Hometown Shame
Sheila Jackson Lee is the worst boss ever, former staffers tell the Daily Caller
Most everybody has, at one time or another, had a really terrible boss. (I had one, when I was waitressing, that used his (mostly female) staffers as a sort of underground, late-night cab service.) But every horrid boss I've ever had sounds saint-like in comparison to the account of Houston's own Sheila Jackson Lee that was provided in a seven-page piece by The Daily Caller.
Writer Jonathan Strong talked to several former staffers (many of them off-the-record) to compile an account of Jackson Lee that paints her as an irrational, sometimes abusive boss — one who's particularly hard on her African American aides.
Jackson Lee's longwinded-ness and love of the camera is the stuff of legend, but the account of her managing practices was truly shocking.
In addition to the anecdotes provided by numerous anonymous sources, former staffer Gladys Quinto says Jackson Lee once made her write a memo in front of her colleagues detailing her own incompetence.
The article also makes special mention of the fact that Jackson Lee, who is quick to condemn perceived racism, as she did this year with a Pepsi Super Bowl commercial and in 2003 when she suggested that hurricanes be called more African-American sounding names, is harshest toward her black aides. (Accounts of Jackson Lee cursing more frequently at black staff were all off-the-record.)
One former aide, Michael McQueery, came to her defense — sort of.
"It was at first, I'm not going to lie to you, it was a rough patch with her and me," McQueery told Strong. "But I took her to the side and I let her know that, you know,'Congresswoman, I'm a man before anything else.' And after that, we had no problems. We had no problems."
Jackson Lee's office has responded "no comment" to the allegations in the article. Next up for the congresswoman is an unsolicited hearing she organized on the potential effects of an NFL lockout.
