DALLAS
Two decades ago, Michael Burgess was a Lewisville obstetrician watching at home as the U.S. House sternly took up the case of President Bill Clinton.
“It was clear what he did was wrong,’” Burgess, now a local congressman, said Friday.
“People argued whether it was a ‘high crime.’ But you couldn’t say he didn’t do it.”
Last week, Burgess was one of the four local Republican congressmen and one congresswoman voting against the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
“I was surprised there wasn’t more to it,” he said Friday at a taping for “Inside Texas Politics,” airing at 9 a.m. Sunday on WFAA/Channel 8.
“All that investigating, and — really? That’s what you’ve got?”
No matter whether you hate or love the outcome of last week’s vote, you should hear out why your elected officials voted the way they did.
Tarrant County is almost evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.
But in Washington, we are represented by one Democrat and five Republicans, ages 66 to 76.
Burgess, 68, lives in Pilot Point. When he went to Washington in 2002, he had no political experience and no idea what the House Rules Committee did.
“I went for it because [former U.S. Rep.] Pete Sessions told me it was important,” he said.
He entered a House with fresh memories of the Clinton impeachment, which failed in the Senate.
“I get the sense that back then, the pressure in the House was that something terrible had happened, and we had to get an impeachment done,” he said.
“But people didn’t think about what came next.”
This time, the question is whether anything will come next as House investigations continue.
“The president is entitled to a trial,” Burgess said.
U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, of Arlington, is a freshman. At 66, he is the youngest of the five Republicans representing Tarrant County.
Back when Clinton, a Democrat, was impeached, Wright was writing a Sunday conservative political column for the Star-Telegram.
“Clinton was on videotape. In this case, we don’t have that,” he said by phone.
“The president is not accused of a crime. And the obstruction of justice question is a matter for the Supreme Court, not for impeachment.”
Wright took the greatest political risk by opposing impeachment. His district is the closest of any incumbent, with Democratic east Fort Worth and Arlington offsetting suburban Ellis and Navarro counties.
“Those people are angry about this impeachment,” Wright said. “They’re more conservative than Tarrant County — and they’re really hot.”
U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, officially R-Austin but often a Parker County resident, had the most quoted line of any local congressman or congresswoman.
Williams, 70, denounced Democrats and “their mainstream media overlords.”
Williams also criticized “Ivy League academics” for their role in impeachment, calling it “an extraordinary disservice to the people we were elected to represent.”
His district stretches from Burleson to near San Marcos, but it pivots on conservative voters in Johnson County.
U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, 76, of Fort Worth, was in Congress when Clinton was impeached. She voted for three of the four articles of impeachment, but against an allegation of abuse of power.
Last week she took the House floor to say Democrats “have used any and all undemocratic and unfair means necessary” to try and remove the president.
She said her vote was not only against the “illegitimate impeachment … it is against House Democrats making a mockery of due process and the rule of law.”
U.S. Rep. Kenny Marchant, 68, is coming home to Carrollton next year after 16 years in Congress. His suburban district is one of Democrats’ top targets.
He doesn’t do many shows or interviews. But in a statement, Marchant called the process partisan and said impeachment should be “an absolute last resort.”
The only Democrat representing Tarrant County is Marc Veasey, of Fort Worth. He’s 48.
“The recent evidence that has come to light makes it clear that our president abused the power of his office for his personal and political gain,” Veasey said in a statement.
“No one is above the law, not even the occupant of our highest office.”
They’ll get to explain more in the year to come.
Columnist Bud Kennedy is a Fort Worth guy who covered high school football at 16 and has moved on to two Super Bowls, seven political conventions and 16 Texas Legislature sessions. First on the scene of a 1988 DFW Airport crash, he interviewed passengers running from the burning plane. He made his first appearance in the paper before he was born: He was sold for $600 in the adoption classifieds.
