DeLay Campaigning in New Enlarged District

DeLay dances across district to woo voters
Ethics probe, upcoming race keep him close to home over break
By SAMANTHA LEVINE
Aug. 26, 2005, 1:21AM
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Tom DeLay at a senior citizens' sock hop that featured a DJ dressed as Elvis? You betcha.

And he wasn't roped into attending, either.

His office called the Sugar Land Parks & Recreation Department and said the House majority leader wanted to attend the event at the Sugar Land Community Center earlier this month.

"I was a little shocked," said officer Todd Zettlemoyer of the Sugar Land Police Department, which helped organize the dance as part of a neighborhood crime-awareness program.

"This was the first year that we had the congressman there," he said. "He no sooner walked in the door than he had a crowd around him."

That was the whole point.

In recent weeks, DeLay has worked his constituency harder than he has in years. He popped up at more than 20 local gigs, from speeches to the La Marque Rotary Club and the Texas Chiropractic College in Pasadena to high-profile ceremonies at NASA and Ellington Field.

On one day alone, DeLay held an ice cream social in Pearland, a barbecue luncheon in Sugar Land and an hors d'oeuvres hour in Pasadena.

All that pavement-pounding is critical for the Sugar Land Republican: His rock-solid majority has been diluted by the addition of Democratic-leaning areas in Galveston County to his district, his overseas travel may soon be the subject of a House Ethics Committee inquiry, and he faces opposition next year from a well-funded Democrat.

One would think that DeLay was doing something wrong by campaigning. This is a target district for the Democrats because they think that the ethics probe is going to damage him. News for Democrats, you reap what you sow. The Democrats are going to back off of DeLay's ethics probe because more of them have done worse things than he has, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who paid a $10,000 penalty for her violation.

Full Story: DeLay Fund Raising

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