Rep. Corrine Brown used the s-word. On the House floor she said the Republicans stole the 2000 presidential election.
I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again," Brown said. "Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, 'Get over it.' No, we're not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world.
Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., requested Rep. Brown's words be stricken from record.
The House's presiding officer, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, ruled that Brown's words violated a House rule.
"Members should not accuse other members of committing a crime such as, quote, stealing, end quote, an election," Thornberry said.
The House also censured Rep. Brown, keeping her from speaking on the House floor the rest of that day.
The context?
The verbal battle broke out after Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., proposed a measure barring any federal official from requesting that the United Nations formally observe the U.S. elections on Nov. 2. His proposal was approved 243-161 as an amendment to a $19.4 billion foreign aid bill, with 33 Democrats joining all 210 voting Republicans in voting "yes."
Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., and several other House Democrats have made that suggestion. They argue that some black voters were disenfranchised in 2000 and problems could occur again this fall. (Whole thing, via Ms. Lauren.)
What's the most interesting detail here? 33 Democrats joined all 210 Republicans in voting against UN oversight of our 2004 presidential elections. Why did 33 Democrats vote with the Republicans on this one? I think Greg Palast has the answer:
The ballot-box blackout is not the monopoly of one party. Cook County, Ill., has one of the nation's worst spoilage rates. That's not surprising. Boss Daley's Democratic machine, now his son's, survives by systematic disenfranchisement of Chicago's black vote. . . .
Politicians who choose the type of ballot and the method of counting have long fine-tuned the spoilage rate to their liking. (Whole thing.)
Following the striking of her words from the record and her censure last week, Rep. Brown issued a press release:
Striking my words from the House floor is just one more example of the Republican Party's attempt to try and cover up what happened during the 2000 election and of their activities this year in the state of Florida in preparation for stealing this year’s election as well. What is the Republican Party so afraid of? Let me tell you what I'm afraid of: another stolen election and four more years of the Bush administration. When the words of Corrine Brown are stricken from the floor, so is the voice of her 600,000 constituents in Florida's third congressional district. . . .
Many of the problems that were caused in the last election were caused by the unfairness of the people that were in charge of ensuring a fair election in the state of Florida. For example, not only did Governor Bush support his brother’s election, but the Secretary of State (the very agent responsible for ensuring a fair election) served as the top campaign official in the state of Florida for the George W. Bush presidential campaign. What I believe is needed is a neutral party (like the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who has incidentally, said they will send preliminary observers in September) to oversee and monitor our elections in an unbiased manner, just as they monitor other elections throughout the world, often at the urging of The United States.
With UN monitoring of the 2004 elections officially barred by our Congress, our main hope for fair elections resides with Kerry and Edwards, who need to make the disenfranchisement of African American voters a campaign issue, front and center. As Palast puts it, "Senator Kerry is no Corrine Brown.":
The man who would be President is first trying out the 'D' word in front of the friendly natives at the NAACP. But still, it's a step: mentioning out loud the massive, systematic Disenfranchisement of the Black vote.
But the real change won't come until Kerry can say the 'D' word in front of say, a gathering of the members of his wife's country club, and until he confronts the boys holding the electoral lynching ropes in both parties.
I have a dream. I imagine John Kerry taking this message to the floor of the convention next week, proclaiming, "Three decades after Martin Luther King's murder, one million African-Americans cast ballots never counted. This will not stand!" Imagine it: at that moment, for the first time in a generation, the Democratic Party will have nominated a democrat.
Last Friday (7/15), Palast testified before the US Civil Rights Commission in Washington on the purging of African American voters from Florida's 2000 and 2004 voter roles.
Following Palast's testimony, Civil Rights Commissioner Christopher Edley, Dean of the Law School at the University of California at Berkeley, said that on the basis of evidence from Palast and state officials and contractors, "There appears to be a criminal violation of the Civil Rights Act." In response, the Chairwoman of the Commission, Mary Frances Berry, at the request of the Commissioners, is sending a letter to the Justice Department to demand investigation of the criminal or civil violations which appear to have occurred. (Whole thing.)
The only major networks covering the Civil Rights Commission hearing were from Germany and Britain. At this writing, Google News turns up no coverage of Friday's Civil Rights Commission hearing. It's hard to imagine that Ashcroft's Department of Justice will pursue any kind of investigation before or after the 2004 elections. But the DOJ's lack of progress towards such an investigation should be covered as a major law enforcement scandal. And we should barrage the DOJ with letters and emails demanding an investigation. This would be a perfect item for one of those MoveOn.org petition drives. The criminals get to keep stealing elections as long as they can strike the truth from the Congressional record and enjoy the collusion of a press that doesn't report on violations of the Civil Rights Act.
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