[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 14424-14425]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                CONTROVERSY INVOLVING TEXAS LEGISLATURE

  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 find it a little astounding that I come 
here to ask the question of what is happening to our government. Why 
are our fellow citizens withholding information from us, even from 
Members of Congress? Why are some of the agencies that are designed to 
help us seemingly working against us? It is all our government.
  I am a little bit astounded at having to come here and again tell the 
story about what happened when the Texas legislature ran amuck, when 
members of that legislative body began to respond to actions there that 
have been reflective of what the United States House of Representatives 
has been, very divisive, very unfortunate, where people get to the 
point where they feel like they are not allowed to be a part of the 
process and they have to rebel against the system by looking for 
parliamentary procedure to try to send their point or make their point 
or get

[[Page 14425]]

their message out. Fifty-five brave men and women allowed their backs 
to be pushed up against the wall for months and finally could take it 
no more and broke the quorum of the Texas legislature to stop that from 
happening there. And then, lo and behold, what happened following it 
started all sorts of things to happen that include Federal agencies 
becoming involved in investigations to look for missing Texas 
legislators.
  The people of this country ought to be outraged that Federal agencies 
designed to protect us, designed to do good for us, were called into a 
political fray in the State of Texas, and since that time Members of 
Congress have asked repeatedly of the Department of Homeland Security, 
the Justice Department, and the transportation agency for information 
that would give us a better understanding of who played what role in 
this Federal Government being involved in an issue that was a political 
one in the State of Texas and finding funds that we know are already 
very short for us. We do not know how we are going to be paying for all 
of the many, many needs that our homeland security faces. We are very 
short-funded as it is.
  Yet we could find the money, the time, the effort, the personnel, the 
equipment to track an airplane across the country of a member, a little 
cotton farmer out in west Texas who was going off to Ardmore, Oklahoma, 
and stopped off to see his mother. If he had not done that, they would 
have probably found him. To have agencies respond in the way that they 
have, there is something wrong with this picture. The people of this 
country truly ought to be outraged.
  It has been over 3 weeks now since we began to ask formally of these 
agencies, give us the information that you have, show us surveillance 
tapes, give us tapes of phone messages. Even the Director of Homeland 
Security indicated that it was a potential criminal investigation that 
is going on and that was the excuse for not turning over some of this 
information at the time.
  Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for us as a body, as a Congress, to 
stop this kind of action in the United States of America, whether it 
happens to Texas or Louisiana or Michigan or any other State in this 
Nation, and we truly ought to be outraged and stand up and say we are 
not going to stand for that secrecy anymore. Let the agencies that 
exist as a part of our government give us the information that we need 
to know that our government is working in our behalf and not working 
against us; that we are not having some kind of a political soiree in 
this country that is going to allow power to be held by a few at the 
expense of so very, very many.
  We even had destroyed documents over time. What is there to hide? If 
there is nothing on the tapes that is incriminating to anyone, then 
make it public and let us see them. If there is something there, as 
certainly the indication is starting to be--why else is there a cover-
up--then perhaps there may be criminal activity. Something is wrong 
with this picture and something is going wrong with our government. It 
is time for us to begin to ask the questions and demand the answers 
from all of the agencies that can tell the citizens of this country 
that we are not going to be living in a police state, that we are going 
to be able to all participate in making the policy of this Nation and 
the policy of our States, and that we are not going to have to fight 
our way through the darkness of night in order to play the role that we 
so rightly deserve.

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