Delay, who's currently known for his last bout on the TV show "Dancing with the Stars," had resigned from the seat in 2005 after being charged by a Texas court.
Delay's wife Christine worked for convicted felon lobbyist Jack Abramoff, along with Julie Doolittle, the wife of John Doolittle, the former representative of CA 04. Two of Delay's former staffers, Tony Rudy and Michael Scanlon, who went on to "other occupations," were also convicted in the Abramoff scandal in 2005 and 2006. Besides having his ex staffer and Abramoff paying Christine a monthly salary from "Alexander Strategy Group" between 1998 and 2002, Delay took trips to the Commonwealth of the Marianas Islands and golfing trips to Scotland and attended sporting events for free because of his association with Abramoff's lobbying firms.
Delay was not charged in the Abramoff scandal. Recently, on Nov 15, 2010, the former lobbyist for the city of Lincoln, CA, Kevin Ring, an ex staffer of former Congressman John Doolittle, was convicted in Federal court the Abramoff scandal on charges of conspiring to corrupt, paying a gratuity, and 3 counts of honest services wire fraud. Doolittle was named as an unindicted co conspirator in the trial's documents, along with his spouse. Doolittle has not been charged by the DOJ in the Abramoff case.
In today's Texas conviction, prosecutors said Delay and 2 co conspirators, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, used Delay's PAC, "Texans for a Republican Majority," to illegally give $190,000 in corporate donations to candidates in the state Texas legislature, by first sending the corporate money through the RNC. The RNC, which had been provided with a handy list of 7 people who just happened to be running for office and how much money they could use, when Jim Ellis dropped that check off, then gave the money to the Texas House candidates. Which is not legal in that state. Six of the recipients of the T.R.M. pac cash from Delay won, and went on to push through a state redistricting plan.
Ellis and Colyandro have not yet gone to trial in the case. Delay's attorney says he is disappointed, and plans to appeal.
Back on Sept 21 2004, when John Colyandro, Jim Ellis, and Warren Robold were indicted, a California company was also charged, named "Diversified Collection Services Inc" of San Leandro. They were debt collectors for student loans in default. They were also a subsidiary part of "Performant Corporation." They in turn were supported by the private equity firm "Parthenon Capital." Parthenon Capital, in turn, also invests in "Wildlands, Inc" which is the local company that does "mitigation banking," or that land swap routine where developers who want to develop or change zoning one piece of property with wildlife habitat, such as a wetlands, but can't, have to buy and set aside another piece of habitat with the like amount of similar habitat.
You may have seen those little signs once in a while, on a fence of a set aside property, saying "owned by" Wildlands. Especially in Placer County, which is not only the easternmost habit for the arch enemy of developers and some infamous local politicians, the VERNAL POOL FAIRY SHRIMP, but which has a lot of those seasonal vernal pools - alkaline grassland depressions, which fill with rainwater in the spring for the shrimp, before drying up each May - and a highway project that was curiously designed to go right through the heart of them, instead of merely widening another parallel road.
For the past 4 years, every time I've seen one of those signs, I'd think of two things - one local, infamous Republican politician literally yelling about the FAIRY SHRIMP and the ENVIRONMENTAL TERRORISTS ruining everything ! , that dying downtown in Lincoln, the traffic jams and bypass road that wasn't going anywhere, and wondering how Tom Delay somehow fit into all of this. Even the Western Placer Schools District has one of these conservation banks to set aside land. Developers hot on getting a project approved, or somebody wanting to sell some undeveloped pasture, could be very... generous.
