Ronnie Earle spoke at a Democrat fund-raiser back in May and called Tom Delay a “bully.” The event raised $102,000 for Democrat candidates. The organization is called Texas Values in Action Coalition and talks proudly of Earle’s speech. 

Back in 1993, Ronnie Earle went after Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who was Texas Treasurer at the time. Among other things, he accused her of physically assaulting an employee. Yeah, right.

In 1993, Hutchison and her team of attorney’s - led by Dick DeGuerin, the $700-an-hour hotshot criminal lawyer and defender of Branch Dividian David Koresh - were fighting charges that she had abused her office as state treasurer. The evidence portrayed Hutchison as a termagant who verbally and physically abused her staff, including testimony that while in a tirade, she hit executive assistant Sharon Connally Ammann, the daughter of former governor John Connally, on the shoulder with a notebook binder. Another deputy had been Warren Idsal, the son-in-law of Hutchison’s best friend and mentor, legendary ultra-right-wing Texan and Nixon adviser Anne Armstrong. She fired Idsal and later cited his removal as a threat to a frustrated staffer of her tough approach to personnel management. The evidence also showed she ordered a purge of backup computer tapes containing personal and political documents her executive staff produced for her. Conviction for the Nixon-like charges would have ruined her politically. Hutchison claimed the chief prosecutor, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, was part of a sinister conspiracy against her.

She was acquitted in February 1994, when Earle declined to proceed with the case. The jury selection had gone badly for Earle.

I look for Delay’s indictment to be another embarassment for the Democrat Party.