Tree is planted for legendary congressman
WASHINGTON – Someone once told Jack Brooks, the legendary Texas congressman, that he shouldn’t be smoking a cigar on the floor of the U.S. House. His reply: “It isn’t lit.” The powerhouse Houston-area lawmaker was remembered Tuesday with the planting of a bur oak tree on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, where Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi recalled the allegedly unlit cigar.
“I don’t know if he challenged them to prove that point or not,” Pelosi told a gathering of family, colleagues and friends, including Lynda Johnson Robb, the elder daughter of the late President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Brooks, who died in 2012 just shy of his 90th birthday, served in the Marines in World War II and then in Congress for 42 years, making his mark as chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee that drafted the 1974 articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon.
Remembered fondly for his quips and one-liners, he also made history by being one of only 11 Southerners to support the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which he helped write. In the 1950s, he defied his state delegation by refusing to sign the segregationist “Southern Manifesto.”
“He never apologized or backed down from his belief that we are all created equal,” Pelosi said.
Brooks also was remembered for fostering economic development projects in his native southeast Texas, from keeping NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to building out the Port of Beaumont, now the nation’s busiest port for military equipment. “Jack Brooks’ legacy in our area of Texas and beyond... is well-planted, wellwatered, well-deserved and it will well be remembered for a long time,” said U.S. Rep. Randy Weber, a Republican from Friendswood. “He was a fighter, he was principled, he was a man of character.”
The memorial oak tree was planted across Independence Avenue from a House office building named for another Texas legend, Sam Rayburn, a mentor and contemporary of Brooks. Brooks was defeated for reelection in 1994 in what was considered a major upset at the hands of GOP maverick Steve Stockman, who now faces federal fraud charges.
In the end, Brooks was honored by Texans on both sides of the aisle, including U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith of San Antonio, a Republican, and former Texas U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, a Democrat.
And nobody could forget the trademark cigars.
“He wielded a formidable arsenal of charm, intellect and bare-knuckled politics,” Pelosi recalled. “More often than not with smoldering cigar in hand.”