Money & Politics

"Money is not the root of all evil in politics. In fact, money is the lifeblood of politics." – Thomas Dale DeLay

Congressman DeLay's quote provides a cornerstone to his defense. "Whether you like it or not, it takes money to run a campaign," DeGuerin explains to the jury. "It's business as usual. In fact, much of it has to do with who can spend the most money," said DeGuerin while cross-examining Danielle "Dani" DeLay Garcia. Mrs. Garcia is the daughter of Tom DeLay and a state witness in the trial because she simultaneously worked as an event planner for both ARMPAC and TRMPAC.

DeGuerin contends that once TRMPAC was established, his client really made no decisions and therefore can't be guilty of a crime. Running TRMPAC was John Colyandro's job. Likewise, we're to believe that DeLay wasn't a decision maker for ARMPAC either. That was Jim Ellis's job. But DC insiders all knew that Ellis was "DeLay's guy", and ARMPAC was DeLay's leadership PAC.

So, with all of that lifeblood running through those two critical veins, the jury is to believe that Tom DeLay wasn't really interested in where the money was coming from or where it was going?

"It's not like a dollar amount would impact anything he did," said Dani about her father and corporate contributions. And yet Lori Ziebart (formerly Laudien) from El Paso Corporation testified that her company donated $50K to both PACs in 2002 "because we wanted top level status with ARMPAC." Enron had recently imploded and was no longer a leading energy company. "We felt we could step in those shoes and be a leader," testified Ziebart.

Doug Lawrence, who was VP of Government Affairs for Kansas-based Westar Energy at the time, testified that his company donated $25K to TRMPAC in 2002, even though he "didn't think we did any business in Texas." The sole purpose of their donation was to obtain a special legislative favor. Its interest was pending legislation to repeal the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA) of 1935, one of several Federal trust-busting regulations enacted in response to the 1929 Wall Street crash.

The energy industry as a whole supported its repeal, but Westar "faced a quandry," said Lawrence. The repeal would have jeopardized his company's aggressive expansion strategy into other states and they wanted an exception from SEC oversight written into the bill exclusively for them.

Their donation to TRMPAC bought Westar an invitation to an exclusive weekend golf outing that featured TomDeLay as the headliner. Other guests included representatives from El Paso Corporation as well as Reliant Energy. According to Lawrence, attendees were reportedly shocked when Westar executives expressed their motivation for being at the event. However, it wasn't clear from Lawrence's testimony if they were shocked by the execs offering what appeared to be a bribe...or shocked by their shameless candor in doing so.

PUCHA was later repealed in 2005, minus the Westar Energy clause, but their attempt to influence the legislation was eventually included in a broader investigation by the House ethics committee.