Enron tapped DeLay for aid in Congress

WASHINGTON - When Houston-based Enron needed help in Congress, it often turned to a powerful friend in its own back yard - Rep. Tom DeLay, a free-market conservative from the Houston suburbs and the third-highest ranking member of the Republican-controlled House.

DeLay and a cadre of close political advisers operated at the center of an Enron-backed crusade for energy deregulation in the late 1990s. A former top aide to DeLay worked as an Enron lobbyist, and only three other House members received more campaign contributions from the company.


Now, with the approach of this year's midterm congressional elections, Democrats are eagerly recycling every morsel of DeLay's relationship with the scandal-ridden company in an attempt to make him a symbol of Republican subservience to corporate greed.