Intelligence Squad #88

1/4/05

MOMENT OF TRUTH

The Democrats’ Last Chance to Reveal a Spine

At the opening of the movie "Fahrenheit 9/11," filmmaker Michael Moore plays footage of an event that almost no Americans had previously seen. The footage is of several members of the Congressional Black Caucus objecting to the inclusion of Florida’s electors in the final counting of the Electoral College votes from the 2000 election. The congressmen and women were within their rights to object, as federal law allows for such a motion, and even spells out the manner by which such objection is to be made.

In order to be officially received, the objection must be in writing and signed by at least one member of the House of Representatives and one member of the Senate. The Black Caucus members, all from the House, were unable to find a single senator willing to co-sponsor their objection. The objection was rejected.

Had it been received, the objection would not have led to the direct overturning of the election. It would only have led to a debate – something sorely needed – about the legitimacy of the election in Florida. At the conclusion of said debate, the two chambers would have voted on whether or not the challenge was to be accepted.

That January afternoon represented one of the low points in recent Democratic Party history. It threatens to repeat itself on Thursday.

Congressman John Conyers of Michigan intends to lead a crew of U.S. Representatives in again challenging a state’s electoral vote – this time, that of Ohio from the ’04 election. In a letter he has written to every U.S. Senator in soliciting a co-sponsor for his objection, Conyers cites federal law that requires that each state’s electors be "lawfully certified" – which he obviously believes did not happen in the case of Ohio. His is likely troubled by issues such as the following:

Two precincts in Republican Perry County recorded turnout rates of more than 100% – an impossibility. Also, an extraordinarily high 3,100 of those registered in the county are listed as all having signed up on the same day: November 8, 1977.
In three Cleveland precincts, unknown third-party candidates received between 85% and 98% of the vote – indescribably unlikely.
Two Miami County precincts reported turnouts upward of 95%, which is not just extremely unlikely; in the case of one of them, it is an impossibility. It would have required all but 10 of the precinct’s registered voters to have voted on Election Day. Independent researchers, however, have easily found dozens of people from the precinct who have sworn out affidavits saying that they did not vote.
In Republican Butler County, Kerry got fewer votes than an African-American Democrat who was only running for State Supreme Court (though Bush had no problem out-polling the GOP Court candidate) – extremely unlikely.
The recently completed recount of the state’s ballots was not done using a randomly-selected batch of precincts, as required by state law, but rather a collection of precincts pre-selected for their low numbers of reported problems.
Republican Warren County blocked the media from observing the counting of its ballots, then lied about the reason for doing so, claiming hilariously that it was acting on a warning from the FBI of a potential terrorist attack.
The number of voting machines in many heavily-black precincts was inexplicably reduced from the 2000 election and even the 2004 primaries, resulting in lines hours long at those sites – lines many voters had to walk away from due to family or work commitments.

Given that some of these "irregularities" are strongly suggestive of illegality, no certification of the vote in Ohio could be considered "lawful." This is, no doubt, the basis for Conyers’s objection.

Which senator(s) might find the courage to support Congressman Conyers?

First of all, all Republicans are obviously out of the question. Likewise Southern and plains-state Democrats. Then skip all Democrats who within the past four years have given serious public consideration to running for president – and who are therefore more concerned with maintaining their image than doing the dirty work of defending justice. Who’s left?

Newly-elected Obama of Illinois is the sole black member of the Senate, and therefore an instant favorite for persuasion. But it is not realistic to expect that any senator would be interested in launching his career in national politics with such a controversial act.

Boxer of California has been a leading progressive in the Senate. She’s a reasonable target.

Feingold of Wisconsin? Fairly progressive, though his state teeters on the red state/blue state tightrope. A maybe.

Kennedy of Massachusetts is a strong candidate: as secure an officeholder as there could be, and perhaps the only true liberal in the entire Senate. But he smells too much of 20^th century machine-style politics (including the allegations of ballot boxes stuffed on behalf of his brother in 1960) to be taken seriously enough on this issue.

Durbin of Illinois generally "gets it" on the key issues. His state is solidly pro-Democrat and has a good-sized African-American population, so he’d have support from his homies in the Prarie State if he stepped forward.

To her credit, Stabenow of Michigan has already been putting forth an effort on the legislative front to make elections more accessible to the masses – though she hasn’t yet emerged as a leading progressive like some of her colleagues.

Lautenberg of New Jersey probably won’t be looking to run again, and so has not much to lose. His state is pretty reliably Democrat, and has a relatively sizable African-American population, so the Democrat looking to succeed him could probably weather the storm of controversy that would swirl around the state.

Jeffords of Vermont showed a streak of political fearlessness when he switched from the Republicans to the Independent Party a few years back, wrenching control of the Senate from the hands of the GOP in the process. Plus, the electors from Vermont have just issued a statement calling on all senators to support Conyers – not surprising given Vermont’s history as a quirky, independent-minded state. And the Republicans already hate his guts. All-in-all, then, he has absolutely nothing to lose from something like this.

Byrd of West Virginia has revealed himself these last few years to be an old-school patriot, willing to call out his colleagues whenever they rolled over for John Ashcroft or Dick Cheney. He’s up there with Kennedy on the job security scale, and old enough not to give a *&^$%#!@$ what anybody thinks of him. For these reasons, he is considered the best possibility by many in the activist community.

We like Lautenberg, Jeffords, and Byrd as those likeliest to come with it Thursday afternoon. Having said all that, it is worth re-stating that not one senator manifested any scruples when given the opportunity four years ago. And that was after 36 days of televised chaos left us with a public that would have been relatively open to the idea of rejecting a state’s electors. This time around, the national media did its best to pretend that nothing of note happened and that Mr. Bush won by an insurmountably large margin, guaranteeing a violently-shocked public should there be a challenge at this point.

We should not be holding our breath for any displays of integrity coming out of the Senate on Thursday. But it should make for interesting viewing nevertheless. For those who don’t get the chance to catch it on the news, we’ll try to post video on the site shortly afterward.

(More details on what happened four years ago -- including a smart-alecky remark on the Black Caucus's actions by Senator Dodd of Connecticut -- and a detailed look at all of the flaws in our electoral system can be found in the new book Ghosts of Florida: Making Elections Fair for Blacks.)