2006 Texas's 22nd congressional district elections

On September 28, 2005, DeLay was indicted on conspiracy charges by a grand jury in Travis County. As a result, he stepped down from his post as House Majority Leader.

DeLay won the Republican primary on March 7, 2006, getting 62% of the vote in the four-way race. DeLay outspent his closest opponent, Tom Campbell, by a near 20–1 ratio.[1] It was his lowest percentage of votes in a primary election and it prompted questions about whether he could win the general election.

On April 3, 2006, three days after a former aide, Tony Rudy, pleaded guilty to various charges of corruption relating to the Jack Abramoff scandal, DeLay announced that he would withdraw from the race and not run for re-election. He explained that polls showed him beating Democratic opponent Nick Lampson in the general election, but that the possibility of losing the election was too risky.[2][3] DeLay announced his resignation effective June 9, 2006.[4] DeLay said that he planned to move to a condominium that he owns in Virginia near Washington, D.C. He stated that he could serve "the conservative cause" best by forming a lobbying firm that would work to support conservative issues. On May 24, 2006, DeLay's final bill, the Safe and Timely Interstate Placement of Foster Children Act of 2006, passed in the House with unanimous support. In his farewell speech on June 8 to the House, he defended the "pugnacious" political partisanship he'd championed.[5]

On June 12, 2006, Tom DeLay's voice was featured in a robocall that went to 11,000 homes in Northern Virginia announcing his endorsement for Republican Primary candidate Mark Ellmore. In the robocall, he mistakenly stated he lives in California which was featured in The Hill,[6] "Recently I reregistered to vote in Northern California. My first action was to cast my vote for Mark Ellmore in tomorrow's Republican Primary." This prompted a challenge with the City of Alexandria Voter's Registrar,[7] stating the vote was illegal since it was speculated that DeLay was still registered in Texas.

Texas law stipulates that after a candidate wins a primary, the party may not replace him unless he is ineligible for re-election. DeLay asserted, when he resigned, that he moved to Virginia, rendering him ineligible. The Texas Republican Party chairwoman subsequently declared that DeLay was ineligible for re-election, and set about choosing a replacement candidate. Texas Democrats, however, filed a lawsuit arguing that the Republican Party could not legally name another candidate for the 2006 election because DeLay was still eligible for election.[8]

In July 2006, a district judge ruled that DeLay was indeed still eligible, in part finding that allowing the Texas GOP to find DeLay ineligible based on his current residency would effectively impose an unconstitutional residency requirement.[9] On August 3, 2006, a 3-member panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the decision and affirmed the District Court's constitutional argument.[10] On August 7, the Texas Republican Party filed an application to Justice Antonin Scalia, who handles the Fifth Circuit, to stay the Court of Appeals ruling. Scalia denied the stay on the same day, ruling that DeLay's name must stay on the ballot pending an appeal. This effectively ended the efforts by the GOP to put a replacement name on ballot, as the Supreme Court could not hear and decide the case before the November election.

DeLay announced on August 8, 2006, that he would withdraw in order for the GOP to organize a campaign for a write-in candidate.[11] The result is that no Republican was listed on the ballot for the two-year term that began in January 2007.[12]

On January 2, 2006, Lampson filed to challenge DeLay for the 2006 election, as a Democrat. Lampson represented an adjacent district (the Texas's 9th congressional district) until DeLay engineered the 2003 Texas redistricting; Lampson lost his seat to Ted Poe in 2004.

The 22nd had absorbed several parts of Lampson's former territory, including much of Galveston. DeLay, who was then the House Majority Leader had only managed a 14-point victory in 2004—far less than what is normally expected for a party leader in Congress. Many experts believed that the 22nd, long considered a rock-ribbed Republican district, had become much more competitive as a result of DeLay's attempts to make the other Houston-area districts more Republican. Most of the Democratic strength can be attributed to the portion of the district in Galveston County, home to large numbers of unionized petrochemical refinery workers.

Lampson announced on August 16, 2006 that three major police associations had endorsed him: the National Association of Police Organizations, the International Union of Police Associations, and the Texas State Police Coalition.[13]

On March 25, 2006, Bob Smither won the nomination of the Libertarian Party to run in the 22nd District.[14]

The Texas GOP, resigned to the fact that they could not get another name on the ballot, decided to go the write-in route, scheduling a meeting of precinct chairs in the 22nd district on August 17. Before that meeting, Sugar Land mayor David Wallace, the presumed favorite before Scalia's denial of the appeal, filed as a write-in candidate with the Texas Secretary of State, vowing to run even without the support of the GOP.[15]

At the August 17 meeting, the precinct chairs selected Houston councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs as the Republican write-in candidate. Wallace initially indicated he would remain in the race, suggesting that the endorsement of Sekula-Gibbs was unrepresentative of the district's "grass roots". But with national Republicans insisting that the only way they would fund the race—they were pledging $3 million—was if the GOP field was limited to one write-in candidate, Wallace withdrew in late August.[16] Part of the decision to bypass Wallace may have been based on his decision to run against the incumbent Republican mayor of Sugar Land in 2002, a race that he won.[17]

Former US Representative Steve Stockman, who had previously represented the 9th district, attempted to run as an independent, but failed to gather enough signatures to make the ballot.[18]

Texas Governor Rick Perry announced on August 29, 2006, that a special election would take place for the unexpired term of DeLay (November–December 2006), coinciding with the general election on November 7, 2006. This meant that voters would vote twice on that date, once for the special election, once for the general election—and it also meant that Sekula-Gibbs' name would be on a ballot for November 7.

On August 29, both Sekula-Gibbs and Nick Lampson said they would file for the special election.[24] On August 31, Lampson decided not to file. "We want to be able to say, vote once for Lampson and then you're done," his campaign manager said. Lampson also said that his not running might eliminate the cost and confusion of a run-off, since no candidate might win the required majority in the special election.[25] Sekula-Gibbs was asked if the special election would confuse voters. She replied, "People already know it's an unusual race." She also stated that having her name on one ballot would serve as "a memory jog."[26]

In addition to Sekula-Gibbs, four others filed for the special election before the September 1 deadline: Republicans Sekula-Gibbs, Don Richardson, former Rep. Steve Stockman, and Giannibecego Hoa Tran along with Libertarian Bob Smither.

CQPolitics.com summed up the race this way:[28]

In one of the more short-lived victories in recent political history, Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs was elected Tuesday to fill the vacant seat in Texas' 22nd District for the final two months of the 109th Congress — while simultaneously losing her write-in bid to win a full two-year term in the seat long held by resigned Republican Rep. Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader. Sekula-Gibbs will be succeeded in January by the man who defeated her in the simultaneous general election, Democratic former Rep. Nick Lampson, who took 51 percent as the Democratic nominee while Sekula-Gibbs took 43 percent in her write-in bid.

Sekula-Gibbs was sworn in on November 13. Sekula-Gibbs' situation is similar to one experienced by Congressman Neil Abercrombie, who won a special election in September 1986, while simultaneously losing the primary election for a full term in Hawaii's 1st congressional district. He, thus, was elected to a term of a few short months, though he was later elected in 1990 and held the seat for twenty years.[28]

According to The New York Times, Sekula-Gibbs has announced her intention to resign her seat on the Houston City Council in order to serve during the lame duck session in Congress. In 2008, Sekula-Gibbs ran for the seat again, running in a crowded Republican primary field. While she received the most votes on primary day, she was defeated by a wide margin by Pete Olson, the former Chief of Staff to U.S. Senator John Cornyn and a veteran of the United States Navy. Olson went on to defeat Lampson in the general election.