[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 58 (Thursday, May 12, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
           THE CONGRESSIONAL CAREER OF MICKEY LELAND OF TEXAS

                                 ______


                           HON. LOUIS STOKES

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 12, 1994

  Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, as we approach the anniversary of the death 
of our late colleague Mickey Leland, we are reminded of a life marked 
by many extraordinary achievements and triumphs. We are also reminded 
of a man, so impassioned with the cause of eliminating hunger, that he 
traveled to Ethiopia in August of 1989 and sacrificed his life in the 
humane effort of investigating the Ethiopian hunger crisis.
  Recently, a professor at Pace University in New York, Philip A. 
Grant, shared with me an essay which he delivered at the Southern 
Conference on African-American Studies in Dallas, TX. The essay 
entitled, ``The Congressional Career of Mickey Leland of Texas'' 
highlights the career of a national hero whose loss was, and continues 
to be, felt not only by us on Capitol Hill, but in international arenas 
as well. Mr. Grant's essay evokes memories of one of our Nation's 
leaders who died while fighting for a battle to which he was eternally 
dedicated, the plight of the disadvantaged.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe that it is important to submit Professor 
Grant's article to the Congressional Record. This will ensure that we 
do not forget the conviction with which Mickey Leland carried out his 
commitment, and the passion with which we should strive to continue 
this tradition.

           The Congressional Career of Mickey Leland of Texas

       On November 7, 1978 Democrat Mickey Leland of Houston was 
     elected without opposition to the House of Representatives 
     from the Eighteenth Congressional District of Texas. Leland 
     was chosen by the citizens of the Eighteenth District to fill 
     the seat being vacated by three term Congresswoman Barbara 
     Jordan.
       Leland, thirty-three years of age, was a graduate of Texas 
     Southern University. Prior to launching his congressional 
     campaign, he had served six years in the Texas House of 
     Representatives. As the time of his election Leland was one 
     of only two Blacks within the ranks of the one hundred and 
     thirty members of Congress from the states of the South.
       Leland officially took his oath of office in the House 
     chamber on January 13, 1979. Several days later he was 
     assigned to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, The Energy 
     And Commerce panel exercised jurisdiction over 
     transportation, communications, the stock exchanges, public 
     health, and oil and gas deregulation.
       During his first term on Capital Hill Leland was aligned 
     with the vast majority of his Democratic colleagues on all 
     issues of consequence. Leland voted for the Welfare Reform 
     Bill, the Hospital Cost Containment Bill, and the creation of 
     a Cabinet-level Department of Education and was recorded 
     against selective service (draft) registration and a proposed 
     constitutional amendment to prohibit busing to promote 
     desegregation of elementary and secondary schools.
       In November 1980 Leland was overwhelmingly re-elected to a 
     second term in the House, outpolling his Republican 
     challenger by a 71,985-16,128 tabulation (81.7%). While 
     Leland was obviously successful in his quest for re-election, 
     the Democratic Party experienced political disaster in 1980. 
     Conservative Republican Ronald Reagan was elected to the 
     presidency, carrying forty-four of the fifty states and 
     attracting four hundred and eighty-nine of the five hundred 
     and thirty-eight electoral votes (90.9%). Reagan, cultivating 
     the southern white vote, prevailed in Texas and nine of the 
     ten other states of the South.
       From the outset of the Reagan presidency Leland was 
     unalterably opposed to all of the G.O.P. Chief Executive's 
     domestic and foreign policy initiatives. In 1981 Leland 
     favored reauthorization of the Legal Services Corporation and 
     extension of the Voting Rights Act and opposed the Reagan 
     Administration's tax cut and budget reconciliation (Gramm-
     Latta) bills. In the following year he supported the Medicare 
     Funding Bill and cast a negative vote on a constitutionally 
     mandated balanced budget.
       Re-elected to a third term in November 1982, Leland 
     triumphed by a 68,014-12,102 margin (84.9%). Leland was 
     genuinely encouraged by the 1982 election results, largely 
     because the Democrats won an additional twenty-six 
     congressional seats and registered a net gain of seven 
     governorships. Moreover, in the new Congress Leland would be 
     joined by two other Black Democrats, Alan D. Wheat of 
     Missouri and Katie B. Hall of Indiana.
       In 1983 and 1984 the Democrats in the House were involved 
     in a substantial number and wide variety of confrontations 
     with the Reagan Administration. Sharply disagreeing with the 
     Administration's Central American and Middle East policies, 
     Leland opposed aid to the Nicaraguan Contras and American 
     participation in a multinational force in Lebanon. Concurring 
     with his fellow Democrats, he supported the Nuclear Freeze 
     Resolution, the expansion of the Superfund to eliminate toxic 
     waste, the designation of the Martin Luther King holiday, and 
     an effort to revive the Equal Rights Amendment to the 
     Constitution (ERA).
       Profoundly concerned with the plight of the nation's 
     millions of disadvantaged citizens, Leland in January 1984 
     introduced a resolution to create a Select House Committee on 
     Hunger. Leland's resolution was adopted on February 25, 1984, 
     and, based on longstanding tradition, Leland was promptly 
     chosen as the select committee's chairman.
       In 1984 Leland won his fourth term, accumulating more than 
     one hundred thousand votes for the first time in his 
     political career. While Leland was elected 109,626-26,400 
     (80.6%), President Reagan was also victorious in his bid for 
     another term in the White House. Indeed in 1984 Reagan 
     carried all eleven southern states and recorded a winning 
     margin of 1,484,152 (63.7 percent) in Texas.
       The Second Reagan Administration was dominated by frequent 
     clashes between a rigidly conservative Republican President 
     and a solidly Democratic Congress. The animosity between 
     Reagan and Capitol Hill steadily escalated after the 
     Democrats gained fourteen congressional seats in the off-year 
     elections of 1986. Complicating the precarious relationship 
     between the White House and Congress was the sensational 
     controversy surrounding the Iran-Contragate scandal.
       Among the victorious Democrats in 1986 were Leland, re-
     elected to a fifth term without Republican opposition, and 
     two other blacks, John Lewis of Georgia and Mike Espy of 
     Mississippi. Leland's successful quest for re-election 
     occurred as he was completing his two year term as Chairman 
     of the Congressional Black Caucus.
       During the final two years of the Reagan Era Leland and the 
     President were constantly at odds. Leland voted for the 
     imposition of economic sanctions against South Africa, the 
     Plant Closing Notification Bill, the Catastrophic Health 
     Insurance Bill, the Independent Counsel (Special Prosecutor) 
     Bill, the Fair Housing Bill, and legislation requiring a 
     seven day waiting period prior to the purchase of a handdgun. 
     Most importantly Leland was recorded in favor of overriding 
     Reagan's vetoes of the Clean Water Funding Bill, the Highway 
     and Mass Transit Authorization Bill, and the Civil Rights 
     (Grove City) Bill.
       In 1988 Leland was re-elected without opposition to his 
     sixth term. Also triumphant in 1988 was Republican Vice 
     President George Bush, who was chosen to succeed Ronald 
     Reagan as President, Like Reagan in 1980 and 1984, Bush Swept 
     the South and easily won Texas.
       In the winter and spring of 1989 it was apparent that Bush 
     was committed to persevere in behalf of the Reagan agenda. 
     Leland devoted the bulk of his attention to two issues, the 
     minimum wage and Medicaid. Leland strongly supported 
     increasing the prevailing federal minimum wage from $3.35 to 
     $4.55 perhour and voted to override the President's veto of 
     the minimum wage bill ultimately approved by the House and 
     Senate. As a member of the Subcommittee on Health and the 
     Environment, Leland sponsored legislation to extend Medicaid 
     coverage to an additional 160,000 pregnant women, 170,000 
     infants, and 1,100,000 children over the age of one.
       Leland's comparatively brief, but unusually eventful, 
     congressional career came to a tragic end on August 7, 1989. 
     On that date Leland and three congressional staff members 
     were killed in a plane crash, while travelling to a refugee 
     camp in Ethiopia to investigate the lingering hunger crisis 
     in Africa. Leading the tributes to Leland were the Most 
     Reverend Joseph A. Fiorenza, Bishop of Houston, and the 
     Honorable Thomas S. Foley, Speaker of the House of 
     Representatives. Bishop Fiorenza, the celebrant of Leland's 
     funeral Mass at Saint Anne's Church, asserted: ``To my 
     knowledge, no one, but no one, in the history of the city of 
     Houston, and perhaps in all of Texas, has been mourned to the 
     extent of Mickey. Every Houstonian, especially the poor, has 
     lost a good friend.''
       Speaker Foley, convinced that there were ``perhaps, 
     millions who will live longer, live better and have hope 
     because of this good man,'' concluded: ``Mickey is gone, but 
     his values and his work will live after him in our memory and 
     our commitments.''
       Two major American publications, the New York Times and the 
     Washington Post, editorialized on the death of Leland. 
     Impressed that Leland ``with humor and disarming sincerity'' 
     had ``negotiated the uneasy passage from the politics of 
     confrontation to that of example and persuasion,'' the Times 
     in hailing the late congressman's determination to alleviate 
     the Third World hunger crisis concluded: ``Because of Mr. 
     Leland, American aid reached parched corners, saving tens of 
     thousands of lives. They are a precious memorial to Mickey 
     Leland and his colleagues, distilling some sense from a 
     senseless calamity.''
       The Post, stressing that Leland was ``always known for 
     identifying with his roots, even as he rose in position and 
     power in the Texas Legislature and then in the U.S. 
     Congress,'' acclaimed his genuine concern for the distressed 
     inhabitants of Africa as follows: ``* * * Mr. Leland was one 
     of the few people from anywhere, and certainly one of the few 
     Americans, who was prepared to invest his time and energy in 
     inspecting the conditions of these unfortunate refugees and 
     to do what he could to focus American resources on bringing 
     help and care to them. He will be mourned on several 
     continents.''

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