I grew up and currently live in Friendswood, Texas. It is a heavily caucasian and Republican town in the northern most tip of Galveston County which is approximately half way between downtown Houston and Galveston Island. My town gave John McCain about 80% of the vote and is highly affluent. Yet, somehow, without my parent's guidance, I walked out of it as a Democrat. While my town would vote straight ticket Republican, Galveston County historically elected Democrats. One of them was now Former Representative Nick Lampson (D-Beaumont). Nick Lampson served as my congressman from 1997-2004 and again from 2007-2008. While Nick Lampson is a conservative Democrat, he delivered the results our district needed and always voted for our caucus' nominee for Speaker of the House. With the retirement of Rep. Ron Paul (R?/L?-Lake Jackson) the 14th Congressional District of Texas will be elected a new representative and we need to return Nick Lampson to Washington.
If you already know why we Nick Lampson back in congress and you are ready to help support our draft effort, you can join the draft page here: http://www.facebook.com/...
As TX-14 has been redrawn, it has changed to now represent all of Jefferson County (Beaumont), all of Galveston County (Galveston, Texas City, League City), southern Brazoria County (Lake Jackson), as well as less than 5 precincts combined from Chambers and Harris County. President Obama received 42.3% of the vote in this district and the average Democratic performance was 45.8%. It is important to note that Southern Galveston County (the Democratic part) had abnormally low turnout and was still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Ike. The boundaries of this district are significant because 80% of this new TX-14 shares the same land as the 1990s version of TX-9 which Nick Lampson previously represented. The people in this district have voted for Rep. Lampson before and I am convinced they will vote for him again if gives the chance.
So, why should you, the national audience, want to return congressman Lampson to Washington? Rep. Lampson's profile has several distinguished accomplishments that should be noted. He is one of the best advocates of NASA and manned space flight in recent years, he has been responsive towards building local infrastructure, he formed the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, and he has been a staunch ally of the labor movement.
I have heard NASA jokingly called America's largest pork barrel project and to an extent, that may be correct. However, NASA is the government program that has given us hundreds of innovations and treatments over the years such as scratch resistant eye lenses, memory foam, shoe insoles, cordless tools, velcro, and water filters. NASA can only be successful as the congress that advocates for it, and Nick Lampson is one of the best it has had since President Lyndon Johnson. While the Johnson Space Center is not in the new TX-14, it was based out of Rep. Lampson's TX-9 and TX-22 and is a 15 minute drive from the border between TX-14 and TX-22. Before coming to congress, Nick Lampson worked as a science teacher in Texas public schools and already was passionate about the space program. During his second term of congress, he worked to add the STS-134 mission to the agenda, extending the life of the shuttle by one additional mission so it could deliver additional tools to the International Space Station, such as the alpha magnetic spectrometer which was already built by multiple countries, but was not scheduled to be delivered. Nick Lampson got results and brought the device to the ISS and extended the life of the shuttle mission. Should he return, Rep. Lampson would have more seniority than any other member of the Space and Aeronautics subcommittee and could potentially serve as Chair or ranking Member. Rep. Lampson's expertise on NASA and space exploration lead to him being one of the final two choices for NASA Administrator, a job he received backing for by Speaker Pelosi.
In 1997, a Friendswood teenager named Laura Smithers left her house one morning to go running. She never came home. As a Friendswood resident, I can speak that the news of her disappearance dominated the local news coverage every day for weeks until her body was found. It was a wake up call for our community and Rep. Lampson felt that as well. In his first term, Rep. Lampson formed the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus in the US Congress. This group brought together members of both political parties to do something sensible, protect children from abduction and abuse. The caucus has gone on to pass laws like the Amber Alert emergency broadcast as well as restrictions on internet predators to keep kids safe. The formation of this common sense caucus has resulted in government actions that has saved lives.
Because of Rep. Lampson's advocacy of NASA he was tarred as the "biggest spender in congress" during his last re-election campaign. That spending directly employed tens of thousands of engineers, janitors, electricians, and more to come to the Houston area for good, high paying jobs that included benefits. But Rep. Lampson didn't just watch out for the jobs, he made sure there was infrastructure in place to ensure these government employees and contractors could get to work easily and on time. While this included regular work on ports on Galveston Bay and upgrading the Galveston causeway, the biggest project you can find that Rep. Lampson helped fund is the NASA Rd. 1 bypass. This is a road that caused resulted in remaking the highway to include a bypass directly to the Johnson Space Center. This is the kin of infrastructure spending America needs more of, and Rep. Lampson has a history of making it happen.
I'd like to add one more reason why we need Nick Lampson back in congress, and this is a direct comparison between him and retiring Congressman Ron Paul. I'm sure many of you have heard Rep. Paul say FEMA is not helpful and should be abolished in regards to the hurricane that just traveled up the east coast. This is not the first time Rep. Paul has made these kind of statements. In 2008, Rep. Paul made similar noises as Hurricane Ike hit his home district. In preparing for the storm, Rep. Paul spent his time merely advocating that people take care of themselves and lift themselves up out of their houses and then take care of themselves when they came home. Rep. Lampson, meanwhile was spending his time securing FEMA resources, making sure people could be compensated for damages and could evacuate. Notably, Rep. Lampson brought mobile fuel trucks into Houston so people could refill their cars and evacuate rather than be left stranded should their car run out of gas. I feel this is the direct contrast that can be made between what kind of leadership Rep. Lampson will bring back and Rep. Paul never gave.
So, how can you help?
I started a draft page on Facebook for Congressman Lampson two weeks ago. You can find it here: http://www.facebook.com/...
This is an active group that will have calls to action, including requests to invite friends and to message Nick Lampson directly asking him to run. I need your help to bring Nick back to Congress, and I need you to join this page and tell the Congressman why you want him back.
Again, please join our page on Facebook and help our numbers grow. This week our goal is to have more members than Michael Truncale has, the only announced Republican candidate for TX-14 thus far. Currently, Rep. Truncale has 239 members of his page and we have 155.
Our page is located here: http://www.facebook.com/...
Thank you for your support, I know I can count on this community in the future to help continue to help elect respectable Democrats to public office across the country!