DeLay for Congress

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks quashed a conspiracy by former congressman Tom DeLay, Fort Bend County GOP Chairman Eric Thode, and State GOP Chairman Tina Benkiser to hand pick a candidate for the District 22 congressional seat that
DeLay resigned from last month, claiming to be a resident of Virginia.
Judge Sparks, appointed to the bench in 1991 by President George H. W. Bush, is a former golden gloves boxer who dabbles in poetry and last year appeared in a Shakespeare in the park production. He is great-grandson to 19th century Bell County Sheriff Sam Sparks.
Judge Sparks said that to replace a candidate between the primary and the general election “would be a serious abuse of the election system and a fraud on the voters, which the court will not condone.”
The Houston Chronicle today editorialized that “DeLay waged a vigorous primary campaign, crushing three Republican challengers. If he was not committed to the race, he should have allowed voters to make another choice.”
In last months issue of Texas Monthly, County Chair Eric Thode told Paul Burka that DeLay told him last January that he would not be returning to Congress. That said, he went on to raise $3.7 million in the first quarter of this year. He spent $2.3 million on the primary, leaving him $1.4 million, presumably to spend on his legal defense costs.
The Chronicle sent a reporter to DeLay’s Sugarland home Thursday. “Virginia Tom”
answered the door himself. “I don’t do this (interviews). “ Not at my house,”
“Goodbye,” he said, closing the door. The DeLay Campaign website is down now, but his Legal Defense Trust is still accepting donations. Pitifully lonely nutcakes note: Log on to defenddelay.com, and you’ll never hear the end of them. Or just send your money to me, Charly Liberal, and I’ll promise to stop putting stuff in your drinking water.