Noodle” Daschle’s Democrats (thanks to a Republican, Jim “The Mexican Jumping Bean” Jeffords). Armey was retiring, and Delay (his heir apparent) was already tired of the five-seat majority in the house he would be inheriting when he became majority leader—it seemed that it was still possible for tax dollars to make their way to places other than the bottom line of companies showing their patriotism by moving their factories to China and their corporate HQs from Madison Avenue high rises to post office boxes in the Caymans. In short, Delay’s agenda was on the rocks. Tom realized that this was not due to the number of Republicans in the House, but to the type of Republicans hanging around as well—there just weren’t enough “Hammerheads” in Congress to reliably steal Christmas from all the good little boys and girls. He had to get more help, or else the country would be doomed to a future of somewhat rational economic and social policy.
Tom decided to turn his home state into a factory for pro-Delay congressmen. To do it, he’d have to redraw the map of Texas congressional districts. Normally, that’s the job of the state legislature; in fact, they’d just done it (as they usually do after the completion of the Census). To Tom’s chagrin, the Texas legislators had based the new district map on the needs of Texans, not the agenda of the House Majority Leader in Washington. It seemed that before he got more Hammerheads in DC, Tom needed more of “his kind of folks” (e.g. people who know from personal experience that human liver goes great with fava beans and a nice chianti) in Austin. So he set up a PAC and started filling its coffers with currency from his corporate overlords. Finally, he poured these out-of-state funds into Texas legislative races.
With all that money spilling out of their dark cloaks, Tom’s legislative minions easily won and the Texas congressional districts were redrawn according to The Will Of The Hammer. His plan had worked—Delay was able to successfully turn the state he’s paid to represent into a mere tool for his real constituents: gazillionaires, malevolent Neptunians, and the bank accounts of the Delay family.
Surprisingly, this little scheme irked many of Tom Delay’s fellow Texans. And even more surprisingly, those who were irked found a Democrat who claimed he wasn’t afraid to take on the Republican Party. But most surprisingly of all, the Democrat they found wasn’t kidding.
See ya, Tommy Boy. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.