WILL PETE SESSIONS BE THE NEXT REPUBLICROOK JOINING "DUKE" CUNNINGHAM IN THE HOOSEGOW?

How bad is Texas Congressman Pete Sessions for America? Let me answer that. He's as bad as can be. And we're probably stuck with him until he's hauled away to prison like his fellow extreme right pal Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Based on an objective analysis of his voting record, he's the 8th most reactionary congressman-- out of 433. You can't find a single issue where his voting record even approaches the mainstream. Pete Sessions is the definition of an extreme right wing fanatic. He is also a weak and corrupt man and this morning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a Department of Justice complaint against him for official actions he took on behalf of convicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and for the bribes he raked in from a San Francisco defense technology company, Promia.

Sessions is widely viewed as one of the most corrupt and sleazy of Texas' less-than-stellar congressional delegation. He took thousands of dollars from the most contemptible criminals working the U.S. Congress, aside from Abramoff, over $25,000 from DeLay, over $10,000 from DeLay henchman Roy Blunt, as well as substantial funds from the now imprisoned Cunningham and the soon to be imprisoned Bob Ney, as well as over $10,000 from Big Tobacco's Congressional bagman, John Boehner. He is considered to be the most rubber-stamp of congressmen in the entire rubber-stamp Texas delegation-- and, now that DeLay is gone, the most corrupt. He has a long sordid history of conflicts of interest-- instances where our nation's and his constituents' interests were never allowed to get in the way of his own financial interests.

The specifics of the CREW complaints don't involve the pay-offs from the big telecom corporations that he's usually associated with. This is more about his complicity in the criminality with which Abramoff and DeLay built the mighty edifice known as the Republican Culture of Corruption-- stealing millions from Indian tribes to feed DeLay's vast crime syndicate. Sessions used his influence on two equally corrupt former Bush cabinet members, John Ashcroft and Gale Norton, to benefit a Louisiana Indian tribe, clients of Abramoff. Sessions was paid over $20,000 for his services. This is called bribery. It's illegal and it is the reason it is likely that Sessions will be joining his good pal Cunningham behind bars in the not too distant future.

Aside from accepting bribes from the Louisiana Indians, Sessions was the GOP point person for bribes coming from Malaysia, an on-going multi-year project he worked on with Abramoff, Michael Scanlon and Tony Rudy, 3 confessed, convicted criminals/lobbyists, as well as crooked California politician Dana Rohrbacher.

Part of the Republican Culture of Corruption involved getting trusted lieutenants hired into firms doing "business" with the Republican Party's illicit operations. Adrian Plesha, a right-wing hack of dubious talents (and a guilty plea in a Federal Elections Commission case), had been Sessions' trusted communications director when he suddenly got a very cush sinecure as a VP in charge of Washington, DC for a San Francisco-based defense contractor, Promia. Working with another ultra-shady Republican congressman, Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, Sessions was able to enrich his new pals at Promia to the tune of approximately $10 million dollars in taxpayer money. In return Sessions got oodles of kickbacks from Promia executives as well as $30,000 direct from the company. Since 2000 Sessions collected at least $55,000 from Promia-- the largest contribution the company ever made to any member of Congress ever. They must have really thought he was a swell dude.

The very gerrymandered 32nd congressional district is a basically suburban and exurban district north of Dallas up to Richardson and west of Dallas into Irving but not as far as Ft. Worth. It was designed to elect Republicans to Congress. If Sessions is hauled off to prison between now and November, it is possible that the moderate Democrat who is running against him, Will Pryor, a Dallas native who is a cousin of Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, will be elected. But in the 32nd CD, there are no guarantees.