TomDelayMovie.com

Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck are Texas- based documentary filmmakers who’ve spent the last three years making The Big Buy; Tom DeLay’s Stolen Congress.

Sun, shorts, great reads on the beach, and thrillers in the theaters. Summer’s here, and the time is right for bracing in our seats.

Can’t wait to see that sure-fire summer blockbuster? The one with a nefarious conspiracy of world domination; a brilliant, but twisted mastermind behind it; official corruption that allows the plan to succeed; the unlikely out-of-the-blue hero who’s the only obstacle to a clean get away?

Good News.The Big Buy: Tom DeLay’s Stolen Congress is premiering in Houston on May 19 and across the country over the next couple of months—including screenings at YearlyKos, Take Back America 2006 and theaters in selected cities. There’s even a national “Clean Money Day” on June 27 with house parties across the country making the film "Exhibit #1" in the case for a new way to elect our politicians.

Don’t think it stands up to the likes of Mission: Impossible III or The Da Vinci Code ? Think again. This is turning out to be the year when the country wakes up out of its extended coma. All of a sudden, things look a little more dark. Which makes a noir-political conspiracy movie so timely. That it’s about stuff that’s really happening just makes it scarier. Don’t worry, it won’t break with the well-known Hollywood blockbuster formula.

Nefarious Conspiracy of World Domination: Check.

Tom DeLay and the GOP had a strategy to create a “permanent majority” of Republicans in Congress to control U.S, policy for the next 20 years.

At the pinnacle of his power in 2002, DeLay wanted to use the Texas state legislature to redraw congressional lines in mid-decade, sending a half-dozen new hard-right Republican congressmen to Washington.

This plan rested on DeLay’s ability to funnel massive amounts of secret corporate campaign contributions to normally low-budget state representative races. It worked. Millions flowed to DeLay-blessed candidates from corporations in and out of Texas. The DeLay-bought legislature redrew the lines. Republicans picked-up five new congressmen from Texas in 2004—their only gains that year. Since January 2005, those five new DeLay-gotten votes in Congress have provided the margin of victory for the Central American Free Trade Agreement, various budget votes, and the energy bill.

DeLay’s only mistake: in Texas, it’s a felony for corporations to contribute money to campaigns.

The Big Buy traces DeLay’s career and gives you a complete, simple-to-understand autopsy of his master plan for power from beginning to end. For the first time, the rest of the country will see the epic scope of DeLay’s conspiracy that those of us in Texas have witnessed over the last four years.

Official Corruption That Makes the Plan Possible: Check.

As Molly Ivins points out in The Big Buy , there’s always been corruption in Congress, but Tom DeLay took it to a whole other level. DeLay Inc. wasn’t just a clever label; it was a fact. DeLay controlled a large, complex web of groups, PACs and accounts that he moved money between like a Broadway three-card monte artist.

DeLay owed his rise in the leadership to his ability to raise money for his Republican peers. He got that money from corporations. They provided the quid; he gave them the pro quo.

Corporate money was used to buy elections in Texas and change the shape of Congress. But it’s the loopholes in national campaign finance law that allows anyone in power in Congress to do the same. Tom DeLay, Bob Ney of Ohio, Duke Cunningham and John Doolittle of California —these are not aberrations of an otherwise good system; they are the natural result of that system.

Megalomanaical Mastermind: Check.

What can you say? He’s the Hammer. Observers rate him as the most powerful leader in the House of Representatives since Sam Rayburn more than 70 years ago. He not only amassed power, he knew how to use it and what he wanted to do with it. Eliminate whole government agencies; slash taxes. “By the time we get through, there may not be a federal government left,” he said shortly after Republicans seized Congress in 1994 on a local cable program that’s never been shown outside his district. The Big Buy features plenty of DeLay’s own words by which he rhetorically hangs himself. Like any good blockbuster mastermind, his avarice can be both his greatest asset and biggest fault.

Humble Hero: Check.

You don’t get more authentic than Ronnie Earle. If he didn’t exist, a Hollywood screenwriter would have to invent him. The Big Buy has the most intimate look at Earle pursuing his investigation over the last three years.

Earle’s a local official just a few positions up the ballot from dogcatcher. But because he’s the DA in the Texas capitol, he turns out to be the guy policing state government. When DeLay floods state campaigns with corporate money, Earle sees the law being broken. His job is to enforce the law. “This isn’t about Republicans and Democrats, it’s about cops and robbers.”

Earle seems too progressive to be a Texas DA, until you hear him talk about the unrepentant criminal. Then you see the side of him that supports the death penalty. You see he’s every bit as relentless as DeLay.

You may think you know the ending to this story, but you don’t. Because it hasn’t been written yet.
November 2 will be the first national referendum on the House That Tom Built. The last act of suspense in this thriller will be played out in voting booths across the country that day.

Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films are distributing The Big Buy not only as a piece of history-in-the-making, but also as a call to action. We want our summer blockbuster to reach its dramatic climax in the fall. To be in on the action-packed conclusion, please go to TomDeLayMovie.com and do your part to give this country the happy ending it deserves. Everything else is just fiction.