Yet they overwhelmingly re-elect her.
District 18 voters - do you see a problem here?
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Posted on 08/31/2002 9:31:56 PM PDT by GOPcapitalist
WASHINGTON -- Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is a house afire.
She speaks up at news conferences and on the House floor, with a knack for showing up in front of the news cameras and C-SPAN.
Back in her Houston district, she jumps from funerals to birthday parties to school board meetings to job fairs, booked from early morning until late at night.
Even her critics concede that she lives for her constituents in the 18th U.S. Congressional District, despite her New York roots and Yale education.
But Jackson Lee's strengths also are her weaknesses.
Some staffers and critics say her pace and management style cause staff turnover and prevent her from running an efficient office.
And federal data suggest her constituents pay a price.
Records acquired under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that Jackson Lee has done a fraction of the casework -- inquiries or intercessions with the federal government on behalf of residents -- done by other Houston-area lawmakers.
For example, Jackson Lee, who has been critical of the Social Security Administration for mishandling the appeals of Texans who have been denied disability insurance, wrote the agency on behalf of 79 constituents since taking office in 1995.
By comparison, Rep. Nick Lampson's office intervened on behalf of 539 people in his district since he took office in 1997.
The Beaumont Democrat, like Jackson Lee, represents communities where many residents rely on disability and supplemental Social Security coverage.
Democratic Rep. Gene Green, who has written the agency on behalf of 538 constituents since 1995, also represents many poor Houstonians, some in neighborhoods adjacent to Jackson Lee's district.
High staff turnover
Jackson Lee declined numerous requests to be interviewed, or to answer questions regarding her constituent services, although she issued a statement that said: "I look forward to the Houston Chronicle allowing me to present the full and complete story of the record of service of my staff and myself to the 18th Congressional District in a fair and equitable manner as soon as possible."
Her defenders say the problem is with her employees, not the congresswoman.
"People who came to work for her thought this was a fancy job," said Gerald Womack, a former district manager for Jackson Lee with close personal and political ties to her. "And when it got down to doing the (case)work, they were not ready for it."
But other employees who have worked for Jackson Lee said she works her people unreasonable hours and can be abrasive, leading staffers to quit at a brisk pace. With high turnover, work goes unfinished, they said.
"There'd be casework stacked to the ceiling," said one of Jackson Lee's former district directors, who asked not to be named.
Nathan Williams, who went to work for Jackson Lee in 1998 after graduating from Princeton University, said he quit in 2001 after she threw a cell phone at him.
"I don't think I ever got home before 11 o'clock at night," he said of his years with the congresswoman. "And the latest I was in the office was at 8:30 in the morning -- at the latest.
"I'm not mad about it, because I chose to do it," he said. "I loved the work, I truly did. Even now I miss it. But doing that seven days a week, I couldn't take it anymore."
Gladys Quinto, an attorney who quit Jackson Lee's office in April after six months as legislative counsel, said the congresswoman threatened to fire her twice in her first week there. "She also asked me to write a memo telling her why I'm incompetent."
Lillian German, Jackson Lee's chief of staff at the time, said Quinto was among her most competent employees.
Former district director Larry Green said the congresswoman's constituents have more problems than those of other lawmakers, which spreads her staff thin.
He said a backlog developed in 2001, the year before his employment, because Jackson Lee had no district director. "When you don't have a district director monitoring the activities, a lot of times things are not done or resolved."
He defended Jackson Lee's record and commitment to her constituents, but added: "Of course, turnover is a problem."
Green left in the spring, after six months. He has not been replaced.
Goes with the office
Since taking office in 1995, Jackson Lee has had about 125 employees, not including temporary staffers and part-timers. In her first year, she lost 14 people, making turnover in her office the highest among freshman lawmakers.
First-year House members lost an average of 3.4 workers that year.
Rep. Ken Bentsen, D-Houston, who was elected the same year as Jackson Lee, has had a total of 38 employees -- including seven who have been with him since he took office.
Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, who took office in 1993, has had a total of 45 employees.
On average, congressional staff members remain in the same House office for 3.7 years, according to the Congressional Management Fund. Jackson Lee's staff average is less than a year.
This year, by June 30, at least seven people had left Jackson Lee's Washington office, according to congressional records. At any one time, she has five to seven staffers employed in her Capitol Hill office and others employed back in her district.
In Washington, some former staffers have formed a "Sheila Club." They meet for drinks and meals, and to trade gossip.
Leon Buck, who had been Jackson Lee's only long-term Washington employee before leaving recently to become a lobbyist, said the congresswoman sees turnover as something that goes along with her office.
He said she doesn't worry about it, and she doesn't intend to change.
House members run relatively small operations, employing roughly 15 people at a time, usually with half in Washington to work on legislation, the other half in their districts to help constituents with government-related problems.
They initiate formal written congressional inquiries, and federal agencies must follow through.
That gives congressional offices unique power to demand answers for residents on Social Security coverage, low-income housing loans, high school students' applications to military academies or problems with the Internal Revenue Service.
"Once you're struggling with the federal government, you're at your wits' end," said Pat Strong, Bentsen's chief of staff and district director. "So you need an advocate, someone who can help cut through the red tape."
The work also is considered invaluable to getting lawmakers re-elected, although Jackson Lee has had no trouble keeping the votes of her constituents.
"The bottom line is, the woman is a hard worker," said Womack, her former district manager. "She's been a very strong force for this district."
Among the Houston area's seven congressional districts, Jackson Lee's stands out for its high concentration of black and Hispanic voters and its poverty and unemployment rates.
Her staffers say those constituents need more help than those in other districts.
But former staffers said the congresswoman would place unrelated demands on their time, such as driving her to events and organizing news conferences.
Former caseworkers said Jackson Lee's large immigrant community needed a lot of help dealing with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. But data show relatively few inquiries were made from her office.
In the eight-month period between Oct. 1, 2001, and June 1, Jackson Lee's office wrote to the INS on behalf of 31 constituents.
In the same period, Bentsen's office wrote on behalf of 101 residents. The other Houston-area lawmakers each wrote letters to assist between 61 and 84 constituents.
See link for rest of article.
Would love to know how Harkin came out on the same survey. He's a mighty nasty guy, and I have read that he is widely disliked by his Senatorial colleagues.
That's right, sheila-flag-on-Mars jackson - let them eat cake.
May she go the way of sinthia mckinney.
Or Barbara Lee, congresscritter from Berzerkeley, CA, the only no vote on the September vote to authorize retaliation against terrorists. (What is it with these black congresscritters named after the Lees of Virginia).
Sorry, my vote still goes to Robert Wexler...and come on, Maxine is worse than Sheila.
Yet they overwhelmingly re-elect her.
District 18 voters - do you see a problem here?
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Regards, Ivan
Somebody goofed.
No kidding. I can't believe I didn't catch that.
I don't know about that. All three are bad, but I still have to stick with Sheila. It's just her style of doing things
Sheila flew all over the nation just so she could stick her face in front of a camera and make Castro's case for him during Elian Gonzales. She has to be at the center of every issue and even the dems concede that she's constantly dumping frivolous amendments onto whatever the current legislation may be just because the amendment bears her name - she does it more that mad maxine, wexler, or any of the others...plus she's always dressed in bright pink when she's doing it.
I don't think Sheila has the same feelings for Castro that our friend from Georgia had for the Arabs. Having lived in Houston (back when Mickey Leland held the seat) I just don't get the sense that Sheila is as much of a traitor as she is being painted in this thread. I think she believed the kid belonged with his father, which admittedly, is how I felt, politics aside. I know I'm not upholding the party line here, but that's what I felt. I also lived in South Florida and know what the Cuban community can be like, and I don't like the idea of a relatively small group of people in the country controlling our foreign policy. Well, you'll probably be calling me a traitor, too. But that's how it goes I guess.
Next time Sheila is on TV, watch and listen very carefully. She doesn't just automatically dump on Bush and other republicans, calling them names and make wild accusations, like Maxine,Cynthia, Robert and (yuck) Nancy.
I respect her for that.
Plus she has the guts to wear bright colors when she's overweight.
I respect her for that, too. :)
The bottom line was that Sheila had practically no business in the matter but stuck herself in the middle of it at every opportunity. It's unusual that a Texas congresswoman would undertake so much effort to stick herself in the middle of a dispute taking place in South Florida as if she knew the issue better than the local reps there such as, say, Lincoln Diaz-Balart.
I also don't believe she cared one bit about the father's rights. For Sheila it was all another publicity stunt. As a constituent I've seen it all too often from her - she's madly in love with the camera and will claw her way to one at every chance. But if some problem in the district doesn't get her publicity she ignores it. I tend to think of her as Mickey Leland without tact, and that's not saying, IMHO, that he had much to begin with.
True, but I think it's something more to do with the fact that it makes her stand out in the crowd as the center of attention. When you're watching the state of the union or something you see a congress full of people in black, blue, and brown. Then there's Sheila in bright pink sticking out like a sore thumb in the middle of it all. I believe she does it because she knows it will make her recognizable when they pan out over the chamber. It's not anything on her part to make some sort of statement about something - it's all "look at me - I'm sheila."
And that's just the way she is. I've heard horror stories about her on airplanes where she's instructed the flight crew that she is to be "treated as a queen." Continental even suggested that she do her travel on another airline once after she got in a fight with the flight crew over a fish dinner or something. The lady is truly obsessed with herself.
I interviewed Leland once when he called a state republican leader a "racist bastard" and "you can quote me on that." So we did.
But I kind of admired him in a way. You obviously know Sheila better than I do, but I probably know the South Florida Cubans and how they operate better than you. I also know a fair amount about the Congressional Black Caucus from a, shall we say, non-traditional perspective. I know Sheila has to play it careful when it came to Bush since he was the governor and all, but I still believe she has a heart and a brain, (despite the way Rush handles her on his show) which is more than can be said for any of the aforementioned members of Congress. In fact, it is rare among congressional members to begin with. I could be wrong. But if I had to purge people from Congress, Sheila would not be first on my list, as already noted. Thanks for not flaming me.
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