Editor’s Note: We encourage all candidates running to represent our state in 2020 to share their reasons for running. We will run your piece in its entirety when possible.
Senator Chet Brooks, “Senator, the only thing missing in this portrait is your voice. It just isn’t you.”
Congresswoman (former Senator) Barbara Jordan,” Senator, those walls have been needing a touch of color, and when my painting hangs amid the August people on the walls of this chamber, believe me, it’s gonna talk.”
I was there in the Senate chamber in 1973 the day when the Hon. Barbara Jordan’s portrait was hung. I was twelve years old. My mother took my brothers and me to tour the Capitol. Mom realized that something special was going on.
We watched the Congresswoman’s Senate colleagues honor her work with a ceremony to hang her new portrait. That work included fighting for equal rights, public education, fair labor, voting rights and environmental protection.
I watched in awe as that amazing black woman spoke truth to powerful white men. Though I was just a child I realized I was witnessing history.
Everything about her amazed me. Her moral strength was evident to even a child. Her voice has been described to be like God. Even more important than her voice and cadence was her message.
The next year I saw her on the televised Watergate Judicial Committee hearings. This time the amazing black woman was in an even more impressive place addressing even more powerful men speaking truth about impeaching the president. And again, she commanded the room with her intellect, moral strength and speech. The Hon. Barbara Jordan spoke of her complete and total faith in the Constitution and her refusal to be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion or the destruction that Constitution.
Two years later, while a teenager, I watched her make history again as the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention. There the Hon. Barbara Jordan spoke of attempting to fulfill the promise of America to fulfill our national purpose to create and sustain a society in which all of us are equal. She spoke of the government’s obligation to remove all obstacles emanating from race, sex and economic condition that block individual achievement. In speaking for the Democratic Party, the Congresswoman said,” We believe in equality for all and privilege for none.”
Barbara Jordan went on to say that these principles are indigenous to the American idea and not negotiable. She spoke of the responsibility of each of us in this nation to uphold the common good.
Barbara Jordan continued to state that public officials had a further responsibility to provide a vision for the future and to hold themselves strictly accountable. She described the fulfillment of those responsibilities to require much more than slogans, handshakes and press releases.
She closed her speech by saying that the obligation of government was to strike a balance between the idea that government should do everything and the idea that government should do nothing.
This all occurred before I would watch my father raise his hand six times as he took the oath of office for the Texas House Of Representatives beginning in 1979.
And it all occurred before I would raise my hand to take the oath to practice law in Texas and four more times to serve as an elected district judge in Galveston County.
All of those oaths are to protect and defend the Constitutions of the United States and of Texas.
On some levels I always knew that the words of Barbara Jordan and the words of those oaths were very important. But it would take years of witnessing injustices in government and the “justice system” to truly appreciate their meaning and importance.
Each oath ends in “So help me God.” That is a request to God to help the speaker live up to the task of defending the Constitutions. I have come to wonder if many office holders who take such oaths have read the Constitutions since grade school, if at all. I suspect some are confused about which word in the last sentence of the oath should be accented. Some think the purpose is to “Help ME God.” Barbara Jordan was not confused about that.
During my dad’s twelve years of service in the Legislature I sat in the galleries of the Texas House and Senate many more times. I never forgot Barbara Jordan’s words. I also listened to Senators Babe Schwartz ,Craig Washington and others as they fought to protect the Constitutions and ensure equality for all and privilege for none.
As a judge and as an attorney I testified before House and Senate committees about jail diversion for the mentally ill and voting rights. I saw firsthand in courtrooms how just and unjust laws and their applications affect America’s promise of equality for all and privilege for none.
Now four and a half decades after I watched Barbara Jordan’s portrait hung in the chambers of the Texas Senate I am running to sit in her seat- Senate District 11.
The first question a candidate making such an announcement must be prepared to be asked is, “Why are you running?” The second is why should anyone vote for you?”
My answers to both questions are found in the words of Barbara Jordan and the words written and spoken of her.
Molly Ivins described Barbara Jordan’s work in Congress and the Texas Senate in 1996. Ivins wrote “She believed the law has to be made carefully and thoughtfully to bring about greater justice. She moved deliberately but with great force to use the law to create justice.”
I believe that as well.
I believe in equality for all and privilege for none.
I believe the government has an obligation to remove obstacles of race, sex, economic conditions and others such as sexual preference, disabilities, and religious that block individual achievement.
I believe these ideas are indigenous to the American idea and are not negotiable.
I believe that each of us has a responsibility to uphold the common good.
I believe public officials should offer visions for the future.
I believe public officials should be held strictly accountable.
I believe that public officials owe the public much more than slogans, handshakes and press releases.
I believe that a balance should be struck between the ideas that government should do everything and that governments should do nothing.
I believe in America’s promise to fulfill our national purpose to create and sustain a society in which all of us are equal.
My faith in the Constitution is complete and total.
I refuse to be an idle spectator in it’s diminution, subversion or destruction.
That is why I am running to be the State Senator in Senate District 11.
So help me God.
