Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D)

The congresswoman from the 30th District is Eddie Bernice Johnson, first elected in 1992. She grew up in Texas, graduated from Texas Christian University with a nursing degree, and later got a master’s degree in public administration at Southern Methodist University. She worked at St. Paul Hospital and was the chief psychiatric nurse at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Dallas. In 1972, she was elected to the Texas House, the first black woman elected to the Legislature from Dallas. She became a regional director of the old Health, Education and Welfare Department under Democratic President Jimmy Carter. She was elected to the Texas Senate in 1986. As the Senate’s Redistricting Committee chairman in 1991, she was instrumental in creating the new 30th District. She won the Democratic primary with 92% of the vote and has not had effective opposition since.

In the House, Johnson has a mostly liberal voting record, but she has been attentive to business interests in Dallas. She has sharp political instincts. In the past, she has chaired the influential Congressional Black Caucus. And she supported Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California for minority leader over her former Metroplex colleague Rep. Martin Frost, with whom Johnson had a testy relationship, particularly on redistricting issues. Her support for Pelosi put her in good stead with the Democratic leadership when Pelosi rose to House speaker in 2007. Though Johnson once pledged to labor unions to oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement, she changed her mind and voted for it in 1993. Dallas probably exports more to Mexico than any other American city, and many jobs depend on those exports. Johnson also sided with business on normalizing trade relations with China.

On the Science Committee, Johnson shared credit for passing the Networking and Information Research and Development Act to double funding for information research. She also sought to double spending for the National Science Foundation. As a health-care professional, she has taken an interest in minority health issues.

On the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Johnson got a seat on the Aviation Subcommittee, of great importance to her district. The 30th District is close to the bustling Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, and it includes three other airports: Love Field, Lancaster, and Dallas Executive. Although she initially had objections, which included concerns about additional air traffic, she eventually cooperated with Republicans from the Metroplex in repealing the Wright Amendment. Named for former Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright, a Democrat from Forth Worth, the amendment restricted air traffic out of Dallas’s Love Field as a way of protecting the competitive position of the larger Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. Johnson helped broker the deal by encouraging more local coordination between the airports.

She is now the chairman of the panel’s Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee. As her top local priority, she worked to secure funds for construction of the Interstate 30 suspension bridge over the Trinity River, and she continues to support Trinity River projects.