San Antonio Express-News: Lessons from my first year representing San Antonio in Congress

In my first year in the U.S. Capitol representing San Antonio, I hoped Congress would work on issues such as rising household costs, the worsening drought and extreme winter storms, or gun violence. 

Instead, the Republican House majority filled my days (and your TV screen) with constant threats of government shutdowns, chaotic intraparty skirmishes and the kind of antics — ranging from heated fights to displaying nude photos during committee meetings — that one would expect on reality TV instead of C-SPAN.

These right-wing officials don’t mind if these antics break people’s faith in government. In fact, it’s by design.

Thanks to rampant gerrymandering, unchecked money in politics and unaccountable judges, so many Republican officials have been given a hall pass to do what they’d like, regardless of the needs of voters. In fact, they’re on track to make this the least productive Congress in nearly 100 years.

This year in Congress taught me that extremist Republicans’ preference is to break the government itself, leaving big corporations and the powerful to do as they wish without any checks or balances. Don’t believe me? Look no further than House Republicans’ effort to cut the funding the IRS uses to go after billionaires and corporate tax cheats.

Instead of giving in to despair about the state of Congress, I feel a defiant hope, inspired by the resilience of Texans past and present. Facing even steeper odds, Texans inside and outside of Congress have pushed America forward — taking action and giving us hope.

It was Texas native President Lyndon Baines Johnson who took on Jim Crow and signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It was 26-year-old Texas attorney Sarah Weddington who represented “Jane Roe” in the landmark Roe v. Wade case before the Supreme Court in 1973 and secured reproductive rights for women nationwide. And in 1938, it was a young labor organizer, Emma Tenayuca, who led 12,000 pecan shellers — mostly young, working-class Mexican American women — in a historic strike that reshaped San Antonio’s politics. 

Johnson, Weddington and Tenayuca weren’t pessimists. Facing segregation, sexism and state violence, they embraced a defiant hope. If we want a federal government that works for San Antonians, if we want to take on the challenges of unrepresentative districts, unchecked corporate power and disappearing civil rights, we need hope.

We can fight the unaccountable corporate money in politics allowed by Citizens United and support the revived labor movement here in Texas. It’s up to us to end gerrymandered districts and guarantee everyone the right to a truly representative government. We need to reform and expand the U.S. Supreme Court so justices protect Texans’ rights instead of taking them away. 

Progress may seem like a tall order, but it’s certainly not more difficult than the challenges taken on by Texans who came before us.

Instead of dismissing the possibility of national progress altogether, Texans should take a clear-eyed look at what is broken about our democracy and look to the legacy of those Texans on how to fix it.
 

Greg Casar, a Democrat, represents District 35, which spans from San Antonio to Austin.