Shelley Sekula-Gibbs is one of the most popular and richest Politician who was born on June 22, 1953 in Floresville, Texas, United States. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who had been a resident of Sekula-Gibbs’s district after it was redistricted to the DeLay district (see the 2003 Texas redistricting) and was indicted for conspiracy-related charges He decided to leave Congress in order to avoid an uphill re-election battle the next election in November. Following the announcement of DeLay, Sekula-Gibbs expressed an interest in the job however she was waiting until DeLay to complete the formal withdrawing procedure prior to filing her resignation papers.
Sekula-Gibbs won the special election on November 7, 2006.
Texas Governor Rick Perry announced on August 29, 2006, that a special election would take place for the unexpired term of Tom DeLay, coinciding with the general election on November 7, 2006. That meant that voters chose twice for the same race but with a different set of candidates (only Libertarian Bob Smither was on both ballots). It set up a scenario in which the constituents of District 22 sent one person to Washington for the last two months of the 109th Congress and a different person to Congress for the two years following. It also means that Sekula-Gibbs was on the ballot for the special election (but not the general election, in which she remained a write-in). Sekula-Gibbs filed for the special election and appeared on the ballot, as did Bob Smither; however, Lampson chose not to file. Sekula-Gibbs was asked if the special election would confuse voters. She replied, “People already know it’s an unusual race.” She also stated that having her name on one ballot would serve as “a memory jog.”
On June 2, 2002, she was married Robert W. Gibbs, Jr. who was the former Director of Corporate Community Relations for Reliant Energy, and they reside within The Woodlands, Texas. Sekula-Gibbs is mother to two grown children. She is a Roman Catholic.
Sekula-Gibbs was elected to her position of At Large, Position Three on the Houston City Council in 2001 as Shelley Sekula Rodriguez, following her marriage to late newscaster on TV Sylvan Rodriguez. In 2005, she was re-elected under her current name. Sekula-Gibbs is the only physician to ever be elected to serve on the Houston City Council.
The district is heavily Republican in both the eastern portion of the district (where Sekula-Gibbs’ base is located) and in the western portion (where Wallace comes from). The main counties in the district, Fort Bend, Galveston and Brazoria voted 61% for Bush and 38.5% for Kerry and the remainder to a third-party candidate. The district as a whole, including the sections of Harris that it covers, voted for Bush in 2004 with 64% of the vote. However, write-in candidates have historically failed to win in Texas, which made victory a challenge for Sekula-Gibbs. The Dallas Morning News noted that on the electronic machines used in District 22, voters would have to spell out any write-in candidate’s name by using a wheel to move a cursor through the alphabet. The race was one of the most competitive races in the country according to the National Journal. Two nonpartisan political reports, the Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, rated the race as Leans Democratic and CQPolitics.com rated the race Leans Democratic. Smither, the Libertarian candidate, has stated that “a vote for liberal Democrat Nick Lampson will be a vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House.” Libertarian Ron Paul, 1988 Libertarian Party candidate for president, was a previous holder of the District 22 seat.
