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DeLay Tom Biography

American politician, member of the Republican Party, a conservative in the House of Representatives. Particularly noted for his tenacity and for his heavy-handed, arm-twisting approach in politics, DeLay is nicknamed "The Hammer." After he became House Whip, he explained, "Im a hard-working, aggressive, persistent whip. Thats why Im whip. I worked harder than anyone else. I raised more money than anyone else. I was smarter than anybody else in the race. I won because I worked hard and I dont give up." The second of four children of Charlie DeLay and Maxine Wimbush, young Tom came from blue-collar stock, hard workers who managed to get through the depression by the sweat of their brow, their emphasis on family, and their Southern Baptist faith. Times at home continued to be rough even after World War II. Tom’s father, learning of opportunities in the oil and gas industry, bundled up his family and followed other wild-catters to Venezuela, where they lived near the oil fields. During the familys residence there, Venezuela underwent three revolutions, two of them violent, and DeLay has cited these upheavals as formative, giving him a "passion for freedom." DeLay’s father meanwhile rejected his own upbringing as a teetotaler and became, according to Tom, “… a boisterous, domineering alcoholic” who frequently used the belt when he had to discipline the children. Knowing hard times and hard labor, DeLay’s parents pushed their sons to get an education, and Tom was sent to Baylor University where drinking and partying were prohibited. Nevertheless, he became an active participant in off-campus activities, and his party-loving behavior elicited encouragement from school officials to transfer to another school. He switched to the University of Houston from which he graduated in 1970 with a degree in biology. Carrying his propensity for having a good time into his early years in Congress, he earned the nickname “Hot Tub Tom,” according to his biographers, Lou Dubose and Jan Reid. Their sometimes unflattering book, entitled The Hammer: Tom DeLay: God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress, was released in October 2004. After college, DeLay became an entrepreneur, operating his own pest control business in Houston. As a business owner he resented government interference in the form of environmental, safety or other regulation that affected the way he could run his operation. In order to influence government regulatory efforts, he made a successful run in 1978 for a Texas State House seat on the Republican ticket. Six years later in 1984, he was again successful in his bid for a Congressional seat, the first Republican ever elected from his district. Since then he has been continually re-elected, becoming the House whip in 1994. DeLay’s social life took a turn in the mid-1980s when Frank Wolf, a Republican from Virginia took Tom under his wing. Wolf gave DeLay advice, lectures and an emotionally potent video about being a Christian father. Chastened and remorseful, DeLay gave up drinking hard liquor and partying and went back to church. He applied his abundant energy toward expanding the influence of the Republican Party. But while he endeared himself to his conservative colleagues, he engendered many hard feelings as he climbed to the powerful position he ultimately filled. In September 1996, the Congressional Accountability Project, founded by Ralph Nader, filed charges against DeLay, claiming DeLay had made ethical vioRead less