De Lay was elected in 78, I think, the 1st Republican ever elected in Fort Bend County, according to the paper.
I lived in Houston in the 60s, and I remember the panic flight of whites from Houston to Houston's Southwest, along the Southwest Fwy. In the early 70s, Fort Bend County (Sugarland is in Fort Bend Co) became a Houston suburb.
In my opinion De Lay is a Texas asshole who owes his election to racism. Under normal circumstances he would be a backbencher but there is something very wrong among our leaders, and ignoramuses like De Lay are more prominent than they would have been.
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Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 16:07:12 -0600 (CST) From: jf noonan <jfn1 at msc.com> Subject: Re: Tobacco and DeLay
On Thu, 17 Dec 1998, Chris Burford wrote:
>
> Am I not right that Faircloth was defeated in November?
You are correct. Defeated by a "moderate" Democrat who's name eludes me at the moment.
> Is it not interesting that despite that and the fall of Gingrich, the
> Republican Party has been so well coordinated in opposing compromises over
> impeachment. CNN Tuesday night was attributing this to the prompt way that
> Representative Tom DeLay, from Texas, Republican Whip, had got them all in
> line, expecially to block a compromise censure motion. His quick biography
> stated that he had had his own pest extermination business, and showed him
> speaking at a gathering of the Christian Coalition. Of Clinton he said "I
> do not believe a word he says".
Tom DeLay, my Congresscritter, was re-elected from a suburban / rural (I live in the rural part) district outside Houston with 70% of the vote. He has a BS in Biology from the Univ. Of Houston (the local state commuter school). He went into the bug business a few years out of college and soon owned a string of bug shops. He sold them after being elected to Congress. He supposedly ran for Congress because of all the nasty regulations that hampered his use of carcinogens and environmental toxins that are key to his business. He has been very effective in undoing a lot of that regulation.
I do not know of his ties to tobacco, but he's very sleazy w.r.t. campaign funding. A former staffer was tried here recently for facilitating illegal contributions. This guy says DeLay knew all about it, but DeLay has managed to not get in trouble. I do know that one of the accusation this guy made about him had to do with private plane travel that someone else's campaign paid for.