-Caveat Lector-
It's not the S Court the is 'besmirched', it's the 'House' down the
street.
On Wed, 10 Jan 2001 17:50:28 -0800 radman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> Justice Denied
>
> <http://www.ourfuture.org/readarticle.asp?ID=702>
>
> by Robert L. Borosage, Campaign For America's Future
> 12/13/00
>
> In a brazen decision, a partisan majority of five Supreme Court
> justices
> trampled precedent, law and common sense to reach the result that
> they
> wanted: blocking a fair count of the votes in Florida. As Mr.
> Justice
> Scalia indicated in his revealing opinion justifying the five when
> they
> stopped the count, the five partisans assumed that if the votes were
> counted Al Gore would win Florida and the election. This would do
> "irreparable harm," Justice Scalia said in an understatement, to the
> "legitimacy" of George W. Bush taking office. Losing generally has
> that
> effect. And so, the five partisan conservative activists chose
> instead to
> sacrifice the Court's reputation and besmirch its tradition in order
> to
> protect Gov. Bush's usurpation.
> It is particularly outrageous that the five conservative activists
> summoned
> up a newfound concern for equal protection to justify their lawless
> decision. Somehow the common sense standard that election officials
> should
> count ballots by hand looking to see if there is a mark that would
> indicate how the voter cast his or her vote a standard that has
> sufficed
> in handcounts determining elections for years raised equal
> protection
> concerns. The court was in essence ruling that if a machine did not
> count a
> ballot for whatever idiosyncratic reason that ballot need not be
> counted.
> But the reality of Florida and many other states is that precincts
> with
> poor and minority voters get the
> oldest and least accurate machines. If you were wealthy and white in
> Florida, you voted on machines that
> rejected far fewer ballots than if you were poor or black. This was
> not
> "voter error," or more offensively,
> Republican claims of voter ignorance. It was machine error, and
> institutionalized discrimination against black and poor voters. This
> was
> the true equal protection concern that the Supreme Court should have
> been
> focused on. It is understandable why George Bush did not want these
> rejected votes counted: the poor and minorities tend to vote against
> him.
> But it is inconceivable that the Supreme Court would block the
> counting of
> votes, given the discriminatory distribution of modern as against
> outmoded
> machines. There was ample precedent to order a full count and ample
> time to
> do so. Instead the Court elevated an arbitrary deadline that made a
> count
> impossible. It stopped the count to avoid "irreparable harm" to
> George W.
> Bush. And then it ruled that its stay had done irreparable harm not
> just to
> Al Gore, but to the voters whose votes were never counted.
> Justice Stevens was surely right that a big loser in this case was
> the
> society's confidence in the judge as a neutral arbiter above
> politics. But
> the bigger loser was our democracy itself. A candidate who lost
> across the
> country and in Florida will capture the office of the presidency by
> having
> employed every means necessary from a partisan election official, to
> Republican paid demonstrators, to backstage threats, to a partisan
> legislature, to a partisan 5 person majority on the Supreme Court,
> to block
> a fair count of the votes.
> This will be remembered. It will be remembered by African Americans
> whose
> voting rights were trampled by a Court that once prided itself on
> defending
> them. It will be remembered by Democrats who had the election stolen
> from them.
> But the true danger is that it will be remembered by the Bush crowd
> themselves. Aware that they lost, they will work tirelessly to
> weaken the
> coalition against them, even as they seek to expand their own. We
> are
> likely to witness a desperate return to race bait, class based wedge
> politics with the vicious edge that was displayed in Florida. And it
> is
> clear that there is no law, no rule, no standard of decency which
> they will
> allow to limit them in their pursuits.
> Progressives must insure that this injustice does not stand. An
> immediate
> reform drive should be launched to challenge the institutionalized
> discrimination against working people and minorities in the election
> system. In January, a massive voter registration drive should be
> launched,
> fueled by the outrage of Florida. Al Gore may be forced to concede,
> but we
> should not. Bush should be challenged from day one, his political
> machinations revealed, his class and racial politics exposed. The
> Florida
> vote should be investigated, particularly the detailed allegations
> of
> purposeful suppression of the black vote. Democrats should stand up
> against
> any attempt of Bush to institutionalize this conservative usurpation
> through judicial or regulatory appointments.
> Democratic Hall of Shame
> Whatever you thought of Al Gore as a candidate or a leader, he
> deserved
> support as he fought to have the votes counted. It is truly
> unforgivable
> that some Democratic politicians did not have the basic decency or
> simple
> courtesy to allow him to digest the Court's opinion and make his own
> strategic choices before scrambling to get press attention by
> calling for
> him to concede. Wanting to look like statesmen, they acted like
> knaves. The
> most visible nominees to this hall of infamy were Senator Robert
> Torricelli, Rep. James Moran, and Ed Rendell, former mayor of
> Philadelphia.
>
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CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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