Although Shelley Sekula Gibbs walked away with nearly 30-percent of the vote in this month's Republican Primary in the District 22 Congressional race, Pete Olson, who got 21-percent of the vote in a 10-person race, is hoping to derail that locomotive by publicizing his rival's spending record during the weeks she served in Congress finishing out Tom DeLay's unexpired term. 

The figure? More than $182,000 in taxpayers’ dollars spent in less than two months.

“That's not the record of someone who's fiscally responsible,” said Olson. “That's wasting taxpayer dollars.” 

Of particular note, Olson said, was $77,000 spent on a mass mailing to constituents and how it compares to what other Texas House members spent on mailings.

“She spent more in four weeks than all of the Texans in the House did the entire year,” said Olson.   

“I don't know why Mr. Olson is attacking me,” Sekula Gibbs said, calling his accounts of her spending as “half-truths” and “hypocrisy.”

“Every congress member is responsible to communicate with their constituents, and there had not been a congress member in the office for almost nine months,” said Sekula Gibbs.

Basically, it was her duty she said.

“Instead of wasting taxpayers’ money, Sekula Gibbs said she actually gave some back, because after her seven-week stint, the office came in under budget by 20 thousand dollars.

Again, by her own admission, a congressman had not served in that office for almost nine months.

“It doesn't look good obviously, spending this amount of money in a seven-week period, even when Congress was out of session and not doing very much,” said 11 News political expert Bob Stein. “It was clearly self promotion, it may have worked. Many of us think she's the favorite candidate.”

Ultimately, it is what the voters think that will count.