Boxer to Stand with Conyers

[irishgrl]

makes me proud to be a Californian
Boxer to stand

Boxer to Stand with Conyers
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report

Thursday 06 January 2005

Sources with Rainbow-PUSH have confirmed that Senator Barbara Boxer of California will stand with House members to protest 'irregularities' during Ohio's presidential election.

Details and statements will follow shortly.

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by irishgrl

makes me proud to be a Californian
Boxer to stand

Boxer to Stand with Conyers
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report

Thursday 06 January 2005

Sources with Rainbow-PUSH have confirmed that Senator Barbara Boxer of California will stand with House members to protest 'irregularities' during Ohio's presidential election.

Details and statements will follow shortly.

I hope this is true!



I'm so pissed off at Kennedy for not taking a stand on this. What the f is there to lose? I just don't understand. Why would a senator not stand? If someone has some insight into these please advise because I am really struggling with this.

[irishgrl]

The Boxer Rebellion
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 11:06
A wee bit of history to start with.

The last time Congress was forced to interrupt the joint session to certify the Electors was in 1969, when a "faithless" Nixon elector broke ranks and threw his vote to George Wallace. After about twelve seconds of discussion, the vote was allowed to go for Wallace. Before that, we have to go all the way back to 1877, during the disputed election between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden. Hayes eventually won.

In short, what is happening here in Washington today has almost never been seen in the history of the republic.

This is the latest as I have it: Senator Boxer made the decision to stand and support the challenge to the Ohio electors. She transmitted a letter to Rep. Tubbs-Jones this morning which stated, "I have concluded that objecting to the electoral votes from Ohio is the only immediate way to bring these issues to light by allowing you to have a two-hour debate to let the American people know the facts surrounding Ohio's election."

Right now, several other Senators are preparing statements of Support for the Boxer/Tubbs-Jones challenge, and a number of House members will also rise in support. There is every expectation that Senators Clinton, Obama and Dodd will be among those offering statements of support.

Reps. Waters, Conyers and Kucinich will be among the House members who stand. Though Rep. Conyers was the main impetus behind this process, it was decided that Rep. Tubbs-Jones should be the one to make the official challenge, as she is a representative from Ohio, where the dispute is centered.

There is a rumor floating around that one of the Senators to rise in support will be a Republican. That is not in any way confirmed.

The process will begin to unfold at 1:00pm EST. Cheney, in his role as President of the Senate, will rise and ask if there are any objections. Tubbs-Jones will then announce her objection, and state that a Senator has signed her objection. The joint session will then adjourn, and there will be two hours (perhaps less) of debate on the issue. At the conclusion a straight up-and-down vote will take place on whether or not to support the objection. Almost certainly, the objections will be defeated along party lines.

This is an incredibly important day for this country, for two reasons.

First, this will initiate a national dialogue on how we run elections, and push forward the process of reform that is so desperately needed.

Second, this was a people's movement. None of this would have taken place without the grassroots effort. Look at the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the beach. That is how many phone calls, emails, faxes, letters and telegrams were sent by ordinary people to the Capitol building in support of what Boxer has done. Jesse Jackson, David Cobb, Progressive Democrats of America and others were involved in getting this done, along with Rep. Conyers.

But it was the folks who got this done. If nothing else, this proves that concentrated activism and advocacy works. It works. It worked. Make sure it keeps working.

Tune in at 1pm EST. I will be blogging the hearing as it happens.

Today is history.

---

Our Voting System Needs A New Constitutional Foundation

Floor Statement

By Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.

Thursday, January 6, 2005

"The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States." (Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 104 (2000)

"In the eyes of the [Supreme] Court, democracy is rooted not in the right of the American people to vote and govern but in a set of state-based institutional arrangements for selecting leaders." ( Overruling Democracy - The Supreme Court v. The American People, By Jamin B. Raskin, p. 7)

"Amazingly, the government of the United States conducts and provides no official count of the vote for president." (Overruling democracy - The Supreme Court vs. The American People, by Jamin B. Raskin, p. 66)

"Thanks to the long and peculiar way in which suffrage evolved in the United States, the U.S. Constitution contains no affirmative right to vote for American citizens. That is likely the most important single gap in our Constitution, and it ought to be remedied as soon as possible." (Alexander Keyssar, Matthew W. Stirling, Jr., Professor of History and Social Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. His books include The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States.)

Don't be confused or misled. Today's objection is not about an ELECTION RESULT, it's about an ELECTION SYSTEM that's broken and needs fixing.

Today you're hearing the facts about voter irregularities in Ohio. In 2000 you saw a similar mess in Florida. There were serious voting problems in other states - for example, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida again.

As we try to spread democracy to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, it might be wise, first, to look in the mirror; to take a serious look at our own house; and to analyze our own democracy.

What's wrong with our democracy? What's wrong with our voting system? State-after-state, year-after-year, why do we keep on having these problems?

The fundamental reason is this: most Americans and many in this body will find it shocking and hard to believe, but we have these problems because AMERICANS DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE IN THEIR CONSTITUTION!

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore said in very plain language, "the INDIVIDUAL CITIZEN has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States."

You say, "Congressman, I'm a registered voter and every time there's an election I'm entitled to vote - and I vote. What do you mean I don't have a `right to vote'?"

I mean as an American you don't have a citizenship right to vote. Voting in the United States is a "state right" not "citizenship right."

We keep on having these problems because our voting system is built on the constitutional foundation of "states' rights" - 50 states, 3,067 counties and 13,000 different election jurisdictions, ALL SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL.

If you're an ex-felon in Illinois you can register and vote. If you're an ex-felon in eleven states, mostly in the South, you're barred from voting for life. There are nearly 5 million ex-felons who have paid their debt to society but are prohibited from ever voting again - including 1.5 million African American males. But in Maine and Vermont you can vote even if you're in jail. Like I said, we have a "states rights" separate and unequal voting system.

You ask, "What's the difference between a citizenship right and a state right?"

The First Amendment contains individual citizenship rights that go with you from state to state (that is, they are the same wherever you are in the U.S.); and they are protected and enforced by the federal government. You have equal protection under the law by the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government. Therefore, as a result of the First Amendment, every American citizen has an individual right to free speech, freedom of assembly, and religious freedom (or to choose no religion at all), regardless of which state you're in - individual rights that are protected by the federal government. You don't have such a right when it comes to voting!

A state right is NOT an American citizenship right, but a right defined and protected by each state - and limited to that state. Therefore, when it comes to voting, each state, county and election jurisdiction is different.

One-hundred-and-eight of the 119 nations in the world that elect their public officials in some democratic manner have the right to vote in their Constitution - including the Afghan Constitution and the interim document in Iraq. The United States is one of the 11 that don't!

The Bible says if you build a house on sand, when it rains, the winds blow and the storms come it will not stand. Our voting system is built on the sand of "states' rights."

That's why every four years when the entire nation is focused on a presidential election, and the rain of politics, the winds of partisanship, and the storms of campaigning come, our democratic house cannot stand the unitary test of voting fairness - and it has come close to collapsing in 2000 and 2004.

The American people are gradually losing confidence in the credibility, fairness, effectiveness and efficiency of our voting system.

We cannot export our current voting system or our form of democracy to other nations because our "separate and unequal" voting system, and our concept of an Electoral College, do not reflect the best of a representative democracy.

We need to build our democracy and our voting system on a rock, the rock of adding a Voting Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that applies to all states and all citizens.

We need to provide the American people with a citizenship right to vote and provide Congress with the authority to craft a unitary voting system that is inclusive of all Americans and guarantees that all votes will be counted in a complete, fair and efficient manner.

It's the only foundation upon which we can build a more perfect Union.

Every two, four or six years every member of Congress wants the people in their district or state to stand up and vote for them. Today it's time for every member of Congress to stand up and vote for the right of the people to vote, and to have their vote fairly and fully counted.

[gldstwmn]

MSM LINK:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...electoral_vote
Democrats to Force Debate on Ohio Results