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A string of botched restaurant and oil businesses that Randy DeLay ran in Houston and Corpus Christi in the 1980s led him to file for bankruptcy in 1992 to escape legal liabilities and bank debts. Post-bankruptcy, DeLay negotiated the sale of a pest-control business part owned by his brother, Congressman Tom DeLay. Randy DeLay then defended his elder brother from a lawsuit filed by partner Robert Blankenship, who accused the elder DeLay of trying to chisel him out of his share of the bug company (a judge ordered DeLay to settle with his partner in 1994). After the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress, Randy DeLay found his new calling as an Austin and Washington lobbyist. Business boomed after Tom DeLay’s 1995 election as U.S. House majority whip. Randy DeLay’s business also benefited from his brother’s support of the K Street Project (see Terrence Ryan), whereby Republicans flexed their newfound muscle by pressuring business interests to hire Republicans as their top lobbyists. The House Ethics Committee admonished DeLay in 1998 for delaying a vote on an intellectual property bill in order to punish the Electronic Industries Alliance for hiring a Democratic director instead of a Republican—future Pioneer Bill Paxon. Such hardball tactics spawned DeLay’s nickname: The Hammer. The Hammer often has swung to the liking of the younger DeLay’s clients. After Houston hired Randy DeLay in 1996 to try to stop the Houston Oilers football team from decamping to Tennessee (see Bob Corker), Tom DeLay sacrificed his free-market credentials to sponsor a failed bill to block this exodus. When Mexican cement giant Cemex hired the younger DeLay, the elder DeLay wrote letters to lawmakers and newspaper editors endorsing a repeal of tariffs on Mexican cement. Union Pacific railroad (see Drew Lewis and Richard Davidson) hired the younger DeLay in 1996, when the elder DeLay was a strong supporter of its Southern Pacific merger--a union that raised major anti-trust concerns in Texas. In 2002 Randy DeLay reported $240,000 in federal contracts and up to $500,000 in Texas contracts. These clients included Reliant Energy (see Steve Letbetter and Don Jordan), the Brownsville Navigation Authority, developer Stratus Properties and military contractor Reliance Aeroproducts International. Tom DeLay made headlines in the 2003 Westar Energy scandal (see Joe Barton) and for the lead role that his Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRM) played in the sometimes dirty GOP takeover of the Texas House in 2002 (see Tom Craddick). An Austin prosecutor is investigating allegations that TRM illegally spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate money to influence state elections in Texas. This Republican takeover of the Texas House led to a DeLay-orchestrated redistricting of Texas’ congressional districts in 2003.
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Of Special Interest
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| Profile last updated
Aug 15, 2004
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