[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 17421]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE COVER-UP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gerlach). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I want to take a few moments to discuss what 
happened in the House Committee on the Judiciary. The Committee on the 
Judiciary on a straight party-line vote rejected the resolution of 
inquiry presented by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) asking that 
the Congress investigate the Department of Justice activities in Texas 
regarding the Texas legislators who broke a quorum several months ago.
  Why is this so important? Because to restore the integrity of the 
Justice Department, Congress must investigate the Department's 
involvement in helping Texas Republicans in a strictly partisan 
political matter. Congress must unveil the facts and clear the air 
quickly because if the redistricting scheme of the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. DeLay) somehow succeeds, these same Texas Republicans will be 
asking the same Justice Department to certify that its new plan does 
not disenfranchise African Americans and Hispanics in my State of 
Texas.
  Earlier this year, as I mentioned, Texas Republican leaders abused 
Federal law enforcement for political purposes in a manner Americans 
had not seen since Richard Nixon and Watergate 30 years ago. In May 
when Texas State legislators blocked the gentleman from Texas's (Mr. 
DeLay) unprecedented redistricting scheme with a legal parliamentary 
maneuver, breaking a quorum which Republicans have done in the U.S. 
Senate and which Abe Lincoln did in the Illinois legislature in the 
last century, they violated no State or Federal laws.
  In their response, Texas Republican leaders treated Federal law 
enforcement as their own personal political police force. The gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. DeLay) acted as if the Department of Justice was an arm 
of the Republican Party. The majority leader in the U.S. House of 
Representatives, which is charged with overseeing the Justice 
Department, publicly urged the FBI and the U.S. marshals to arrest 
these legislators in Oklahoma and drag them back to Texas. The 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) privately contacted the Department of 
Justice, a fact that he denied at first.
  Mr. Speaker, an FBI agent in Corpus Christi, Texas, tried to track 
down the Texas Democratic legislators and indicated they were 
conducting surveillance. The Justice Department is stonewalling, and so 
Congress must investigate and do so immediately.
  Mr. Speaker, what happened in the Committee on the Judiciary today on 
a party-line vote was wrong and should not stand.

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