By Rob Thomas
June 15, 2006

Admit it, liberals. You'll miss Tom DeLay.

In a Washington where most politicians seem like colorless drones, the former House majority leader nicknamed "The Hammer" stood apart. With his Big Boy haircut and a ruthless glint in his eye, DeLay visibly relished using his power to not just defeat his enemies but grind them into the dirt. He seemed to genuinely hate those who opposed him, and relish bending even his allies in Congress to his will.

Facing serious legal troubles on several fronts, DeLay finally had to resign his House seat in disgrace last week, but not before a defiant farewell speech that derided not only Democrats but the entire concept of bipartisanship. The guy must own a chutzpah mine.

To those who aren't as familiar with DeLay's career, the engaging new documentary "The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress" comes at an opportune time, detailing his rise to power and the corruption charges that eventually ended his political career, and could lead to serious jail time if he's convicted.

While "Big Buy" could have gotten away with being a one-sided hatchet job, filmmakers Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck seem to bend over backward to give DeLay's supporters screen time to defend him, and to clearly lay out the case against him.

In a nutshell, the charge is that DeLay's political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, flooded the 2002 Texas legislative races with corporate campaign money (illegal in Texas), much of it raised by DeLay himself. The infusion of cash helped Republicans take over the state Legislature, and the legislators thanked DeLay by agreeing to his plan to redraw the state congressional map in 2003, which normally happens once a decade and had just been done in 2001.

The new map created more safe Republican districts and split reliably Democratic districts, such as Austin's, diluting their influence. The result was that five Democratic congressmen in Texas lost their seats in 2004 to DeLay loyalists, without whom Republicans would have actually had a net loss in House seats overall in 2004.

It's a fairly arcane and convoluted scheme, and gets into the minutiae of corporate campaign contributions and redistricting law, but the filmmakers manage to make their story clear and compelling, using documents, videotaped depositions, and commentary from leading Texas lights like Molly Ivins and Jim Hightower. One somewhat cheesy but effective touch is that they use "film noir" as a recurring motif, with darkened shots of the Houston skyline and a jazzy soundtrack.

They also spend a lot of time with Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who brought the charges against DeLay. A crusader to his supporters and a zealot to his enemies, Earle is a fascinating character despite his unassuming, no-nonsense nature.

Although DeLay and his supporters label him a "partisan" (we even see a TV attack ad against Earle's investigation!), he comes more as a crusader not against a politician or party, but against an election system where big corporate interests have muscled to the front of the line in government, not only influencing but actually writing the legislation that affects them. Whether it's really Earle's place as a county prosecutor to go after such a system is debatable, but his crusade makes for a good through-line for the film.

There's a lot of juicy anecdotes surrounding DeLay and his operation, but the filmmakers are probably wise to keep "The Big Buy" quick and clean, focusing on the tussle between two larger-than-life enemies in DeLay and Earle. And they've got a great central character in DeLay, a guy who flashed a brilliant, beatific smile for his mug shot. Come on, you'll miss that.