Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee on Capitol Hill Dec. 11, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, Pool)
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has represented Texas’s 18th congressional district since 1995. Now, the 73-year-old politician says she will run for mayor of Houston. Texas’s 18th district includes much of inner city Houston and the surrounding area.
That announcement makes some wonder what will happen to the reparations study bill she sponsored, H.R.40.
The crowded mayoral contest is already well underway, with the front-runner being state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, ABC News reported. Also in the running are Chris Hollins, the former Harris County clerk; Robert Gallegos, a member of the Houston City Council; Gilbert Garcia, former chairman of the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority; and Amanda Edwards, a former City Council member.
The election is in November, and the seat is open because incumbent Sylvester Turner is term-limited.
In 2022 she touted the success of H.R. 40, which calls for the creation of an expert panel to study the legacy of slavery and consider reparations for Black Americans.
At the time, Rep. Lee, the bill’s sponsor, said since it passed the Judiciary Committee, the measure had gained support.
“Since 1989 … we’ve filed H.R. 40, which was filed initially by [the late Michigan Democratic Rep.] John Conyers. [It] was filed right after the passage of the American Civil Liberties Act in 1988, which provided, and rightly so, reparations for the Japanese Americans that were interned in the 1940s,” Rep. Lee told Politico.
She continued, “So we could look at it and say that it has been that long. But I take the response in a positive way, which is, in a matter of the intensity [over] the three years when the collection of over 300 organizations have been meeting and strategizing and recognizing that now is the time. Our call to action is why we can’t wait. The same message that Dr. King used as they moved forward the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act of 1965 Voting Rights Act. It was not easy.”
She added, “This is a success.”
But it later turned out the support never materialized, and there were not enough votes to clear the House.
And when Senator Cory Booker earlier this year reintroduced S.40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, Rep. Lee backed it.
The legislation would establish a commission to consider proposals for reparations for African American descendants of slavery. The legislation is the Senate companion to H.R. 40.
Political observers are weighing Rep. Lee’s changes to become the next mayor of Houston, and the first woman to run the city. Her reputation in Congress has been stained by staff complaints about a toxic work environment and even a lawsuit filed by one ex-staffer who was fired.
Fox News reported that Rep. Lee Jackson Lee “has long been known as one of the most difficult members of Congress to work for.”
“She has high negatives among a significant share of the population, which means they’re going to vote for anyone other than Sheila Jackson Lee,” noted Rice University political science professor Mark Jones to Fox 26 News.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas speaks during a House Judiciary Committee markup of the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill, Dec. 11, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, Pool)
