[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 76 (Wednesday, May 21, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H4519]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                DEMOCRATIC TEXAS LEGISLATORS TRUE HEROES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up with what the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Sandlin) was talking about with the people that decided 
to stand up against such an egregious process, where they felt left out 
and had no recourse in Texas but to go away from the legislative 
process long enough to slow things down and let it cool off. Because 
none of us like to be excluded from the development of legislation.
  There it affected many different kinds of legislation. It had to do 
with school finance reform. It had to do with what we have been talking 
about as redistricting. But the redistricting issue was just one small 
piece of it. It by itself was an egregious process, where people 
literally were locked out of the capital building in the State and not 
allowed to attend hearings.
  We do not have a closed government in the United States of America, 
whether it is at the Federal level, whether it is in the State of Texas 
or any other State in this Nation. We have fought, we have died, we 
have shed blood to have a government that is open, where we are free, 
where we can do the kinds of things that we believe in.
  So when legislators are pushed to the point where they have to take 
extraordinary measures to get their message across, they ought to be 
treated as heroes, the heroes that I certainly believe that they are.
  I found it interesting the other night, Saturday night, the weekend 
of Armed Forces Day, a gentleman came up to me at an event where I was 
speaking about Armed Forces and the wonderful military people who have 
sacrificed themselves, their families and sometimes their lives 
fighting for the freedom of those of us in the United States to make 
sure that our government is free.
  This gentleman came up and thanked me, or praised me, I guess, for 
not being a Member of the Texas legislature and not having gone off to 
Ardmore, Oklahoma. I said, ``David, I must strongly disagree with what 
you are saying.'' I said, ``I do so largely because I look at you and 
see the commitment that you made to the United States of America by 
being willing to put on that uniform and to go and potentially 
sacrifice your life for my freedoms, for what I believe in for my 
government.'' I said, ``But, you know, we can lose our government from 
within as well as from without, and we have to be vigilant in making 
sure that the process that we set up is one that all of the people of 
our country can be comfortable with, can trust, can believe in, and 
know that our interests are going to be addressed.''
  So here we have recently sent men and women of this Nation off to 
fight in a country that is far, far away from us, and it was the same 
ideals that we are talking about that they went off to another area.
  The Armed Forces answered our call, and some of them gave their lives 
to free the people of Iraq. So we went to war in Iraq to free a people 
from a government that abused its powers.
  Iraqis were unable to question the actions of Saddam Hussein. So are 
we unable to question the actions of the leaders of the State of Texas. 
That is wrong. We were successful in Iraq with a war, but now the abuse 
of power is happening right here at home, by the most unlikely of 
agencies in the United States Government, the Department of Homeland 
Security.
  Secretary Tom Ridge has stonewalled efforts by Members of Congress 
and the press to learn why the Department of Homeland Security used its 
equipment to track down former house Speaker Pete Laney's airplane to 
find the Texas Democrats who went to Oklahoma in opposition of an 
unfair, unconstitutional redistricting plan. That is repressive 
government. We sent our military to bring free and open government to 
another Nation. We need to do the same in the United States of America.
  On the day that we called for an investigation of these happenings in 
Texas, the Department of Public Safety ordered documents regarding the 
misuse of Federal law enforcement for political purposes to be 
destroyed. Secretary Tom Ridge and the Texas DPS have failed to answer 
questions about their involvement and what happened exactly. They are 
trying to cover up an abuse of power.
  Our Nation is facing a Code Orange level of terrorist alert. The 
resources of the Department of Homeland Security should be focused on 
that. Instead, they were ordered to skirt Federal statutes and had 
their manpower diverted for purely political purposes.
  In this country, the people have a right to question the actions of 
their government, and the government has a responsibility to its 
citizens to be forthright and to give them an answer. This is an abuse 
of power of the most egregious kind.
  It is time for Secretary Ridge to turn over the tapes, open up our 
government, tell the people in the United States of America what we are 
doing, and please do not pass on the divisiveness of the United States 
House of Representatives to the State of Texas.

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