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Rep. Thomas “Tom” DeLay

Former Representative for Texas’s 22nd District

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DeLay was the representative for Texas’s 22nd congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 1985 to 2006.

Misconduct

On Oct. 6, 2004, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct investigated DeLay for solicitation and receipt of campaign contributions in return for legislative assistance, use of corporate political contributions in violation of state law, and improper use of official resources for political purposes. They resolved the first and third allegations by public letter and the second allegation was deferred due to astate grand jury investigation. In 2005, he was convicted of conspiring to influence Texas legislative races via a PAC using illegal corporate contributions. In 2013, his conviction overturned.

Oct. 6, 2004 House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct resolved the first and third allegations by public letter; and the second allegation was deferred due to state grand jury investigation.
2005 Convicted of conspiring to influence Texas legislative races via a PAC using illegal corporate contributions.
2013 Conviction overturned.
Photo of Rep. Thomas “Tom” DeLay [R-TX22, 1985-2006]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

DeLay is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2006 positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills DeLay sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2001 to Dec 8, 2006. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

DeLay was the primary sponsor of 8 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 8 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.

We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

DeLay sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (32%) Law (15%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (11%) International Affairs (11%) Economics and Public Finance (10%) Commerce (7%) Social Welfare (7%) Families (7%)

Recently Introduced Bills

DeLay recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1985 to Jun 2006, DeLay missed 522 of 11,666 roll call votes, which is 4.5%. This is worse than the median of 2.9% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Jun 2006. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses and major life events.

Show the numbers...

Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including: