Shelley Sekula Gibbs to try again for Congress

(6/27/07 - HOUSTON) -- Shelley Sekula Gibbs, the Houston dermatologist who briefly succeeded former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in Congress last year, is moving ahead in her quest to regain the seat in 2008 by announcing some well-known local Republican support.

Sekula Gibbs, a former Houston City Council member, was elected to finish the last 51 days of DeLay's term last year before yielding to Democrat Nick Lampson, who defeated her for a full term.

Her 51 days as interim congresswoman were rocky, however, with seven DeLay staffers walking out in her first week, complaining publicly that she had been a tyrannical boss. She also prompted chuckles in The Washington Post and other national publications by telling reporters she planned to resolve such thorny issues as tax cuts, immigration reform and the Iraq war -- all in less than three weeks of a lame-duck Congress.

Sekula Gibbs has changed the spelling of her name since then, dropping the hyphen that she feared would become a problem during her write-in campaign for the congressional seat in 2006.

A Republican, Sekula Gibbs has attracted several high-profile GOP supporters to her campaign steering committee. Among those are Bob Perry, a homebuilder and one of the nation's biggest Republican contributors, and Trini Mendenhall Sosa, a co-founder of the Fiesta Mart grocery chain.

Sekula Gibbs will likely face primary opposition for the 22nd Congressional District, a heavily Republican district that stretches through four counties just south of Houston.

The Republican candidate is expected to face incumbent Lampson, a former congressman who beat Sekula Gibbs after being drawn out of his previous seat during a redistricting process engineered by DeLay.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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