POLITICS WATCH : She Made a Difference
Barbara Jordan, Democrat of Texas, prodded America to live up to the promises of the Constitution.
Long on intellect and integrity, the powerful orator first came to national attention in 1974. She was a member of the House Judiciary Committee that recommended the im- peachment of Richard Nixon in the Watergate affair. Unflinching in her commitment to ethics in government, Jordan riveted the nation during committee debate when she said: “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.”
She held the nation spellbound again during the 1976 Democratic National Convention.
A lawyer by training, politics was her avocation. Like her political godfather and fellow Texan, Lyndon B. Johnson, she knew how--and when--to forge a compromise. That strength was evident again last year when she chaired the bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform.
Tackling tough issues was a hallmark of a career that took her from the poor, black neighborhoods of Houston to Congress, where she was the first African American representative elected from Texas since Reconstruction.
After illness forced a premature retirement, she returned home to teach at the University of Texas. She received a Presidential Medal of Freedom last summer for her enduring commitment to civil rights. Barbara Jordan, who died Wednesday, spent her life making a difference.
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