Monday, January 10, 2011

Remember Tom DeLay, aka “The Hammer” – one of the most powerful men in Congress when George W. Bush was president? A judge sentenced the former US Representative from Texas to three years in prison for an elaborate scheme to funnel $190,000 in illegal corporate contributions into state elections. The money helped Republicans win a majority in the Texas legislature in 2002 – and then redraw the district lines so more Republicans from Texas could be elected to Congress.  DeLay laundered the corporate money by sending it through the national Republican Party and then back to help state legislative candidates in Texas. But it’s illegal for corporations to make contributions to state candidates in Texas, as it is in North Carolina. Interestingly, a few years before DeLay committed his crime, then Republican House Speaker Harold Brubaker was performing a similar laundering job with corporate money to help his fellow Republicans win a majority in the North Carolina House in 1996. The brazen schemes of Brubaker and his associates are now more than a dozen years old, but they make for fascinating reading, especially in light of the GOP victory in 2010 and the Citizens United decision.