Is Ted Delisi leaving the Attorney General’s office? Last week, Texas Weekly reported that Attorney General John Cornyn has hired a replacement for Delisi, who has been working as Cornyn’s press spokesman since January. The political newsletter added that the move was overdue and that neither Cornyn nor Delisi “expected the gig to last this long.”
Delisi’s gig at Cornyn’s office has been a lucrative one. As reported by the Chronicle last week, in addition to collecting his state paycheck, Delisi has been operating a political consulting firm in his spare time. Over the past six months, that firm, Olsen & Delisi, and another firm that Delisi owns part of, Praxis List Company, have been paid nearly $1 million by Gov. George W. Bush‘s presidential campaign — for such items as “consultant expense-fundraising,” “list expense,” and “direct mail expense.”
Delisi, the son of Republican state Rep. Dianne White Delisi from Temple, held the position despite a pledge from Cornyn that during his term the AG’s office would lose its political slant. “My standard for retention at the attorney general’s office is pretty simple,” Cornyn told The Dallas Morning News last November. “Number 1, no political hacks.”
Messages left for Cornyn at the AG’s office by the Chronicle were not returned.
This article appears in November 12 • 1999.