He was indicted five years ago. His trial begins tomorrow:
[Tom] DeLay and two associates — Jim Ellis and John Colyandro — are accused by prosecutors of taking $190,000 in corporate money collected by a state political action committee DeLay started and illegally funneling it through the Republican National Committee in Washington to help elect GOP state legislative candidates in 2002. Under Texas law, corporate money cannot be directly used for political campaigns.
In 2002, Texas Republicans won a majority in the Texas House of Representatives for the first time since the Civil War era.
Once the GOP leadership was in place, Republicans pushed through a congressional redistricting plan engineered by DeLay that sent more Texas Republicans to Congress in 2004.
It’s kind of quaint that Texas has a law against corporate money being used in elections. I mean, Karl Rove is throwing millions of dollars in corporate money around like it was small change. Tom DeLay tried and failed to get his trial moved out of Austin. So, there might be a liberal or two on the jury. The first day of actual testimony is set for the day before the election. It’d be nice if they could televise the opening statements for everyone. It would kind of focus the mind of America on what’s at stake.
