DeLay staffers walk out on Shelley

Looks like everyone's favorite brief-tenure congresswoman, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, has made an impact on Washington already: According to Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, former Congressman Tom DeLay's aides quit en masse yesterday, apparently after finding the golden-haired Sekula-Gibbs a little hard to work with.

The full text of the Roll Call article is only available to subscribers, but we'll summarize: As you remember, Sekula-Gibbs won the special election last week to fill former Congressman Tom DeLay's seat until January, when Democrat Nick Lampson — who won the general election — will be sworn in. Sekula-Gibbs arrived at DeLay's former office Thursday and, according to sources, was "mean" to the office staff. There aren't any more details on exactly what prompted the holdover DeLay staffers to walk out, but it must have taken a lot, an unnamed source told Roll Call: "This is a highly professional and well-seasoned staff who has worked with the best, and worst, of Members, but you'll need to promise a Congressional Medal to anyone willing to take this one on." Carl Thorsen, who hired most of the staffers who walked out yesterday, called the group "exceptional and talented" and said he couldn't imagine what it would take to make them quit so suddenly. We're starting to wonder if Sekula-Gibbs didn't take the Sheila Jackson Lee crash course in staff management.

Lisa Diamond, Sekula-Gibbs' chief of staff, played the incident down, explaining that the DeLay staffers were only there "for transitional purposes." Diamond didn't offer any further explanations for the walkout: "Ooh, oh ... I don't know what we can say about that," she said.

(Roll Call also reports that Sekula-Gibbs was upset because neither President Bush nor Vice President Cheney stopped by an open-house reception in her office yesterday, even though Shelley and W go way back. Life in Congress must be full of disappointments.)