John Kerry, Hypocrite Opportunist

On Monday, John Kerry appeared at Boston's annual Martin Luther King Jr. memorial breakfast. At the breakfast he expressed outrage over voting irregularities in Ohio:

"Thousands of people were suppressed in their efforts to vote.
Voting machines were distributed in uneven ways," the former Democratic
nominee told an enthusiastic audience of 1,200 at the Boston Convention
and Exhibition Center in South Boston.

"In Democratic districts, it took people four, five, 11 hours to
vote, while Republicans [went] through in 10 minutes. Same voting
machines, same process, our America," Kerry said. . . .

"My friends, this is not a time to pretend. We're here to celebrate the
life of a man who, if he were here today, would make it clear to us
what our agenda is. And nothing," Kerry said, his voice rising in
anger, "would he make more clear on that agenda than, in a nation that
is willing to spend several hundred million dollars in Iraq to bring
them democracy we cannot tolerate that, here in America, too many
people are denied that democracy."

All things I agree with, of course. But what's despicable about Kerry's statement is that it is intended more for me than for the people whom he speaks about, the voters in Ohio who were disenfranchised. On December 2, 2004, Kerry and the Democratic Party made clear their intentions towards the people in Ohio who got screwed.

On Election Day, the Ohio Democratic Party had brought a case in
federal court due to the long lines in Franklin and Knox Counties. http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/docs/ohio/041102LongLineTROmotion.pdf and http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/docs/ohio/041102LongLinecomplaint.pdf

The only relief sought in the complaint by the Democrats was an
injunction requiring election officials to provide paper ballots or
other alternative means of voting in the affected counties on election
day.

The court issued a temporary restraining order requiring
officials to provide paper ballots or other alternative means of voting
and directed that the polls had to remain open for all voters who had
been in line at 7:30 p.m. http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/docs/ohio/041102LongLineOrder.pdf

The order further provided that it would expire on November 2, 2004, unless good cause were shown to extend it.

On December 2nd the Democratic Party agreed to withdraw its case http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/docs/OhioDems/stipulationofdsm.pdf and made a motion to dismiss its own case http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/docs/OhioDems/dismiss.pdf.

The Democratic advocacy on behalf of the voters was insufficient from the outset and then withdrawn entirely. What else could Kerry and the Democrats have done? Attorney Cliff Arnebeck and the Alliance for Democracy have a few ideas. On January 14, they made a motion to intervene in the case.

The Ohio Democratic Party appears, by its motion to dismiss its
claims against the Franklin County Board of Elections, to have lost
interest in further pursuit of this complaint. Intervenor Ohio
Republican Party and defendant Blackwell appear to be seeking to
nullify the importance of this court’s injunction as an important
precedent for protecting voting rights and according equal protection
of law for all Ohio citizens. Thus, there is no other party in this
action that appears willing to aggressively represent the interest of
the Alliance in protecting the democratic values at issue in this
preceding."

It also sought to supplement the complaint in the suit, alleging that

1. The disproportionally long lines experienced and observed
in Afro-American voting precincts in Columbus, Ohio, on November 2,
2004, were, upon information and belief, a consequence of a statewide
plan executed by Defendants Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell
and the Ohio Republican Party, acting as agents for the Bush-Cheney
Presidential campaign.

2. Such plan and its execution violated the Voting Rights Act and
the other provisions of the federal law, including the 14th Amendment
of the Constitution of the United States.

3. Because such plan was carried out under the auspices of
Defendant Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, acting in his dual
capacity as Co-Chair of the Bush-Cheney Ohio Presidential campaign,
such plan and its execution constituted a conspiracy to violate the
constitutional rights of targeted Afro-American Ohio citizens under
color of state law in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1983.

4. Defendant Franklin County Board of Elections through its
Director Matthew Damschroder, upon information and belief, testified
incorrectly before the court that nothing could be done to alleviate
the long lines in Franklin County and the Board failed to carry out the
mandate of the Court’s November 2, 2004 injunction, because in fact, in
accordance with the Board’s own records, some 67 voting machines that
could have been used were held back from use by voters.
5. Defendant Blackwell and the Ohio Republican Party, acting as
agents for the Bush-Cheney Presidential campaign, upon information and
belief, engaged in a wide variety of vote suppression techniques and
permitted vote manipulation, by which votes cast by voters for
Presidential candidate John Kerry were counted, in both the initial
count on election day and the recount, as though they had been cast for
Presidential candidate George W. Bush.
6. The conduct of the defendants in violation of law resulted in
the false reporting of the initial election result in the Ohio
Presidential vote, the recount, the certification of Ohio votes by the
Congress of the United States and, unless such fraud is exposed before
the scheduled Inauguration on January 20, 2004, will result in the
second Inauguration of George W. Bush on the basis of an inaccurate
vote count.
7. Title 3 of the United States Code establishing procedures for
certification of votes of the electoral college is unconstitutional as
applied, in this situation where no reasonable and adequate means has
been provided for an adjudication of credible allegations of fraud
supported by and substantial evidence, which fraud is determinative of
the outcome of the election, can be considered and resolved in a public
hearing before such certification.
8. The inauguration of a president on the basis of alleged fraud
as to which the suspected perpetrators and conspirators have not even
been examined under oath, constitutes a deprivation of an important
liberty, namely the franchise to vote, without due process of law.

In addition, the Alliance for Democracy sought an emergency
hearing, and an order granting leave to take the depositions of
Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio Republican Party Chairman
Robert Bennett, and Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matthew
Damschroder.

Kerry aides have said that

a political action committee he started after the election -- a
committee that could lay the groundwork for a second presidential
campaign in 2008 -- would also be dedicated to preventing
disenfranchisement.

If John Kerry publically supported the legal battles in Ohio, it would make an enormous difference. His brief appearance at the Martin Luther King Jr memorial breakfast got the issue of voter disenfranchisement onto the front page of the Boston Globe. Kerry has the power to not only legitimize the issue in the eyes of the wider public but to give proper prominence and attention to  people who supported him and were disenfranchised. But Kerry does not want to spend his politial capital on justice for real people. 

So why is Kerry paying high profile lip-service to caring about voting problems? Because he knows that since his premature concession there has been a mass citizens' mobilization in the name of clean, verifiable elections and justice for disenfranchised voters. Barbara Boxer heard that call and stood with twenty-nine Representatives to make an intervention in the name of democracy. John Kerry hid his cowardly face from his would-be supporters. Now that the dust seems to have cleared he's come forward to lead the movement for a true democracy.

Did I say lead? That should say co-opt. John Kerry's  movement is nothing better than a movement to make sure he gets our votes in 2008.

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Photo: Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly (L) and Senator John F. Kerry with others at the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial breakfast yesterday at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. (Globe Staff Photo / Goerge Rizer)