In 1994, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee was elected to Congress for the first time. Brian and I proudly voted for her, and for Governor Ann Richards. We moved from Houston to Florida in 1995. From Houston Chronicle:
Friends, community leaders and elected officials from both sides if the aisle heaped praise on the life and career of U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died Friday after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was 74.
Jackson Lee "passed from this world and into the pantheon of legendary Texas leaders," said Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said in a statement Friday.
"Through crises and disasters – as well as triumphs – Sheila's ceaseless and unwavering dedication to those she represented served as an inspiration and source of strength to me in my career," Ellis said.
"She was a tireless advocate for Houston," U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. "I will always cherish our friendship & the laughs we shared throughout the years. Heidi & I offer our prayers and sincerest condolences to her family."
Former Mayor Sylvester Turner said that what made Jackson Lee "truly exceptional" was "her uncanny ability to be everywhere, working every day for those who needed a champion."
"Even if you disagreed with her politics, you had to respect her work ethic," Turner said. "Sheila Jackson Lee left it all on the field."
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo called Jackson Lee a “champion for her community" in a statement on X.
“The Congresswoman was never afraid to lend her fearless voice to move mountains not just for her constituents, but for all in Harris County and any place she could make a difference,” Hidalgo wrote. “Her strength and stamina were truly never-ending and her determination to rally a chorus to the fuse of justice was unwavering."
Mayor John Whitmire called Jackson Lee a tireless champion for her constituents to the very end.
"Despite her illness, she worked as hard as she could for as long as she could for the 18th Congressional District," he said in a statement. "Only a few months ago, we worked together at the Houston Office of Emergency Management and with FEMA to help Houstonians recover from the derecho. I ask Houstonians to join me in praying for her husband, children, grandchildren and extended family. May she rest in peace."
Isaiah Martin, who previously ran for Jackson Lee's seat, called her an inspiration.
"You taught us how to serve, how to fight, and how to relentlessly work for change," Martin wrote on X. "But most importantly, you cared. You cared so so much for others. There will never be another Sheila Jackson Lee."
Commissioner Adrian Garcia said in a Friday statement that words couldn't fully express Jackson Lee's impact.
"The word ‘tireless’ gets thrown around in politics, but there’s no one I’ve ever met with that kind of work ethic who could compare Congresswoman Jackson Lee," Garcia wrote. "Her work didn’t only benefit the Houstonians she represented for decades; it helped make our nation better for all Americans.”
Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, called Jackson Lee an “extraordinary advocate for her district."
“Her values, and her impact and achievements will be long remembered,” he wrote on X.
"This is a great loss to people across the globe suffering injustice," U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, wrote on X. "Although we’ve lost her physical presence, her spiritual presence will continue to reside in all who knew her."
U.S. Rep. Colin Allred wrote on X that Jackson Lee was "a fierce advocate for Houston and her constituents."
"No one worked harder for her community and if Houston needed something, she got it done," the Democratic nominee to represent the state in the U.S. Senate wrote.
Said U.S. Rep Marc Veasey, a North Texas Democrat: “Job well done!” he wrote on X.
U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, a Houston Republican, said in a statement late Friday that he was proud to call Jackson Lee a friend.
“Although we had our political disagreements, there were many moments with her, both public and private, that showed me that bipartisanship and service to country first can still bring members of Congress together," Hunt said.
Preston Middleton, Jackson Lee’s campaign adviser, described a courageous woman with a voracious sense of humor.
“Her ground game and her bedside manner with constituents was Michael Jordan-esque, it was Kobe Bryant … I saw greatness close up,” Middleton said late Friday, referring to the basketball superstars.
He remembered her as someone who he would laugh and joke with, as someone who loved Jamaican and soul food. The pair would often hit up Denny’s on Southmore – Jackson Lee would order a Super Slam breakfast with eggs, bacon, pancakes, hash browns and orange juice – to talk about her goals for the district. It was in these moments that Jackson Lee became like family to Middleton.
“Sometimes I would slip up and call (her) mom,” Middleton said. “I didn't mean to, it'd just kind of come out, but she was more like an aunt to me than she was Congresswoman. And that's the part of her, the loving, caring part ... the loving part of her is what you saw and how she handled people.”
Abby Church is a City Hall reporter for the Houston Chronicle. She can be reached at abby.church@houstonchronicle.com.
From The Washington Post:
Sheila Jackson Lee, outspoken Texas congresswoman, dies at 74
The long-serving Democrat, a champion of African American and women’s rights, announced in June that she had pancreatic cancer.
10 min
By Emily LangerRep. Jackson Lee, the daughter of a hospital orderly and a night-shift vocational nurse, grew up far from Texas, in the New York City borough of Queens. She received a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a law degree from the University of Virginia before moving with her husband to Texas, where he was from, and where she began her political career as a municipal judge and a member of the Houston City Council.
She was first elected in 1994 to her Houston-based congressional seat, which was once held by the charismatic African American congresswoman Barbara Jordan. Rep. Jackson Lee quickly established herself as an outspoken advocate for racial and gender equality, voting rights and the revision of the criminal justice system.
She was a lead sponsor of legislation that in 2021, after decades of lobbying by advocates, recognized as a federal holiday June 19, or Juneteenth, a date that has come to memorialize the end of slavery in the United States.
She also spearheaded legislation that in 2022 reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, which was enacted in 1994 but expired in 2019. The original law provided protections for women against domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. Under Rep. Jackson Lee’s leadership, it was expanded, among other ways, to specifically address Native American, transgender and immigrant women.
Critics accused Rep. Jackson Lee of drawing attention to herself, in addition to her causes. She offered dizzying arrays of amendments that had little to no chance of passing and, according to C-SPAN data, was among the members who spent the most time speaking on the House floor, including when the chamber was empty.
At the annual State of the Union address, she made it her practice to arrive hours in advance to secure an aisle seat from which to be seen on TV interacting with the president as he made his way to and from the podium.
Also complicating Rep. Jackson’s Lee reputation were accounts of her mistreatment of staff members, whom she reportedly required to chauffeur her around Washington, dispatched on personal errands, phoned after midnight and scolded harshly for what she regarded as their shortcomings.
Her office was known for having one of the highest turnover rates on Capitol Hill. In 2023, during an unsuccessful run for mayor of Houston, she expressed regret when a recording emerged of her insulting her campaign staff in a profanity-laced tirade.
Rep. Jackson Lee said she attempted to ignore the criticism aimed at her and attributed it, at least in part, to sexism and racism.
“I have been in the skin of a woman and an African-American, and I understand the injustices we have to live through,” she told the Texas Tribune in 2017. She added, “I just take it with a smile because I love the institution” of Congress.
Politicians are often labeled, fairly or unfairly, as “workhorses” or “showhorses.” In many estimations, Rep. Jackson Lee fell squarely in the latter category. Robert Stein, a professor of political science at Rice University in Houston who followed Rep. Jackson Lee’s career for decades, said she was a “showhorse” — but not in a negative way.
“She was a showhorse for the causes she cared about,” Stein said, also remarking that “she staked out a career in the Congress that I think suited her and her abilities.”
In response to criticism that Rep. Jackson Lee was a publicity-seeking politician who demanded too much of her staff, Stein cited what he described as a double standard for men and women in politics. “If this was a White male, we would have said he was a great politician,” he said. “When she’s a Black woman from [Queens] who moves to Houston — nobody ever gave her a break.”
Admirers lauded Rep. Jackson Lee for pushing causes that she believed in even when she was unlikely to see them prevail. Foremost among those causes was the campaign to obtain reparations for African Americans as a means of redressing the enduring consequences of slavery.
In 2021, Rep. Jackson Lee successfully pushed H.R. 40, a bill to create a commission on the matter of reparations, through the Judiciary Committee. That committee vote was as far as the proposal had advanced on Capitol Hill since then-congressman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) began advocating reparations more than three decades earlier.
“We’re asking for people to understand the pain, the violence, the brutality, the chattel-ness of what we went through,” Rep. Jackson Lee said. “And, of course, we’re asking for harmony, reconciliation, reason to come together as Americans.”
Within the House, Rep. Jackson Lee served as chief deputy Democratic whip and was a member of the Homeland Security and Budget committees in addition to the Judiciary Committee.
Back in her district, she was known as a consummate politician, always on hand for weddings and funerals.
Rep. Jackson Lee took pride in her reputation for showing up, whether at local gatherings or the State of the Union address. It was her job, she said, to represent her constituents as forcefully as she could.
n 2009, when President Barack Obama made his first address to a joint session of Congress, Rep. Jackson Lee was ready when the transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, appeared in the chamber.
“As he walked down the aisle, I made the final push for Houston being in the president’s budget … and for Houston being the first city that Secretary LaHood visited, and what were the results? We got in the president’s ’09 budget … and he made our city the first city to visit,” Rep. Jackson Lee told the Texas Tribune. “I hosted him the entire day.”
The long-serving Democrat, a champion of African American and women’s rights, announced in June that she had pancreatic cancer.
Rep. Jackson Lee, the daughter of a hospital orderly and a night-shift vocational nurse, grew up far from Texas, in the New York City borough of Queens. She received a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a law degree from the University of Virginia before moving with her husband to Texas, where he was from, and where she began her political career as a municipal judge and a member of the Houston City Council.
She was first elected in 1994 to her Houston-based congressional seat, which was once held by the charismatic African American congresswoman Barbara Jordan. Rep. Jackson Lee quickly established herself as an outspoken advocate for racial and gender equality, voting rights and the revision of the criminal justice system.
She was a lead sponsor of legislation that in 2021, after decades of lobbying by advocates, recognized as a federal holiday June 19, or Juneteenth, a date that has come to memorialize the end of slavery in the United States.
She also spearheaded legislation that in 2022 reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, which was enacted in 1994 but expired in 2019. The original law provided protections for women against domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. Under Rep. Jackson Lee’s leadership, it was expanded, among other ways, to specifically address Native American, transgender and immigrant women.
Critics accused Rep. Jackson Lee of drawing attention to herself, in addition to her causes. She offered dizzying arrays of amendments that had little to no chance of passing and, according to C-SPAN data, was among the members who spent the most time speaking on the House floor, including when the chamber was empty.
At the annual State of the Union address, she made it her practice to arrive hours in advance to secure an aisle seat from which to be seen on TV interacting with the president as he made his way to and from the podium.
Also complicating Rep. Jackson’s Lee reputation were accounts of her mistreatment of staff members, whom she reportedly required to chauffeur her around Washington, dispatched on personal errands, phoned after midnight and scolded harshly for what she regarded as their shortcomings.
Her office was known for having one of the highest turnover rates on Capitol Hill. In 2023, during an unsuccessful run for mayor of Houston, she expressed regret when a recording emerged of her insulting her campaign staff in a profanity-laced tirade.
Rep. Jackson Lee said she attempted to ignore the criticism aimed at her and attributed it, at least in part, to sexism and racism.
“I have been in the skin of a woman and an African-American, and I understand the injustices we have to live through,” she told the Texas Tribune in 2017. She added, “I just take it with a smile because I love the institution” of Congress.
Politicians are often labeled, fairly or unfairly, as “workhorses” or “showhorses.” In many estimations, Rep. Jackson Lee fell squarely in the latter category. Robert Stein, a professor of political science at Rice University in Houston who followed Rep. Jackson Lee’s career for decades, said she was a “showhorse” — but not in a negative way.
“She was a showhorse for the causes she cared about,” Stein said, also remarking that “she staked out a career in the Congress that I think suited her and her abilities.”
In response to criticism that Rep. Jackson Lee was a publicity-seeking politician who demanded too much of her staff, Stein cited what he described as a double standard for men and women in politics. “If this was a White male, we would have said he was a great politician,” he said. “When she’s a Black woman from [Queens] who moves to Houston — nobody ever gave her a break.”
Admirers lauded Rep. Jackson Lee for pushing causes that she believed in even when she was unlikely to see them prevail. Foremost among those causes was the campaign to obtain reparations for African Americans as a means of redressing the enduring consequences of slavery.
In 2021, Rep. Jackson Lee successfully pushed H.R. 40, a bill to create a commission on the matter of reparations, through the Judiciary Committee. That committee vote was as far as the proposal had advanced on Capitol Hill since then-congressman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) began advocating reparations more than three decades earlier.
“We’re asking for people to understand the pain, the violence, the brutality, the chattel-ness of what we went through,” Rep. Jackson Lee said. “And, of course, we’re asking for harmony, reconciliation, reason to come together as Americans.”
Within the House, Rep. Jackson Lee served as chief deputy Democratic whip and was a member of the Homeland Security and Budget committees in addition to the Judiciary Committee.
Back in her district, she was known as a consummate politician, always on hand for weddings and funerals.
Rep. Jackson Lee took pride in her reputation for showing up, whether at local gatherings or the State of the Union address. It was her job, she said, to represent her constituents as forcefully as she could.
n 2009, when President Barack Obama made his first address to a joint session of Congress, Rep. Jackson Lee was ready when the transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, appeared in the chamber.
“As he walked down the aisle, I made the final push for Houston being in the president’s budget … and for Houston being the first city that Secretary LaHood visited, and what were the results? We got in the president’s ’09 budget … and he made our city the first city to visit,” Rep. Jackson Lee told the Texas Tribune. “I hosted him the entire day.”
Chance at an education
Sheila Jackson, one of two children, was born in Queens on Jan. 12, 1950.
Her father had been an artist for Marvel Comics in the 1940s, but he lost his job when White colleagues returned to theirs after serving in World War II, according to the Houston Chronicle. He later worked as a day laborer and as a hospital orderly. Her mother cared for premature babies at a hospital affiliated with the Salvation Army.
Rep. Jackson Lee attended New York City public schools as they started to desegregate in the 1950s and ’60s. She was bused to predominantly White schools, she recounted, where she overcame discrimination to become involved in student government.
Her junior year, she ran for student council vice president but was elected secretary, a position that she assumed her classmates deemed more appropriate for a female student, she told the Chronicle.
She did not know if she would have the opportunity to attend college until she received a scholarship established at New York University for Black students after the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Years later, reflecting on the tragedy that made it possible to pursue her education, she told the New York Times that she was a beneficiary of the “hills and valleys, the broken bodies and broken hearts, the loss of life of many who have gone on before me.”
She later transferred to Yale, where she studied political science and graduated in 1972, and where she met her future husband, Elwyn Lee, whom she married the next year. She received her law degree from the University of Virginia in 1975.
The couple resided for three years in Washington, where she worked for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, convened to investigate King’s death and the slaying of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Rep. Jackson Lee and her husband then moved to Houston, where she practiced law and mounted three unsuccessful races for local judgeships. She received an appointment to the municipal bench before winning an at-large seat on the Houston City Council in 1989.
In 1994, she challenged Rep. Craig Washington (D), elected in 1989 to fill the seat left vacant when Rep. Mickey Leland (D) was killed in a plane crash in Ethiopia. Rep. Jackson Lee defeated Washington, 63 percent to 37 percent in the primary, then easily won the general election in her highly Democratic district.
Upon her election to the House, Rep. Jackson Lee was awarded a seat on the Judiciary Committee, which under Republican leadership voted, along party lines, to support the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998. Clinton was accused of lying under oath about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Rep. Jackson Lee was one of Clinton’s most ardent defenders, remarking that “I know oppression when I see it” and denouncing Clinton’s impeachment trial in the Senate as “a sledgehammer to catch a fly.” He was acquitted in 1999.
In 2019, Rep. Jackson Lee stepped down as chairman of a Judiciary subcommittee and as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation amid accusations that she fired an aide who had also worked for the foundation and who threatened to sue the foundation over an alleged sexual assault by a supervisor.
Rep. Jackson Lee denied having retaliated against the woman and was reinstated in 2021 as chairman of the subcommittee on crime, terrorism and homeland security.
In her 2023 run for Houston mayor, the nation’s fourth-largest city by population, Rep. Jackson Lee had the endorsements of former president Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton, but she was soundly defeated in a nonpartisan runoff by a longtime Democratic state senator, John Whitmire, who attracted support from centrist Democrats, Republicans and independents with an emphasis on public safety.
In the 2024 congressional election, Rep. Jackson Lee defeated a Democratic challenger, former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards, in the March primary.
Survivors include her husband, of Houston; two children, Jason Lee of Chicago and Erica Carter of Houston; a brother; and two grandchildren.
Reflecting on the forceful approach she took to work on behalf of her constituents and causes, Rep. Jackson Lee told the Times in 1999 that she needed to “make a difference.”
“I don’t have wealth to write a check,” she said. “But maybe I can be a voice arguing consistently for change.”
Sheila Jackson, one of two children, was born in Queens on Jan. 12, 1950.
Her father had been an artist for Marvel Comics in the 1940s, but he lost his job when White colleagues returned to theirs after serving in World War II, according to the Houston Chronicle. He later worked as a day laborer and as a hospital orderly. Her mother cared for premature babies at a hospital affiliated with the Salvation Army.
Rep. Jackson Lee attended New York City public schools as they started to desegregate in the 1950s and ’60s. She was bused to predominantly White schools, she recounted, where she overcame discrimination to become involved in student government.
Her junior year, she ran for student council vice president but was elected secretary, a position that she assumed her classmates deemed more appropriate for a female student, she told the Chronicle.
She did not know if she would have the opportunity to attend college until she received a scholarship established at New York University for Black students after the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Years later, reflecting on the tragedy that made it possible to pursue her education, she told the New York Times that she was a beneficiary of the “hills and valleys, the broken bodies and broken hearts, the loss of life of many who have gone on before me.”
She later transferred to Yale, where she studied political science and graduated in 1972, and where she met her future husband, Elwyn Lee, whom she married the next year. She received her law degree from the University of Virginia in 1975.
The couple resided for three years in Washington, where she worked for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, convened to investigate King’s death and the slaying of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Rep. Jackson Lee and her husband then moved to Houston, where she practiced law and mounted three unsuccessful races for local judgeships. She received an appointment to the municipal bench before winning an at-large seat on the Houston City Council in 1989.
In 1994, she challenged Rep. Craig Washington (D), elected in 1989 to fill the seat left vacant when Rep. Mickey Leland (D) was killed in a plane crash in Ethiopia. Rep. Jackson Lee defeated Washington, 63 percent to 37 percent in the primary, then easily won the general election in her highly Democratic district.
Upon her election to the House, Rep. Jackson Lee was awarded a seat on the Judiciary Committee, which under Republican leadership voted, along party lines, to support the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998. Clinton was accused of lying under oath about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Rep. Jackson Lee was one of Clinton’s most ardent defenders, remarking that “I know oppression when I see it” and denouncing Clinton’s impeachment trial in the Senate as “a sledgehammer to catch a fly.” He was acquitted in 1999.
In 2019, Rep. Jackson Lee stepped down as chairman of a Judiciary subcommittee and as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation amid accusations that she fired an aide who had also worked for the foundation and who threatened to sue the foundation over an alleged sexual assault by a supervisor.
Rep. Jackson Lee denied having retaliated against the woman and was reinstated in 2021 as chairman of the subcommittee on crime, terrorism and homeland security.
In her 2023 run for Houston mayor, the nation’s fourth-largest city by population, Rep. Jackson Lee had the endorsements of former president Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton, but she was soundly defeated in a nonpartisan runoff by a longtime Democratic state senator, John Whitmire, who attracted support from centrist Democrats, Republicans and independents with an emphasis on public safety.
In the 2024 congressional election, Rep. Jackson Lee defeated a Democratic challenger, former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards, in the March primary.
Survivors include her husband, of Houston; two children, Jason Lee of Chicago and Erica Carter of Houston; a brother; and two grandchildren.
Reflecting on the forceful approach she took to work on behalf of her constituents and causes, Rep. Jackson Lee told the Times in 1999 that she needed to “make a difference.”
“I don’t have wealth to write a check,” she said. “But maybe I can be a voice arguing consistently for change.”
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