[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[January 11, 2000]
[Pages 31-33]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 31]]


Remarks at a Reception for Representative Sheila Jackson Lee in Houston, Texas
January 11, 2000

    Thank you very much. Well, first of all, let me say I am delighted 
to be here and delighted to see such a large crowd. I keep reading in 
the Washington press that I am a lame duck, whatever that is. But I 
think what it means is that someday you show up, and no one else does. 
[Laughter] So it's delightful to see you here.
    Let me say, I am also profoundly grateful to Jenard and Gail for opening their 
magnificent home to us tonight. And I did try to come once before and 
was unable to do so. So, Gail, I'm glad your mother came twice. Thank 
you, Ida. And I'm glad you hugged me and kissed me. 
I feel much better now. Thank you. [Laughter]
    I want to thank Mayor Brown for being here. 
He has done a superb job for Houston. I'm very proud of Lee Brown. You 
know, he was our drug czar in the national administration before he got 
elected mayor. He proved that there was life after Washington. 
[Laughter] And I hope it's catching. [Laughter] I'm very proud of him.
    I want to thank Lloyd and B.A. 
Bentsen for being here, and I don't want 
anybody to forget that this great economic recovery started on Lloyd 
Bentsen's watch and started before I ever took the oath of office, when 
Lloyd Bentsen announced we were going to cut the deficit by $500 
billion. The stock market boomed. Interest rates went down--[inaudible].
    One of us needs to show respect for the other. You know, the other 
night they had this big dinner honoring Lloyd, 
and I called in, and I lathered all over him and said all these 
incredible things. And then I got off the phone and he said, ``Now, who 
was that guy again?'' [Laughter]
    I want to thank my friend Billie Carr, who 
taught me a lot of what I know about politics. I love you and will 
always love you all my life. Thank you for being here. And thank you, 
Kathy, for singing. And I'd also--I've 
got something special I want to say about Sheila Jackson Lee, but I will 
introduce it by saying I'm glad Goldie Hawn came 
all the way from California to be with us tonight.
    And here's what the relevance of this evening is to me. I was 
nominated for President, effectively, on June 2, 1992, because I won the 
California, Ohio, and New Jersey primaries and numerically had enough 
votes to win the nomination on the first ballot. Now, some of you may 
remember there was a guy from Texas named Perot 
who was also running, who was the rage of the moment. And the next day--
this was supposed to be a happy night in my life, but that night on 
television and the next day, all the news stories were: Clinton wins the 
nomination, but he's dead meat; he can't be elected President; he's 
running third; everybody really wants to vote for Perot.
    So it was not the happiest election evening headquarters we had in 
Los Angeles at the Biltmore Hotel, the old Biltmore downtown, and 
everybody I knew was around there feeling sorry for themselves. I 
thought it was pretty good. After all, I had gotten nominated, and I 
figured we had a few months to fix it. And Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase showed up to 
tell me that they didn't think we were going to finish third. I have 
never forgotten it. I never will. I thank you for being here tonight. 
Thank you.
    Now what's that got to do with Sheila Jackson Lee? A lot, because 
Sheila Jackson Lee also sticks. You know, I hate to tell you this. 
Sometimes we make jokes about you behind your back. [Laughter] Why? 
Because you have one pace--fast--and one pressure level--hard. 
[Laughter]
    But let me tell you, this Representative from Congress--and I know a 
little something about the burdens that are imposed on Members of 
Congress, so let me say I'm delighted that Elwyn and Jason are here tonight. And 
I want to thank them for the contribution they have made to the welfare 
of the people of this congressional district and the people of this 
country, because it is very difficult to have a family and serve in 
Congress, much harder than most people know. It is very hard, and I 
thank you, sir. Thank you, Jason. Thank you.
    But a lot of people think I came down here because they also went to 
Yale Law School. That had nothing to do with it. [Laughter] Your

[[Page 32]]

Member of Congress is immensely well-educated. She is very attractive, 
and she is very articulate. But the best thing about her is, she fights, 
she works, and she doesn't give up.
    There are a lot of smart people in the world; there are a lot of 
attractive people in the world. The people who make a difference are the 
people who take whatever the opportunities and the burdens life gives 
them, and they fight for their dreams and for the welfare of other 
people. And that's the kind of Member of Congress Sheila Jackson Lee is.
    Now, all of you know that. But no longer than she has been in 
Congress that she really has established a truly astonishing record 
across a very wide range of issues. I can't think of any Member from any 
district that's been there the length of time she has that's done so 
much in so many different areas, and I appreciate that--in housing, in 
mental health services, especially in mental health services for 
children, something that I think is profoundly important. She's the 
leader of the congressional children's caucus and a great leader doing 
the things that we think need to be done to reduce violence against 
children, to have sensible measures to keep guns out of the hands of 
criminals, to have after-school programs for children, to have mental 
health services in our schools for the children who need them. And in 
all of these areas she has actually had an impact. It's not just--
because she doesn't just give a speech and then go away. She understands 
that words just drift into air and disappear unless they're backed up by 
deeds, and not just one day's worth but consistent, systematic, 
determined effort. Fast and hard. [Laughter]
    I loved it--on the way over here tonight, my Chief of Staff and I, 
John Podesta, were sitting in the car 
saying, ``I wonder what old Sheila is going to ask us for tonight.'' 
[Laughter] Then we pull up in the driveway, and there's Mayor 
Brown and Sheila. And I said, ``My God, they 
want me to move the Capital to Houston.'' [Laughter] If she decided that 
was the right thing to do, I wouldn't bet everything I own against it 
getting done. [Laughter]
    I say this with respect. You see, I think--and I know I can say this 
for Lloyd Bentsen, who is one of the finest 
public servants I've even known--public service is an honor. And most 
people who do it are honorable people. But the special people who do it 
are not only honorable and passionate, they stick, and they work, and 
they get things done.
    The reason I asked him to be my first 
Secretary of the Treasury is I thought he was the best Senate finance 
chairman I could ever imagine. And I knew if I named him to be Secretary 
of State--Treasury, people would be serious. They'd say, ``This guy 
really is putting the economy first. This President really is going to 
turn the economy around.''
    Serious people are people that are not only smart and articulate, 
they get things done. That's what Sheila Jackson Lee does. I could give 
you a lot of other examples. She's been so active in Africa and the 
fight against AIDS in Africa, in the Africa trade bill, and trying to 
pass the Caribbean Basin Initiative trade bill and just on and on and 
on. She is the ranking member of the subcommittee of the Judicial 
Committee on Immigration, a big deal for Texas and to the United States.
    Yes, we should enforce our immigration laws. And people who wait 
their turn should not be discriminated against by people who don't. But 
we should never forget, looking around this room, that we are a nation 
of immigrants. Except for the Native Americans, we all came here from 
somewhere else. And even they did, but it was across a landmass that no 
longer exists, many millennia ago. And we should never forget this. All 
of us, one way or the other, got here by the grace of God from somewhere 
else.
    And so, what--we've tried to make it clear that America is stronger 
because we're a nation of immigrants, that our freedom to practice our 
faith is stronger because we welcome people of all faiths to our 
country, and offer them the protections of our Constitution for their 
religious and cultural practices and their right to free speech. And she 
carries the banner of protecting those values in the United States 
Congress.
    Like I said, she just got there. Another thing I said to my Chief of 
Staff, I said, ``You know, if Sheila had 
been in Congress for 20 years, It would take me 3 hours to introduce 
her.'' [Laughter] She will have done so much by then, we'll just have to 
forgo the introduction. [Laughter] This is very important. We need 
people like this.
    You know, I read--as a lot of you know, I read a lot of American 
history, and I spent a lot of time when I was asked by one of the major 
magazines to write an essay on the person I thought should be considered 
the person of

[[Page 33]]

the century. And Time magazine selected Mr. Einstein, which I think is a 
good selection. They could have selected Gandhi; that would have been a 
good selection. They could have selected Franklin Roosevelt or Winston 
Churchill. I argued for Roosevelt. I spent a lot of time; I went back 
and I re-read a lot of the things I'd read about Roosevelt.
    I'll tell you an interesting story. Shortly after Roosevelt 
contracted polio--keep in mind, he was almost 40 years old when he got 
it. He had run for Vice President of the United States at the tender age 
of 38. He was a dashing, handsome, thin man; he cut a great figure on 
the campaign trail in 1920. And he seemed to have the world at his 
finger tips. And there he was, just a couple of years later, hobbled by 
polio.
    And he nourished the dream for many years that he would, in fact, 
walk again. And he also knew that, whatever happened, he had to keep 
fighting. So at length, he decided he would take an office in New York, 
in a highrise, and he would actually try to go to work there. But 
because he wanted to leave open the possibility of walking again, he 
would not be seen in his wheelchair.
    So he had these big braces, and at the time they were heavy and 
awkward and impossible to navigate. And he walked into this New York 
highrise the first day, and he got up, and he fell flat on his face. And 
there was no one there to pick him up. And everyone was staring at him. 
Now keep in mind, just a year or so ago he had run for Vice President. 
And even though the Democrats had lost, no one thought it was his fault. 
And he was alone, lying on his face in New York. And he pushed himself 
up off the floor and threw his head back and laughed and smiled and drug 
himself across the floor to the wall, straightened his braces out, and 
pulled himself up.
    What is the lesson in that? Life is 50 percent what happens to you 
and 50 percent in how you respond to what happens to you. You can lose a 
lot of options in life, but as long as you're breathing and thinking, 
you've still got some left--a large number. The thing is to make the 
most of the moment, with heart.
    I think that your Member of Congress has done that. I admire her, 
and I'm honored to be here for her tonight.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 6:50 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to reception hosts Jenard and Gail Gross; Mrs. 
Gross' mother, Ida Fink; Mayor Lee P. Brown of Houston; former Secretary 
of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen and his wife, B.A.; Billie Carr, chair, 
Texas Democratic Committee; gospel singer Kathy Taylor-Brown; actress 
Goldie Hawn; Reform Party founder H. Ross Perot; actor Chevy Chase; and 
Representative Jackson Lee's husband, Elwyn C. Lee, and son, Jason C.B. 
Lee.