Congressman Tom DeLay wants an early trial if the charges against him are not dismissed at a November 22 hearing.

An attorney for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said Monday that he will request an early December trial date for the former House majority leader, if the case gets that far.

Lawyer Dick DeGuerin said in a letter that "time is of the essence" in the case that has forced DeLay to temporarily step down from his House post.

Judge Pat Priest has set a hearing for next Tuesday to consider requests to drop the charges against DeLay and his co-defendants. Defense attorneys have asked that the charges be dropped for various reasons, including alleged misconduct by a prosecutor.

"Should the indictments survive the hearings of November 22, we will request a trial date in early December," DeGuerin wrote in his letter to Priest.

DeGuerin is also asking that Priest, a visiting judge, move the trial out of liberal-leaning Travis County to DeLay's home county of Fort Bend.

This whole trial could be over quickly if DeLay is given his constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial.

The one thing that could throw up a roadblock is his desire to move the trial from Travis County – a county so left-of-center that it was the only county in Texas that rejected Proposition 2, which defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. I sincerely doubt that DeLay could get an unbiased jury of his peers in that county – but I don’t know that moving it to Fort Bend County, the heart of his power base, will fly. I would suggest Wharton County, or Matagorda County, each of which is outside the 22nd Congressional District but and “neutral ground” for the two parties to the case.