Chris Bell, a Houston Democrat, was elected to Congress in 2002 after serving five years on the Houston City Council and chairing the Council's Ethics Committee.  In June 2004, Bell filed an ethics complaint against Tom DeLay in response to DeLay's repeated abuses of House Ethics rules.  The House Ethics Committee unanimously admonished DeLay as a result of Bell's complaint.  Bell is currently the Democratic nominee for Governor of Texas.

Like most of you, I was pleasantly surprised last night to hear the news of Tom DeLay's decision to resign from Congress.  I'd be less than truthful if I told you I knew this day would come when I first filed the ethics complaint against the then-Majority Leader nearly two years ago.  Back then, even members of my own party told me I was crazy to expect that DeLay would ever be held accountable for his abuses, and I had plenty of doubts myself.  The culture of corruption had become so deeply rooted in Washington that it was accepted as a given that the whole mess would just be swept under the rug.  

The political frenzy swirling around Tom DeLay's criminal indictment is about so much more than Republicans and Democrats; it's about more than Tom DeLay and Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle. This all-too-common analysis being advanced by politicos and pundits alike misses the real point.

During the past year, many have wanted to turn the ethics complaint I filed against DeLay into some sort of personal battle between DeLay and me, but that was never what the complaint was about.

Like all of you, I was extremely pleased to see the Travis County Grand Jury indict Tom DeLay this morning.  Today's indictment makes it obvious that the House Ethics Committee needs to finally launch a full investigation of the ethics charges I filed against DeLay last year.

When I broke the so-called `ethics truce' and took on Tom DeLay last June, there were even a few Democratic leaders who asked me to back off.  But now it is clear that the corruption in Texas goes all the way to the top and that his cash & carry criminality has infected all levels of Texas government.

Over the past half year, I have traveled all over Texas, literally exploring the race for governor. You have indulged me in this process as I sought the answers to some important questions, some personal (and Alison's doing better every day, thanks) and some of them public: Can a Texas Democrat win? Are Texas Democrats ready to try something different? Do people see what is happening in Texas the same way that I do?

Well, I have my answers, and today I am proud to share the news that I've decided to run for governor.

Chris Bell is a former Democratic Congressman from Houston.  On June 15, 2004, he filed an ethics complaint against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.  Bell is currently exploring the race for Governor of Texas in 2006.

One year ago today, I filed an ethics complaint against Tom DeLay before the House Ethics Committee.  No one, not the pundits, Republicans, my own Dem leadership, or DeLay himself gave it much of a chance.  Heck, even I didn't think much would come of it, but I did it anyway because it was the right thing to do.  To the outsider, I'm sure that DeLay's ethical misconduct and abuse of power seemed blatant and undeniable, but inside the Beltway his behavior was often dismissed as just politics-as-usual.  There were even leaders in my own party who urged me to back down from my complaint in order to preserve the "ethics truce" that had held for seven years.  Only in Washington, D.C. would an "ethics truce" make sense...

[Chris Bell is a former Democratic Congressman from Houston who filed the ethics complaint against Tom DeLay in 2004.  He is currently exploring the race for Governor of Texas]

The 79th Session of the Texas Legislature that concluded last week will long be remembered for its failures - the Republican majority's failure to govern, Rick Perry's failure to lead, and a collective failure of vision on the part of the partisans and ideologues in Austin.  Rick Perry came into this session with a GOP-dominated Legislature and a mandate - from both the voters and from the courts - to revitalize a public education system that has been declared unconstitutional.  Moreover, he came into this session with a golden opportunity to capitalize on the statewide focus on public education by proposing real, substantive reforms and making the investments necessary to support them.

He of course failed to achieve a school finance solution.  But as the Dallas Morning News pointed out, the real failure occurred long before the last-minute negotiations broke down; it occurred when Rick Perry decided that no real investment in education was necessary and that this whole debate should be reduced to a discussion of property tax reform.