Representing Someone Else

Jim Cooper's aversion to bringing home infrastructure bacon to Metropolitan Davidson County leads him to fight for reform in the Texas Hill Country. I know there were a number of Tennessee volunteers who died at the Alamo, but can't Texans fight their own utilities battles without the help of our member of Congress? When does paying our own Representative to become someone else's Davy Crockett become itself a wasteful federal earmark or a bridge to no where?