Lobbyist with ties to DeLay questioned

1/19/2006 1:05 PM
By: News 8 Austin Staff

Texas House Democrats are asking Gov. Rick Perry to cut off the state's relationship to a lobbyist who used to work for Congressman Tom DeLay.

House Democratic Leader Jim Dunnam said Texas is paying $180,000 a year to lobbyist Drew Maloney. He led a group Wednesday calling for the cancellation of that contract. Dunnam claims the deal is a cover used to funnel Texas taxpayer money to Republican politicians.

He said Maloney is taking money from his contract with Texas and giving it to GOP candidates from other states.

"This is corruption and cronyism in Texas politics, and we need to get rid of it," Dunnam said.

Perry's office calls the charges "baseless," and "partisan."

"It would be very difficult to establish a direct correlation between the money received from Texas and the money spent on political campaign contributions. But if you're gonna be a lobby firm, there's not a lobby firm in town that doesn't make political contributions, and the source of their revenue is money from their clients," political analyst Harvey Kronberg said.

Maloney formerly worked as a chief of staff for DeLay. He was first hired to work as a lobbyist for the state in 2003. DeLay currently faces money laundering charges related to a campaign finance case in 2002.