By: Cole, et al. (Senate Sponsor - West, Miles) H.C.R. No. 5
(In the Senate - Received from the House May 17, 2021;
May 17, 2021, read first time and referred to Committee on
Administration; May 21, 2021, reported favorably by the following
vote: Yeas 5, Nays 0; May 21, 2021, sent to printer.)
Click here to see the committee vote
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, A towering figure in the Texas Legislature and the
United States Congress, Houston native Barbara Jordan blazed a
remarkable trail on the national stage for other women and people of
color; and
WHEREAS, Barbara Charline Jordan was born in 1936 and
graduated from Texas Southern University and Boston University
School of Law; in 1966, she became the first African American woman
elected to the Texas Senate, and she pushed through bills
establishing antidiscrimination clauses in business contracts, the
Texas Fair Employment Practices Commission, and the state's first
minimum wage law; recognizing her wisdom and skill, her peers chose
her as president pro tempore; and
WHEREAS, Barbara Jordan continued her work to advance social
progress after winning election to the U.S. House of
Representatives in 1972, when she became the first African American
woman from the Deep South to be elected to Congress; as a member of
the Judiciary Committee, she galvanized the nation during the
Watergate hearings, signaling the historic weight of the
proceedings as she thundered, "My faith in the Constitution is
whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be
an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the
destruction of the Constitution"; and
WHEREAS, Following her third term in the house, Congresswoman
Jordan retired from politics to take up the Lyndon Johnson Chair in
National Policy at The University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of
Public Affairs; she inspired the next generation of leaders by
teaching courses on intergovernmental relations, political values,
and ethics, and she served as ethics advisor to then-governor Ann
Richards; appointed chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration
Reform, she again emerged as a key supporter of the framers' intent
in 1994 when she powerfully decried a proposal to end the
constitutional provision of birthright citizenship; and
WHEREAS, Barbara Jordan passed away in 1996, but the
magisterial voice she lifted as a champion of the vulnerable and
disenfranchised and as a defender of the constitution continues to
resonate, and naming a new building in the Capitol Complex in her
honor would provide a fitting tribute to her enormous legacy; now,
therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the 87th Legislature of the State of Texas
hereby direct the Texas Facilities Commission to name the building
being constructed on the east side of North Congress Avenue between
16th and 17th Streets the Barbara Jordan Building in recognition of
her contributions to our state and nation; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That the secretary of state forward an official
copy of this resolution to the chair and to the executive director
of the Texas Facilities Commission.
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