That Congress continues to slay any and every gun law — no matter how popular, incidental or seemingly reasonable — is a tribute to the gun industry’s powerhouse of a lobby, the National Rifle Association.

The NRA’s superpowers originate in its wallet — the group donated $1.6 million in
PAC contributions to candidates for federal office last election cycle alone.
From 1991-98, the NRA gave nearly $9 million to candidates, parties and
PACs, all the more impressive compared with the relatively paltry sum ($146,000)
offered up by Handgun Control Inc., Washington’s largest anti-gun lobby. (Full disclosure: I worked for Handgun Control for six months in 1997.)

For the NRA, as for other big political contributors, money is leverage. The
senators who voted against a recent measure that would have required background
checks at gun shows received an average of $10,500 from pro-gun groups, while
those who voted to close the loophole received, on average, closer
to $300.

The sizable coffers also allow the NRA to present a united lobbying front on
Capitol Hill. The NRA spent $2.25 million on lobbying in 1998 alone — cash that
allowed the interest group to employ 10 full-time lobbyists in addition to the
six lobbying firms it keeps in its holster on retainer.

But it’s overly simplistic to argue that the NRA rules with its wallet alone. The
NRA has a mobilized and active grass-roots membership it claims to be 3 million
strong. These are largely single-issue men (and some women) who write millions of
postcards, attend town meetings and candidate forums and vote. As a result,
they command attention from their representatives.

Money and membership are significant bullets in the NRA’s Uzi, but there’s more
to it than that. Lost among all of this financial and electoral clout is the fact that the NRA’s allies in Congress happen to agree with the NRA’s hard-line stance on the Second Amendment.

Staunch NRA advocates have held the House leadership’s feet to the fire in the
face of the new push for gun restrictions on Capitol Hill, according to Kristin
Rand of the Violence Policy Center.

She says House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., “is a problem, but he’s not a true believer. Hastert has at least made some conciliatory statements. He’s sent signals that he’s sympathetic to a compromise on some of these issues. He’s in no
way an NRA stalwart. I suspect that if he didn’t have [Whip Tom] DeLay and [Majority Leader Dick] Armey and [Rep. Bob] Barr tugging him so far right on this, Hastert would probably have let the amendment [closing the gun-show loophole] go.”

Here, however, are the true believers — in order, a list of the NRA’s 10 best friends in Washington.

1) Sen. Trent Lott, Senate Majority Leader, R-Miss.: One of the most powerful
legislators in the world, Lott was also one of the keynote speakers at the NRA’s
127th national convention in Philadelphia in June 1998. “You are the mainstream
of America,” Lott said, adding that if Congress were to pass further gun
restrictions, “we might as well fold up the flag and melt down the Liberty Bell.”
Whenever possible, he’s used any procedural motion at his disposal to shoot down
any and every gun-control law Democrats have proposed. “And he tries to appear
reasonable as he does it, which is his trick,” says lobbyist Marie Carbone of
Handgun Control Inc.

2) Rep. Tom DeLay, House Majority Whip, R-Texas: What would it take for
Majority Whip DeLay to change his mind on the issue of whether or not too many
nut jobs have too much access to high-powered weapons? Would a crazed gunman have
to infiltrate the capital and start firing at DeLay himself? Not hardly. That’s
exactly what happened one year ago last month, and DeLay is still as convinced as
ever that the problem is, as he puts it, God, not guns.
Since Republicans took control of the House in November 1994, not one gun-control
measure has passed the House other than an attempt to repeal the assault weapons
ban of ’94. That measure passed the House in 1996 and was subsequently ignored by the
Senate. An incredibly effective whip, DeLay deserves much of the credit for this
track record.

3. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho: Craig, an NRA board member, has long opposed
even small seatbelt-like safety measures for guns, such as
trigger locks. After the Senate passed the Juvenile Justice Bill, Craig said,
“the Democrats and the vice president … feel restricting the Second Amendment rights
of law-abiding citizens is more important than combating the plague of youth
violence infecting this nation.” During the recent gun-control debate in the House, Craig offered an amendment that
he claimed would close the gun-show loophole, but actually weakened federal law.
The next day, after discovering what the Craig amendment actually did, even
conservatives like Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., were offended and rebelled,
insisting on another vote for an amendment more substantial than Craig’s.

4) Rep. Dick Armey, House Majority Leader, R-Texas: Armey’s clout has
diminished ever since he lied about his role in the attempted coup of
then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, but as majority leader he’s still somewhat large and
in charge. And he’s anti-gun control. “He’s another crafty one,” says Handgun
Control’s Carbone. “He doesn’t rail against gun control on the floor like [Rep.]
Bob Barr, but behind closed doors he makes sure that it’s hard or downright
impossible for gun-control measures to make it out onto the floor — or out of committee, even.”

5) Gov. George W. Bush, R-Texas: Though he has yet to officially move to
Washington, as governor of the nation’s second largest state, Bush has continued
to do the bidding of the NRA — an organization from which his father resigned in
protest after its reference to government agents as “jack-booted thugs.” Bush the younger, however, signed a lax law bestowing the right to carry a loaded concealed weapon upon almost anyone, and he refused to require background checks at gun shows — despite repeated requests from the police chiefs of the seven largest
cities in his state. His one action to date on the issue was largely symbolic, and pro-NRA: He outlawed the ability of any Texas city to sue
the gun industry — at a time when no city was even seriously contemplating doing
so. On the presidential campaign trail, when asked what he thinks about gun
control, Bush continually responds, curtly, “I support the Second Amendment.”
Despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of federal courts have ruled against that interpretation of the Second Amendment, for some people it’s still that simple. Bush
appears to be one of them.

6) Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo.: Ashcroft merits inclusion on this list primarily for going above and beyond the
call of duty for the NRA in its April attempt to pass a law to allow Missourians
to carry concealed weapons. Ashcroft lent his considerable state credibility to
the cause by cutting radio ads for the NRA — which ending up losing, even
though the group dropped $4 million on the campaign, outspending the referendum’s opponents by a 5-1 ratio. In the U.S. Senate, he is a reliable vote for the gun lobby.

7) Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla.: House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde,
R-Ill., has voted in support of gun-control measures in the past, like the
Brady Bill and the assault weapons ban. Despite that fact, gun-control bills are
constipated in committee because of McCollum, who chairs the House subcommittee on crime.

Recently, while the panel was reviewing a bill that would have allowed police officers to carry guns across state lines, McCollum added an
amendment that would have extended that same privilege to ordinary citizens with
concealed-carry licenses. (The bill made it out of committee, but has yet to hit
the House floor.) Interestingly, McCollum reportedly refuses to take NRA money.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich.: Ever since the GOP took over, Dingell, the
ranking Democrat on the House Commerce Committee, has been hibernating on the gun issue — despite the fact that he was a member of the NRA’s board of directors for years. Then came the recent House vote on closing the gun-show loophole, and Dingell awoke, offering an NRA-backed bill to counteract Rep. Carolyn McCarthy’s legislation. Leading the charge for the NRA as a Democrat, Dingell thus provided cover for pro-gun Democrats, as well as diminishing the bill’s usefulness as a partisan
issue for the Democrats to trot out in 2000. Dingell, it should be noted,
referred to agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms as “jack-booted
thugs” long before NRA vice chairman Wayne LaPierre used such controversial rhetoric
in a fund-raising letter.

9) Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga.: Barr is probably the most outspoken pro-gun
member of Congress, and has been officially honored by the NRA as such. Most recently, Barr drafted a bill that would href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:h.r.01032:"> outlaw lawsuits
against the gun industry. “He’s the biggest troublemaker,” says the Violence
Policy Center’s Rand. “He’s the NRA’s flag-bearer in the House, and is unparalleled for toeing the NRA line.”

10) Sen. Bob Smith, I-N.H.: Though Smith’s influence in the Senate is
marginal — all the more so since he defected to the far-right U.S.
Taxpayers Party — even the most obscure senator enjoys powers and privileges
that members of the more hierarchical House can only dream about. Thus, Smith was
able to put a hold on the Juvenile Justice Bill for several weeks, gumming up the legislative process even though versions had passed both the House and Senate — as is his prerogative as long as he remains in the Senate, regardless of party
affiliation.

McHenry has been one of the most completely shameless of House Republicans since his arrival in Congress, in 2005, when he immediately and publicly endorsed Tom DeLay’s brilliant plan to exempt himself from ethics rules as his connections to Jack Abramoff began to end his career. But he was born to be cheerfully corrupt: He’s a product of the College Republicans, an organization that trains little Lee Atwaters, Karl Roves and Grover Norquists in the arts of scorched-earth campaigning and wholly irresponsible “governing” on behalf of the monied interests that bought you your job. The ethos is win by any means necessary, legal or quasi-legal (or worse, as long as you never get caught), and McHenry was very good at that, according to Benjamin Wallace-Wells’ memorable profile of the then-freshman in the Washington Monthly.

After the College Republicans, and a failed state legislature race, McHenry moved on to truly insidious conservative astroturfing/push-polling/communications firm DCI, then worked for Rove, then took a political appointment in the Bush administration, then moved to the district he now represents, where he started a real estate company that did not actually buy or sell any real estate, so that he could run for Congress as “a small businessman.”

Once in the United States House of Representatives, McHenry personally intervened in a wild and bloody College Republican National Committee chair election, on behalf of a personal friend of his who’d become slightly toxic after he sent fundraising letters attempting to trick “elderly people with dementia” into donating to the CRNC. And he was successful! The horrible kid won, against all odds:

In other phone calls, McHenry was more blunt: “He told me, and several of my friends that we were done in politics if we didn’t support him,” another College Republican chapter president told me. (McHenry has admitted that he and Deans made the calls but denied that they threatened anyone’s career). Over the course of two weeks, after a couple of a dozen calls, McHenry prevailed upon those in the North Carolina delegation to change their votes, removing three votes from Davidson’s column and putting them in Gourley’s. Gourley ended up winning by six votes; had North Carolina voted the other way, Davidson might have won.

Another of McHenry’s first acts in Congress, Wallace-Wells writes, was to champion a bill that was specifically written to rip off a large portion of his constituents, by making it “much harder for government to regulate or block the conversion of credit unions into banks …” He is a close ally of major consumer financial institutions with a plum assignment to the Committee on Financial Services, which is great for raising money.

It’s only natural that Elizabeth Warren, whose mission is to protect consumers from unethical and predatory practices by these institutions, is Patrick McHenry’s enemy. You can complain on his Facebook wall all you like, but the Republican from North Carolina is incapable of feeling embarrassment.

And his treatment of Warren will only make him a bigger conservative hero and an even more attractive investment opportunity for major banks.

The charges arose after DeLay set up a PAC to funnel corporate money, which is barred in Texas elections, to candidates for the state legislature. The group raised $190,000 and funneled it through the national Republican Party, which then distributed the money to several state-level candidates in Texas.

To learn more about the case that brought DeLay down, I spoke with Lou Dubose, who co-authored “The Hammer,” a biography of DeLay. The former editor of the Texas Observer and the current editor of the Washington Spectator newsletter, Dubose covered the trial gavel to gavel in Austin. He was in the courtroom on Monday when DeLay gave a lengthy presentencing speech accusing prosecutors of having political motivations and claiming he had $10 million in legal bills. 

I asked Dubose whether DeLay, who is planning an appeal, will ever see the inside of a jail cell, and whether the former majority leader appears humbled by the ordeal of the trial.  The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Did you ever think that you would see this happen?

I really didn’t. This was a working class jury, and I think that made a huge difference.

What was the dynamic with the jury — why did that make a difference?

Gary Cobb, the assistant DA who tried the case, really dragged out the $50,000 checks and the flights on corporate jets with the same persons who had written the checks to DeLay’s PAC. The sort of life that Tom DeLay lived at the expense of the corporate lobby — I think that really made an impact. By their clothes and what we know about them, it was a real working-class jury.

Oddly enough, Tom DeLay spent the entire duration of the three-week trial in a motor home rather than the Four Seasons. He drove his motor coach over here and checked into a motor home park in south Austin, a long way from where he was playing golf at Saint Andrews in Scotland. Then there was also the fact of the way the DeLays dressed, the fact that Reverend Rick Scarborough was sitting behind them. There was a lot of bling there that these people on the jury didn’t have.

Was it possible to tell where the $190,000 ended up? Did it just go to the state GOP?

The money came back, and it went to the candidates in Texas for whom it was designated. The backstory, of course, is that the Republicans controlled everything in Texas but the statehouse. Therefore they could not control redistricting. So DeLay set this organization up in 2001 for the 2002 election and they had to win a majority in the house. They moved this $190,000 up to D.C. because they were specifically raising corporate money, which was easier to raise. They sent it to Washington with specific instructions to send it back to these designated candidates. The candidates got the checks in the exact amount of $190,000.

And DeLay personally raised the money?

Well, that was the question. He stayed in the background but the state proved that he was aware that that transaction had happened. He was probably involved in directing it, although they didn’t have direct testimony on that. They put the three men who did the money-laundering in a room together in Sugar Land, Texas, in DeLay’s district, before the transaction was made.

Remarkably, at one point in the trial, DeLay went out and talked to Laylan Copelin of the Austin American-Statesman, who is a really terrific reporter. And Laylan asked him if he could have stopped the transaction. And DeLay said, “I could have stopped it, but why would I?”

And that was used in the trial?

In the middle of the trial, the state called Laylan Copelin as a witness — really bizarre. He’d been sitting there most of the trial; two weeks into the trial they call him as a witness because of what DeLay had said. His story ran, and two days later he was on the stand testifying as to what he had been told.

So I think DeLay proved to be a terrible client for a storied criminal defense attorney, Dick DeGuerin. That said, the state did an incredible job putting on a case that had to be by nature largely circumstantial.

Do you think he will ever spend a day in jail?

No. Simply because the Court of Criminal Appeals is an elected court, it’s all Republican, it’s highly political. It’s known as a prosecutors’ court, but in this case I would bet that they’re going to rule for the defendant. The Third Court of Appeals, where the appeal will start, is also a Republican court.

What are the issues in the appeal?

These courts are going to have to find a creative way of setting Tom DeLay free. One argument that they once made that they might try to revive is that money-laundering didn’t apply to checks, it applied to cash. This involved checks. The problem with that at the appellate level is that there have been a number of convictions based on money laundering with checks. So are you going to overturn all these prior convictions in order to save Tom DeLay?

What is DeLay doing these days?

You know, nothing. He is struggling to remain relevant. DeLay was always the star at CPAC, the annual conservative conference in Washington. But he hasn’t been allowed to speak there. Two years ago at CPAC, he was trolling for interviews. At the last CPAC convention, he was shunned.

He’s become a pariah to the Republican Party, and I don’t quite understand why. The true believers hold him responsible, rightly, for the Bush Medicare prescription drug bill, which DeLay pushed through. But he’s of no use to them anymore, and he’s not wanted. So most of what he does is struggle to remain relevant, and he’s not. Dick DeGuerin, in his closing argument, said “This prosecution has rendered my client unemployable.” And to my knowledge, he’s not employed.

His media statements have been defiant, but has he changed?

I don’t think so. That’s what’s remarkable. This is the same Tom DeLay that I saw every day for a year and a half when I followed him in Washington. It seemed to me that it never occurred to him that he no longer had the power that he once exercised. He had no regrets — he’s the same guy, except that he’s driving in a motor home instead of sleeping in the Four Seasons.

“This is an abuse of power. It’s a miscarriage of justice, and I still maintain that I am innocent. The criminalization of politics undermines our very system and I’m very disappointed in the outcome,” DeLay told reporters outside the courtroom. He remains free on bond, and his sentencing was tentatively set to begin on Dec. 20.

Prosecutors said DeLay, who once held the No. 2 job in the House of Representatives and whose heavy-handed style earned him the nickname “the Hammer,” used his political action committee to illegally channel $190,000 in corporate donations into 2002 Texas legislative races through a money swap.

DeLay and his attorneys maintained the former Houston-area congressman did nothing wrong as no corporate funds went to Texas candidates and the money swap was legal.

The verdict came after a three-week trial in which prosecutors presented more than 30 witnesses and volumes of e-mails and other documents. DeLay’s attorneys presented five witnesses.

Prosecutors said DeLay conspired with two associates, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, to use his Texas-based PAC to send $190,000 in corporate money to an arm of the Washington-based Republican National Committee, or RNC. The RNC then sent the same amount to seven Texas House candidates. Under Texas law, corporate money can’t go directly to political campaigns.

Prosecutors claim the money helped Republicans take control of the Texas House. That enabled the GOP majority to push through a Delay-engineered congressional redistricting plan that sent more Texas Republicans to Congress in 2004 — and strengthened DeLay’s political power.

DeLay’s attorneys argued the money swap resulted in the seven candidates getting donations from individuals, which they could legally use in Texas.

They also said DeLay only lent his name to the PAC and had little involvement in how it was run. Prosecutors, who presented mostly circumstantial evidence, didn’t prove he committed a crime, they said.

DeLay has chosen to have Senior Judge Pat Priest sentence him. He faces five years to life in prison on the money laundering charge and two to 20 years on the conspiracy charge. He also would be eligible for probation.

The 2005 criminal charges in Texas, as well as a separate federal investigation of DeLay’s ties to disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, ended his 22-year political career representing suburban Houston. The Justice Department probe into DeLay’s ties to Abramoff ended without any charges filed against DeLay.

Ellis and Colyandro, who face lesser charges, will be tried later.

Except for a 2009 appearance on ABC’s hit television show “Dancing With the Stars,” DeLay has been out of the spotlight since resigning from Congress in 2006. He now runs a consulting firm based in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land.