[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 15750-15751]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      CONGRESSIONAL REDISTRICTING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Culberson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. Speaker, I have joined the Congress after serving 
14 years in the Texas House of Representatives, and in every one of 
those years the State of Texas operated under a Federal court order 
controlling our prison system. We have operated under Federal court 
orders controlling our mental health hospitals. We have operated under 
State court orders controlling our school finance system; and as a 
committed Jeffersonian, I fought strenuously to be sure that the people 
of Texas through their elected representatives would control our 
prisons, our mental health hospitals, and, above all, our school 
finance system which our legislature will deal with in a special 
session later this area.
  One week from today, the Texas legislature will meet again in a 
special session to exercise the will of the people of Texas to control 
the way our congressional districts are drawn. That special session 
that will begin in 1 week has been the subject of much attention 
nationally in the preceding weeks; and of all the different analyses 
that I have seen done, the most eloquent, the most insightful analysis 
of what is taking place in the State of Texas in congressional 
redistricting was written by a young woman, Laura Childers, who 
expressed her opinion on the pages of the Houston Chronicle on May 15 
of 2003. I would like to share her words with the Nation and with the 
Congress.
  Laura Childers wrote: ``I am not a Republican, and I am not a 
Democrat. I am a naive 17-year-old girl who has yet to cast her first 
vote. Maybe looking to the actions of my elders shall help to coach me 
in the manner that a ballot should be cast. This should be particularly 
useful in the presidential elections in November, upon which I, along 
with millions of my fellow young comrades, will have reached the 
powerful age of 18. So far I've learned a lot.
  ``It appears that the distinction of party and not of morality is 
what is supposed to define a politician in American legislatures today; 
am I correct? Take the recent Democrat walkout from the Texas House of 
Representatives. What I gather from this incident is that it does not 
necessarily matter to the defending exiles that Texas citizens voted 
the Republican majority into office for the explicit reason of passing 
Republican legislation. In fact, I've heard statements from Democrats 
and their supporters that going against the American public's will is a 
very patriotic thing to

[[Page 15751]]

do. This leads me to believe that the old, apparently outdated, reasons 
for government institutions no longer stand. The hopes and dreams of 
Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln for a voice in the 
government for every American, regardless of position or belief, have 
been shattered.
  ``The creation of the democratic experiment of the United States of 
America was designed to see if it was possible for men to rule 
themselves. For the first time in modern history, there existed a haven 
where there were no dictators, no kaisers, no kings and no queens. 
There were the people, the voters, the common man. The people were to 
rule themselves by imposing a type of controlled majority rule in the 
place of a tiny group of monarchial individuals. Representatives were 
to be elected by popular vote with the mission to represent and act 
upon the beliefs and wishes of their electors. Political parties 
naturally formed between groups of representatives who symbolized 
common wishes of their voters. In order to further promote these 
wishes, political parties unified with one another. The legislation 
proposed by the parties was made in the interest of the voter and was 
overturned or affirmed depending on the will of the majority. Thus 
bills were passed by population representatives in an effort to 
advocate for the bulk of all those represented.
  ``When people impede this delicate process, they encumber the right 
of every American voter to fair representation. By not allowing a 
majority rule but forcing a type of minority monarchy, the great voice 
of the American public has been silenced to a sickly whisper. In the 
place of a free democracy with freedom for all and dishonesty toward 
none, a type of legal party regime has been set up, and the rights of 
American individuals have vanished. If one party is allowed to 
manipulate government institutions on any level, State or national, as 
the group of Democrat representatives in leisure at an Oklahoma resort 
have, our rights as Americans have been breached. We have been denied 
the Government power granted to us upon the signing of our 
Constitution.
  ``If this is the way that the tumultuous ship of today's Government, 
the institutions of 2003, is intended to be steered, then this is not 
the America that I had thought it was, been taught it was and hoped it 
was.
  ``If the America I'd dreamed of and prayed for does not, in fact, 
exist and Thomas Jefferson's `boisterous sea of liberty' has long since 
dried to a shadowy pit of political regimes and power-hungry abusers of 
our Mother Freedom, then I will fight for the hopes of Washington and I 
will battle for the lessons of Lincoln. If America is to be true to 
herself, if man still be just, then let our Lady Liberty's voice be 
heard to mend this crack entrenching on our precious, sacred, 
irreplaceable bell of liberty, our vote.''
  I am proud to say that Laura Childers is a constituent. She is a 
junior at Memorial High School in congressional district seven that I 
am so proud to represent, and I believe Laura Childers understands 
precisely what the American Constitution is about, what majority rule 
means, and what it means that the people of Texas have for the first 
time since 1876 voted in a new Republican majority in the Texas 
legislature, and Laura understands that it is the people of Texas and 
not the courts who should draw congressional districts.

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