Houston Democrats

The Los Angeles Times reports today about the new documents that tie DeLay much more closely with TRMPAC than he claims.

For example:

But in summer 2002, a crucial period of fundraising and activism for the committee, DeLay stepped off an airplane in Austin and received a list of people who were to attend a fundraiser billed as "a private meeting with Tom DeLay." Three days earlier, a Texans for a Republican Majority staffer had e-mailed three other DeLay associates to ask for the list.

"Have that on the ground in Austin for T.D.," he wrote.

And here's another example:

In one August 2002 e-mail, for instance, a DeLay fundraiser asked a fellow aide for a "top 10 list" of potential donors to Texans for a Republican Majority. The e-mail said DeLay would personally contact certain prospects. Another exchange suggested that two donor checks would be delivered to DeLay himself.

That sounds like a central fundraising role to me, or at least a very significant role as an accessory to TRMPAC. Additionally, the 11 lobbyists on the list mentioned in the quote had a wish list of objectives in Austin and Washington.

A database analysis shows that between 2000 and 2004, the groups represented that day gave at least $323,000 to DeLay's campaigns or political committees, including $77,500 to Texans for a Republican Majority.

Of course DeLay is somewhat protected by the fact that no contributions were made during the special meeting for the lobbyists, so he could claim it was just a regular meeting with certain lobbyists. However, the list of lobbyists and the organizations they represented during the meeting, and the subsequent donations provide an insight into the private lair (or maybe 'liar') of the exterminator.

The meeting between DeLay and the 11 lobbyists was discovered along with many similar events detailed in Republican activist's files, subpoenaed in a lawsuit brought by five Democratic candidates.

DeLay founded TRMPAC back in 2001 using $50,000 from Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), the national committee that DeLay founded and has run for many years. When has a founder of an active political organization just sat on the sidelines?

Craig McDonald, Director of Texans for Public Justice, a non-partisan group fighting the influence of money in politics, said:

DeLay was "substantially" involved in Texans for a Republican Majority, "from its founding to the raising of money to figuring out how it would be spent."

Let's take a look at some of those 11 lobbyists who met with DeLay back in July of 2002 with the "uninvolved figurehead" of TRMPAC.

R. Kinnan Golemon
• Lobbyist for oil and chemical companies.
• General counsel of the Texas Chemical Council.
• At the time he represented Koch Industries, a private Kansas firm that owns petroleum, chemical, energy, and finance companies.
• Koch Industries produces MTBE, a gasoline additive that has been found in drinking water.

Hmmm, who was instrumental in getting chemical companies MTBE immunity from liability for drinking water contamination in the latest version of the energy bill? I believe DeLay was the figurehead leading that push. (More about DeLay and MTBE here.)

Consider this:

Koch and one of its executives, according to financial disclosure forms, have donated $17,500 to DeLay's last two campaigns and, since 2001, $63,500 to Americans for a Republican Majority.

Terral Smith
• Former Texas legislator.
• Former legislative to Governor George W. Bush.
• At the time he was a lobbyist for the Texas law firm Locke, Liddell & Sapp that has donated $14,000 to DeLay's campaigns and committees since 2001.
• Advised TRMPAC and the affiliated group, the Texas Association of Business during the 2002 campaign.
• Hired by Texas Attorney General Gregg Abott to defend the Republican redistricting of Texas, and paid $772,399.

So Tom DeLay's attorney is asked to whip out his carving knife and to slice and dice Texas to favor Republicans, and we're supposed to somehow believe this was merely a coincidence? (Here's a map of the current Congressional districts.)

I thought it was religious conservatives who shied away from the "reckless" and "careless" ideas espoused by evolution in favor of "intelligent design" where some higher being is supposed to have given direction and purpose to everything. If anything, Democrats have learned since this administration came to power is that Republicans never act according to coincidence, but instead according to their higher powers, the more supreme beings, embodied by Karl Rove, Tom DeLay et al.

Bobby Burchfield, DeLay's lawyer, denies critics' allegations of the multitude of connections to DeLay as aburd and naive.

I think it's only logical to suspect the "figurehead" had a much more prominent and fundamental role in TRMPAC's achievements. Really, if DeLay was so uninvolved in TRMPAC's business then let's hear the reasoning for his being so boneheadedly stubborn to release information that could clear him of the allegations?