Tom DeLay chronology
November 1978: Tom DeLay, owner of an exterminating business, is elected to the Texas House.
November 1984: DeLay is elected to the U.S. House from a suburban Houston district, winning 65 percent of the vote. As a freshman, he wins a coveted appointment to the Committee on Committees, which assigns lawmakers to committees.
March 1989: DeLay manages the campaign of Edward Madigan of Illinois for House minority whip. Madigan loses to Newt Gingrich of Georgia.
December 1994: After Republicans win control of the House, DeLay is elected majority whip without the support of newly elected Speaker Gingrich.July 1997: DeLay is part of a group that tries but fails to oust Speaker Gingrich.November 1997: The House ethics committee dismisses complaints that DeLay improperly helped clients of his lobbyist brother and linked legislative favors to campaign contributions.October 1998: DeLay attacks the Electronics Industries Alliance for hiring former Democratic Rep. Dave McCurdy as its president and later receives a private rebuke from the House ethics committee for "badgering a lobbying organization."January 1999: After Gingrich leaves office, DeLay helps J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois become speaker.May 1999: DeLay is admonished by the ethics committee for threatening the Electronics Industries Alliance with retaliation for hiring a Democrat as its president.June 2000: DeLay sets up a legal expense fund.
November 2002: Republicans win a majority in the Texas state House. A political action committee associated with DeLay, Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC), aids the effort. In the U.S. House, DeLay is elected majority leader without opposition, succeeding fellow Texan Dick Armey.
Fall 2003: Texas Republicans use their new majority in the state Legislature to push through a mid-decade redistricting plan that threatens several Democratic House incumbents.
November 2003: House Democrats are outraged when DeLay holds a House floor vote open for nearly three hours while he persuades some reluctant Republicans to vote for the Medicare prescription drug law.
September 2004: Grand jurors in Texas indict DeLay associates Jim Ellis, John Colyandro, and Warren RoBold in an investigation of alleged illegal corporate contributions to a political action committee DeLay founded. The investigation involved the alleged use of corporate funds to aid Republican candidates for the state Legislature in the 2002 elections.
Sept. 30, 2004: The House ethics committee admonishes DeLay for improperly offering in 2003 to endorse the candidacy of Michigan Rep. Nick Smith's son in exchange for Smith's support of the Medicare drug bill.
Oct. 6, 2004: The ethics panel admonishes DeLay for sponsoring a fundraiser for energy company executives just before negotiations began on an energy bill. The committee also admonishes the majority leader for soliciting help from the Federal Aviation Administration to track down Democratic Texas state House members who left the state in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent adoption of the Republican redistricting plan.
Nov. 2, 2004: DeLay is re-elected to an 11th term in Congress with 55 percent of the vote. Nationwide, Republicans score a net gain of three House seats, with the DeLay-backed remapping of Texas congressional districts contributing to five new GOP seats. DeLay is also re-elected majority leader by House Republicans.
Nov. 17, 2004: House GOP caucus rules are changed to allow leaders who are indicted to retain their leadership positions.
January 2005: House Republicans reverse a rule passed in November 2004 that would have allowed DeLay to keep his leadership post if he were indicted.
Jan. 4, 2005: The House adopts a rules package that would give the GOP majority greater control of the ethics committee.
March 2005: Media reports spur Democrats to question DeLay's relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is under federal investigation. DeLay has asked the House ethics committee to review allegations that Abramoff or his clients paid some of DeLay's overseas travel expenses. DeLay has denied knowing that the expenses were paid by Abramoff.
March 28, 2005: The Wall Street Journal editorial page, a leading voice in conservative circles, criticizes DeLay.
April 2005: House Republicans scrap controversial new ethics committee rules passed earlier in the year that would have made it harder to proceed with an ethics investigation. Democrats said the rules were meant to protect DeLay.
April 25, 2005: Former Rep. Nick Lampson of Texas – a Democrat defeated in 2004 – files to run against DeLay in 2006.
April 26, 2005: DeLay accompanies President Bush to a Galveston, Texas, forum on Social Security. The move is widely seen as a public show of support for DeLay.
April 27, 2005: The House votes 406 to 20 to reverse the ethics rules changes made in January.
September 2005: DeLay is indicted on charges of conspiring to violate Texas political fundraising law and forced to step aside as majority leader. Ellis and Colyandro are indicted on additional felony charges of violating Texas election law and criminal conspiracy to violate election law for their role in 2002 legislative races.
Sept. 8, 2005: TRMPAC and a prominent Texas business group are indicted by a Texas grand jury.
Sept. 28, 2005: DeLay is indicted on one count of conspiracy stemming from fundraising during the 2002 state House election campaign. Forced to step down as majority leader, DeLay calls the Texas grand jury's action "one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history."
Oct. 3, 2005: DeLay is indicted on additional charges accusing him of conspiracy to launder campaign money and actual money laundering in connection with his efforts to help elect Republican candidates to the Texas Legislature in 2002.
October 2005: DeLay, Ellis, and Colyandro are indicted by a second grand jury on charges of conspiring to launder money and money laundering. DeLay turns himself in to the Harris County sheriff's office in Houston, where he is fingerprinted and photographed. He smiles broadly in his mug shot to thwart its use by political opponents. DeLay's attorneys win removal of a Democratic judge from the case because he has donated to Democratic causes and candidates. The Associated Press reports that DeLay and Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, who succeeded DeLay as majority leader, orchestrated a political money carousel in 2000 that diverted donations secretly collected for presidential convention parties to some of their own causes.
Nov. 21, 2005: Michael Scanlon, a former public relations consultant who was DeLay's press secretary when the Texan was majority whip, pleads guilty in federal court to conspiring to bribe public officials in a scheme to defraud several Indian tribes of nearly $53 million. The plea agreement requires Scanlon to cooperate with the Justice Department in a continuing lobbying corruption probe, which centers on Abramoff.
Dec. 5, 2005: A state judge dismisses one of the September 28 conspiracy charges against DeLay but upholds the subsequent charges, dimming DeLay's hopes for a speedy trial before the House reconvenes in late January 2006.
Dec. 17, 2005: State prosecutors appeal the dismissal of the first charge against DeLay in the Texas Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Trial Judge Pat Priest delays further proceedings in the case until after the appeal can be decided.
Jan. 3, 2006: Abramoff pleads guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion, and mail fraud and agrees to cooperate in an influence-peddling investigation that threatens powerful members of Congress. DeLay abandons his bid to resume his post as House majority leader.Jan. 6, 2006: More than two dozen House Republicans reportedly sign a petition circulated by Reps. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Charles Bass of New Hampshire that calls for midterm leadership elections.
Jan. 7, 2006: DeLay announces he will not seek to reclaim his leadership post. He tells colleagues he will run for re-election to his congressional seat in November while he works "to clear my name of the baseless charges leveled against me."
March 29, 2006: Abramoff and former business partner Adam Kidan are sentenced in Miami to nearly six years in prison but are allowed to remain free while they help a congressional corruption investigation in Washington.
March 31, 2006: Tony Rudy, a onetime aide to DeLay, pleads guilty in Washington to conspiracy and promises to cooperate with a federal investigation of bribery and lobbying fraud.
April 3, 2006: DeLay announces he will resign his seat and won't seek re-election to Congress in the fall.
Sources: CQ Today, Associated Press