American politician, member of the Republican Party, a conservative in the House of Representatives. Particularly noted for his tenacity and for his heavy-handed, arm-twisting approach in politics, DeLay is nicknamed “The Hammer.” After he became House Whip, he explained, “I’m a hard-working, aggressive, persistent whip. That’s why I’m whip. I worked harder than anyone else. I raised more money than anyone else. I was smarter than anybody else in the race. I won because I worked hard and I don’t give up.”
The second of four children of Charlie DeLay and Maxine Wimbush, young Tom came from blue-collar stock, hard workers who managed to get through the depression by the sweat of their brow, their emphasis on family, and their Southern Baptist faith. Times at home continued to be rough even after World War II. Tom’s father, learning of opportunities in the oil and gas industry, bundled up his family and followed other wild-catters to Venezuela, where they lived near the oil fields. During the family’s residence there, Venezuela underwent three revolutions, two of them violent, and DeLay has cited these upheavals as formative, giving him a “passion for freedom.” DeLay’s father meanwhile rejected his own upbringing as a teetotaler and became, according to Tom, “… a boisterous, domineering alcoholic” who frequently used the belt when he had to discipline the children.
Knowing hard times and hard labor, DeLay’s parents pushed their sons to get an education, and Tom was sent to Baylor University where drinking and partying were prohibited. Nevertheless, he became an active participant in off-campus activities, and his party-loving behavior elicited encouragement from school officials to transfer to another school. He switched to the University of Houston from which he graduated in 1970 with a degree in biology. Carrying his propensity for having a good time into his early years in Congress, he earned the nickname “Hot Tub Tom,” according to his biographers, Lou Dubose and Jan Reid. Their sometimes unflattering book, entitled The Hammer: Tom DeLay: God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress, was released in October 2004.
After college, DeLay became an entrepreneur, operating his own pest control business in Houston. As a business owner he resented government interference in the form of environmental, safety or other regulation that affected the way he could run his operation. In order to influence government regulatory efforts, he made a successful run in 1978 for a Texas State House seat on the Republican ticket. Six years later in 1984, he was again successful in his bid for a Congressional seat, the first Republican ever elected from his district. Since then he has been continually re-elected, becoming the House whip in 1994.
DeLay’s social life took a turn in the mid-1980s when Frank Wolf, a Republican from Virginia took Tom under his wing. Wolf gave DeLay advice, lectures and an emotionally potent video about being a Christian father. Chastened and remorseful, DeLay gave up drinking hard liquor and partying and went back to church. He applied his abundant energy toward expanding the influence of the Republican Party. But while he endeared himself to his conservative colleagues, he engendered many hard feelings as he climbed to the powerful position he ultimately filled.
In September 1996, the Congressional Accountability Project, founded by Ralph Nader, filed charges against DeLay, claiming DeLay had made ethical violations by demanding campaign contributions from political action committees and holding up political favors in return. By early November 1997, the charges were dismissed by a House ethics group. DeLay was actively involved in the ultimately successful attempt to remove Newt Gingrich from the Speaker’s Chair. He pressed forward on the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton. In 2002, he was elevated to the power-wielding position of Majority Leader. Although some of his colleagues have been critical of his tactics, the Republican Party and the Bush administration were quite appreciative of his fund-raising efforts, of his ability to create a Republican majority in Congress in the 2004 elections and his promotion of the conservative agenda.
Despite his successes in 2004, DeLay was prevented from total celebration at year’s end. In June 2004, an ethics complaint was filed against him by Representative Chris Bell, a Democrat from Texas who lost in the Texas primary election. Bell charged that DeLay had managed to restructure the voting districts in Texas in order to elect more Republicans and with committing other ethical violations as well. The Texas District Attorney, Democrat Ronnie Earle, indicted three of DeLay’s associates, one of whom is Jack Abramoff, a wealthy and influential lobbyist who is the subject of six federal investigations. Earle also charged eight corporations with illegal political activities having to do with campaign finance and has made it known that DeLay himself is under investigation. Furthermore, by autumn 2004, DeLay had been hit with three rebukes from the House Ethics Committee.
On 17 November 2004 House Republicans approved a change to house rules allowing the majority leader to retain his leadership post even if he were to be indicted by a Texas grand jury on state political corruption charges. The 2004 ruling was partially reversed in early 2005, and with deadlock in the Ethics Committee, the committee members agreed on 1 May 2005 on further rollback.
DeLay’s father Charlie died on 14 December 1988 at 3:17 AM nearly a month after a freak accident outside his Texas home left him comatose. The family had decided against using resuscitation or dialysis or other extraordinary means of keeping him alive. DeLay is reportedly estranged from his brothers and mother but dotes on his wife, daughter and granddaughter. He has been married to Christine Furrh since his college years. Their one child, Danielle was born in 1972 and became a mother thirty years later in 2002. A three-time foster parent, DeLay has worked hard on behalf of foster children, using his fund-raising abilities for services and joining Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton on a bill to promote adoption.
A social conservative, DeLay is against legalization of abortion and is in favor of government regulation of reproductive rights. He was instrumental in convening a special session of Congress in order to allow Terri Schiavo’s parents to take her cause before a federal court. When a federal judge’s ruling upheld prior judicial rulings to remove her life support, DeLay was openly critical about the judiciary branch of government, saying “We will look at an arrogant, out of control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at the Congress and president when given jurisdiction to hear this case anew and look at all the facts … The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today.”
These words may be prescient as DeLay himself may have to answer for his own behavior. It seems that each week brings additional information about some of his practices. Whether those practices are illegal, unethical, or “just politics” remains to be seen.
On 28 September 2005, a Texas Grand Jury indicted DeLay on a charge of criminal conspiracy in the misuse of corporate donations to Republican candidates for the Texas legislature. He immediately stepped down from his position as US House Majority Leader but proclaimed his innocence and vowed to fight the charge.
After his top aide pleaded guilty to corruption charges, the congressman announced on 3 April 2006 that he will not seek re-election and will leave Congress in May or June before completing his 11th term.
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