[Mb-civic] The Boxer Rebellion-William Pitt FYI

[Michael Butler]

Harry Reid is on board
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 12:15
Announced by Rev. Jackson at the rally about 10 minutes ago.
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.