WASHINGTON — Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat who had spent a record 30 years as a member of Texas’ Congressional delegation and a longtime progressive champion, died on Friday while in hospice care from pancreatic cancer. She was 74.
A relative unknown who squeaked by four-term incumbent US Rep Craig Washington in the 1994 Democratic primary, Jackson Lee’s fortunes grew in tandem with hers: first a congresswoman and then a Houston fixture with her own oasis of office space intended to keep her gathering power close at hand and connected to the very highest echelon of the Democratic Party.
Jackson Lee was a left-wing mainstay on Capitol Hill for decades: an early opponent of the Iraq War and a gay rights pioneer. In June 2021, she was arrested for civil disobedience over a federal voting rights bill. She was a ranking member of the House Judiciary, Homeland Security and Budget committees at the time of her death. No member of Congress, progressive or conservative, has been more willing for decades to hold forth on the House floor or face the cameras and talk about the issues she cared about.
She was practically a celebrity in the neighbourhood and the 18th Congressional District (which includes Downtown Houston). She was constantly turning up at constituent graduations, funerals and baby showers.
And she used her signature chutzpah in pushing for federal dollars directed to Houston: she won $1 billion in 2009 for one of the city’s light systems after she cornered then-Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood the night before then-President Barack Obama’s first address before a joint session of Congress, and she could always be found during State of the Union address receptions in the aisle before the president’s address, the only legislator to typically press flesh with him as his attends to the stage.
‘Sheila is … a real fighter, in my book. When she believes in something or someone, she goes to bat.’ Frank Pallone, Democrat Congressman from New Jersey, 2017
But that determination took a backseat this year as her illness kept her out of House almost every day in June, and almost every day in May, according the House Clerk.
Jackson Lee (of course!) was rocking and rolling not that long ago. In fact, the longtime congresswoman flipped to run for mayor of Houston last year.
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‘I hope in the 28 years I’ve served as your City Council member … I’ve been a very humble servant and I want to come home to the CityCathedral Church where I was baptised as your [sic] Mayor, Sheila Jackson Lee.’
The move had been rumoured for months: her bruising defeat in the primary effectively made it a messy, fish-rot odour debacle after a leaked verbatim tape last autumn of her screaming a series of four-letter adjectives at an aide went viral, with a high level of staff turnover already long her hallmark. Jackson Lee had been endorsed by the outgoing-Mayor Sylvester Turner and fellow Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, minority leader of the House of Representatives. But Jackson Lee lost the race to former-state Sen. John Whitmire, a fellow Democrat.
The following year, Jackson Lee faced an unprecedented competitive primary against Amanda Edwards, a former intern in her office who years earlier ran for Houston city council. By virtue of decades of relationships throughout her party, Jackson Lee received the support of the Democratic establishment, all the way up to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. House Democratic leadership threw their support behind the incumbent, as did the former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. She won with nearly more than 22 points.
Raised in Queens, New York, Jackson Lee graduated from Yale University in 1972 (among the first classes of women the university graduated), and from the University of Virginia Law School in 1975. Shortly after, she followed her husband, Elwyn Lee, also a fellow Yale graduate and a native Houstonian, to Houston after he took a job at the University of Houston.
She’d first served on the Houston city council before her 1994 effort to win a seat in Congress, joined there by Austin Democratic Rep Lloyd Doggett (the two of them were the longest-serving Texans in the House at the time of Jackson Lee’s death).
When she arrived in Congress, Jackson Lee developed close relationships with her caucus leadership, and across her caucus. She’s run for her friends’ reelections in distant districts, and in the Capitol for relevant leadership positions. She’s been crucial to John Pallone’s bid to become the highest-ranking Democrat on the most powerful committee in the House – the Energy and Commerce committee – and she’s called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to once again pick up the gavel for 2018, amid a left-wing insurrection against her. She also served as one of 10 deputies to House Minority Whip Katherine Clark.
These close ties also have advantages: she was the first female Ranking Member of the Judiciary Subcommittee for Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, and she chaired the subcommittee from 2020-22. She also served as a surrogate for the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 and was chosen to speak at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. The Clinton campaign staff praised her as a highly effective surrogate.
Close friends and supporters released statements late Friday. ‘Whether it was a crisis or a tragedy – or a victory – I was inspired and sustained daily by Sheila’s commitment, dedication to those in her district that was the same yesterday, today and tomorrow – by what she did, what she said and what she accomplished,’ wrote the longtime Houston state senator Rodney Ellis, who is now a Harris County commissioner.
The city’s former mayor, Turner, hailed her as a champion of Houston’s people: ‘She worked on the ground, in some of the poorest, under-resourced communities; she steered billions of federal dollars back to her district; she visited someone at the bedside, bringing solace to grieving families whose loved ones were lost; she came to places of worship, cultural ceremonies and programming that celebrated the global diversity of our City; and she demonstrated an uncanny ability to be everywhere, always working for those who needed an advocate.’
Jackson Lee stood in the footsteps of the groundbreaking men and women who served in the 18th Congressional District before her including Barbara Jordan, the first African American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives, and Mickey Leland, who previously served as the At-Large Majority Whip.
Nor was Jackson Lee immune to criticism, especially over her strong desire for the spotlight and her high staff turnover; Washingtonian Magazine named her one of the ‘meanest’ members of Congress for her behaviour toward her staff.
Jackson Lee has also apologised for the leaked audio of her abusing staff last year: ‘in my zeal to do everything possible to deliver for my constituents I have in the past fallen short of my own standards and there is no excuse for that’, she said at the time.
Yet she still notes that, while away from the lab, she’s often treated ‘totally differently’ from her white, male peers, who haven’t had these criticisms regarding their treatment of staff follow them down the pike as she has.
‘I’m an older woman,’ she explained to the Tribune in 2017. ‘I think I’ve been sexist, I’ve been a victim of sexism, I’ve been a victim of racism – I guess a whole host of things, because I’m sure a whole host of things could be written, and I don’t go looking for them … [I] don’t worry about it. I do the job in this office. I do it quietly and consistently, and I check the boxes of who gets helped and who’s next in line.’