Marc Veasey was born on January 3, 1971 in Forth Worth, Texas. After earning a BS in mass communication from Texas Wesleyan University, he worked variously as a sports writer, healthcare consultant, realtor, substitute teacher, community activist, and legislative aide (for five years) to Congressman Martin Frost of Texas. Veasey then served as a Democrat in the Texas State House of Representatives from 2005-13. Since 2013 he has represented Texas’s overwhelmingly Democratic 33rd Congressional District in the U.S. House, where he is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Veasey is a friend of Texas Communist Party USA member Gene Lantz, who endorsed Veasey in his 2012 run for Congress.

In 2013 Veasey objected to the landmark Supreme Court ruling that struck down, as anachronistic, a Voting Rights Act provision (known as Section 4) that had required mainly Southern states to undergo—based on the presumption of their continuing racist tendencies—special federal scrutiny before being permitted to change their election laws in any way (e.g., by instituting Voter ID requirements or reconfiguring their voting districts). “There is no absolutely no doubt,” said Veasey, that Texas, on matters involving race, had not yet evolved to the point where it merited being released from the restrictions imposed by Section 4. “Many of our elected officials unfortunately still cannot be trusted to protect minority voting rights,” he explained.

When Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott subsequently announced that, on the strength of the aforementioned Supreme Court decision, he intended to implement a state Voter ID law that the federal courts had been blocking, Veasey became the lead plaintiff in a suit seeking to prevent the law’s enactment. By Veasey’s telling, such a “discriminatory” statute would “send a message to businesses and companies and people that are moving to the state of Texas in record numbers, mostly Latino and African-American, that discrimination is OK.” Singling out for scorn the Tea Party group that had created the anti-voter-fraud organization True the Vote, the congressman impugned conservatives for “actively trying to make sure that Republicans can continue to win elections at the expense of African-American and Latino voters.”

Veasey has also been outspoken in demanding the passage of a “comprehensive immigration reform” bill that provides “a pathway to legalization for the hard-working men and women who have stayed out of trouble and are living in our communities in the shadows.” In the same vein, he has condemned “Republican anti-immigrant laws that target Latinos,” citing in particular Arizona’s SB-1070 statute which deputized state police to check with federal authorities on the immigration status of criminal suspects. Moreover, Veasey has proudly “fought against Republican efforts to repeal the state DREAM Act,” which, as he explains, “lets undocumented students that were raised in Texas go to college while paying in-state tuition rates.” The congressman likewise supports the passage of a federal DREAM Act, whose path-to-citizenship provision would allow “these kids [to] work in their professions after graduation.”

In February 2013, several Democrats, including First Lady Michelle Obama, brought illegal aliens as guests to President Barack Obama‘s State Of The Union speech. Veasey, for his part, brought a 32-year-old Mexican named Julieta Garibay, who had migrated with her family to Texas when she was 12.

During an August 2018 appearance on CNN’s “Situation Room,” Veasey said he believed there was proof that President Donald Trump had made remarks during outtakes of The Apprentice, the television program he once hosted, “that were absolutely reprehensible and not becoming of a United States president.” Added the congressman: “It’s clear that he was wrong, that he doesn’t have the temperament to be president of the United States, and I wish that we could revoke the president and the rest of his term…. [H]e’s just not fit to serve, and if someone needs to be dishonorably discharged, it needs to be the president.”

As matters of principle, Veasey believes that:

• all women should have an unrestricted right to abortion-on-demand at any stage of pregnancy – subsidized by taxpayers, in cases of economic hardship;
• all employers, public and private, should be legally required to implement affirmative-action hiring and promotion policies that give preference to African Americans and women, as compensation for historical injustices;
• the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is an excellent statute that can serve a strategic stepping stone toward the eventual implementation of a government-run, single-payer healthcare system;
• voucher programs designed to enable low-income parents to send their children to private schools rather than to failing public schools, constitute bad policy because they rob the public schools of vital resources;
• restrictions on immigration are basically racist because they tend to prevent Hispanics and other non-whites from entering the United States;
• social services should be available to all U.S. residents regardless of their immigration status; and
• voter ID laws are, by and large, racially motivated attempts to suppress minority voting and should be eliminated.

For information on Veasey’s voting record on a range of key issues during his years in Congress, click here.

Further Reading: “Marc Veasey” (Votesmart.org, Keywiki.org); “Congressman Sues to Block Voter ID Because It Sends ‘Wrong Message About Texas’” (PJ Media, 6-28-2013); “Rep. Marc Veasey Sues State of Texas to Block Voter ID Implementation” (Houston Chronicle, 6-27-2013); “Issue Position: Immigration” (by Marc Veasey, 1-1-2012); “Democrats Bringing Illegal Immigrants As Guests to State Of The Union” (Daily Caller, 2-12-2013); “Dem Rep Veasey: There Is ‘Proof’ Trump Said Things on Tape That Are ‘Absolutely Rephensible’” (by Ian Hanchett, 8-17-2018).