War Mongers for Jenkins!

The website Politico reports that the pro-Iraq War Freedoms Watch — a 527 created, in part, by former members of the Iraq Provisional Authority — has made media buy in the 6th Congressional District special election.

Surprise, surprise! They are working to elect Republican Woody Jenkins!

Well, considering Woody's yeoman service in support of the illegal funding and arming of the so-called Contras in the also illegal U.S.-funded war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua as half of the Iran-Contra scandal, it's no surprise that one set of would-be imperialists would throw wads of cash and disinformation in support of another imperialist.

File this under one good scam deserves another!

So, the people who brought us the geopolitical, military, and fiscal debacle that is Iraq are coming to the 6th District to attack Don Cazayoux.

Trying to spin the unspinable. Gotta love it!

Got to be good news for Cazayoux!

The LDP's Congressional District Caucus Elections Were Not Valid

The Louisiana Democratic Party (LDP) held elections for Congressional District Caucus chairs when the Democratic State Central Committee (DSCC) met in Baton Rouge on March 15 to elect the officers for the party Executive Committee.

Those Congressional District Caucus elections were not carried out in accordance with the party by-laws governing elections for those positions. The results of those votes, then, are not valid.

The party by-laws (PDF) provide specific guidance for how these 14 seats (two for each of the state's congressional districts) are to be filled. That can be found in Section 17 — Congressional District Caucuses, which reads in full:

A. Congressional District Caucuses shall be held in each of the State's Congressional Districts. These Caucuses shall be held for the purpose of electing representatives from each Congressional District to serve as members of the Executive Committee of the Democratic State Central Committee. A Congressional District Caucus shall be subordinate to the Democratic State Central Committee and shall not endorse candidates for public office.

B. A Congressional District Caucus shall be comprised of members of the Democratic State Central Committee who reside in and are registered to vote in the Congressional District. In addition, a Chairperson or First Vice-Chairperson of a Democratic Parish Executive Committee shall be a member of the Caucus in the Congressional District in which he/she resides and is registered to vote. All Caucus members shall be eligible for election as officers of the Caucus or as a Congressional District Representative to the Executive Committee of the Democratic State Central Committee.

C. The Chairperson of the Democratic State Central Committee shall call a meeting of each Congressional District Caucus no later than sixty (60) days following the organizational meeting of the Democratic State Central Committee on a date and at a place to be designated by the Chairperson. Members of the Caucuses shall be given at least ten (10) days advance notice of the date, time, and place of the meeting and shall be provided with the name, address, and to the extent possible, the telephone number of each Caucus member in his/her respective District when notice of the meeting is given. Caucus members present at the time of the meeting shall constitute a quorum.

D. Officers of each Congressional District Caucus shall be a Chairperson, a Vice-Chairperson, who shall be of the opposite sex of the Chairperson, and a Secretary. Each Caucus shall be represented on the Executive Committee of the Democratic State Central Committee by two members, one male and one female. The Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson, and Secretary of a Caucus may also be elected to serve as a Caucus Representative to the Executive Committee of the Democratic State Central Committee. (Emphasis added.)

The "shall's" that are highlighted here are crucial.

As those of us who attended the March 15 DSCC meeting learned, "shall" is a powerful word. It is, according to the party chairman (Chris Whittington), the party legal counsel (Kenny Hooks), and the party parliamentarian (Sen. Derrick Shepherd), immutable. There is, they each said at various times that day, no way around "shall."

It is not a suggestion; it is a commandment.

So, Section 17 of the by-laws directs the party to hold these caucuses and the elections in the respective congressional districts and it lays out how this is to take place.

That section directs that these caucus meetings shall be held within 60 days after the creation of the new executive committee. That is, the person who served as chairman prior to March 15 could not convene these caucuses. The could be convened only by the new chairman and after each potential participant in the caucuses had been notified of the time and place of the various caucus meetings which are to be held in their respective congressional districts. There is also a 10-day advanced notice provision that could not be exercised until after the results of the election for chairman were determined.

It's right there in the by-laws. And there are a lot of "shall's" directing how this is to be done.

Having these elections in Baton Rouge around the meeting where the executive committee elections were held does not comply with the state party by-laws.

It does not matter how the party has done it in the past. The by-laws say "shall." There is no wiggle room.

There was an admission of procedural problems with the caucus elections in the 7th Congressional District, at the Tuesday, March 25, meeting of the Lafayette Parish Democratic Executive Committee. At that meeting, DSCC members Stephen Handwerk and Mary Werner told our committee (I'm a member of that committee), that they would hold a new election at a district-wide caucus that would be held sometime in April.

It was a magnanimous gesture that speaks well for them and their commitment to fair election processes in the party.

The other good Democrats who erroneously believe they were elected to similar positions in Baton Rouge at the DSCC meeting should follow Stephen and Mary's lead and agree to step down and re-open the process so that the elections can be held in compliance with the party by-laws.

Newly re-elected party chairman Chris Whittington should act pro-actively to hold elections that will comply with the by-laws by first notifying those who mistakenly believed they were elected to these caucus chair positions on the 15th about the procedural error that allowed these caucuses to occur and those elections to take place. Then, he should work to call and convene the Congressional District Caucuses in the manner prescribed in the by-laws and call for these legitimate elections to be held at the appropriate time and place and in the way directed by the by-laws.

These are not trivial elections. They are for 14 seats on the LDP Executive Committee. Mr. Whittington says he has no agenda, that he does the bidding of the executive committee. These elections, then, are for control of the party.

Breaking a Disturbing Pattern

The casual, off-handed manner in which these Congressional District Caucuses were convened and these votes held is part of a disturbing pattern of disregard by Mr. Whittington and others on the executive committee for the sanctity and importance of elections as vehicles for conveying legitimacy.

While power, prestige and other assets accrue to the victors of elections, the victors do not win the right to pass judgment on the legitimacy of the process. That right is retained by the vanquished. It is a principle well established in international law (thus, opposition parties frequently call in international monitors to observe election processes for their transparency and fairness).

We've also seen a stark demonstration of this fact in our own country in recent years. In the eyes of the American public, Al Gore's decision in December 2000 to abide by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision handing the presidency to George Bush cast more legitimacy on that decision and Bush's ascendancy was absolutely essential to the acceptance of that decision and that outcome.

Since February, Louisiana Democrats have engaged in three elections — the February 9th party primary; the March 1 party convention delegate elections; and, the March 15 state party executive committee elections.

It is both ironic and disturbing that the election in which there was the most confidence in both the process and the result was the February 9th election that was run by the Louisiana Secretary of State's office, which happens to be held by a Republican.

The delegate selection election was a farce. One of three polling places in Lafayette never opened. There were stories from across the state of un-tended ballot boxes, of delegate candidates campaigning at the ballot boxes, and people shuttling ballots between cities.

The party executive committee elections reeked of manipulation due to the fact that 27 people were appointed to the DSCC and allowed to vote for officers even though candidates other than the incumbent chairman and his cronies knew who these appointees were. To top that off, some of the appointees were allowed to vote by proxy without ever having seen or heard from any candidates other than those aligned with the chairman's ticket.

The failure of the party leadership to provide transparent and fair processes to govern party elections undermines confidence in the results of those elections and, thus, the party itself.

Democrats believe in fair elections. The way to ensure that the party is unified is for the party to conduct its business and its elections in a fair and transparent way. That approach will build confidence in the party and its leadership.

The Congressional District Caucus elections held on March 15 do not comply with the party by-laws. The results, therefore, are not valid. The Congressional District Caucus elections need to be carried out in a manner that complies with the by-laws. Doing this is an essential step toward building new confidence in the party's leadership that recent elections have done so much to undermine.

Thornburgh's Charge and Louisiana Politics

It's one thing for a possible victim (like former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman) of selective political prosecution to make such a claim, but things change considerably when a prominent Republican adds his voice to the chorus.

Not just any Republican. A former U.S. Attorney General in two earlier Republican administrations.

Yesterday, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, former Pennsylvania governor and U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh said he believes the Bush administration's Justice Department has engaged in selective targeting of Democrats for criminal prosecution.

Here's an excerpt from the Washington Post's coverage:

Richard L. Thornburgh, who served as attorney general under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, accused the Justice Department yesterday of prosecuting a prominent Pennsylvania Democrat for political reasons, one of a series of cases singled out by House Democrats as examples of alleged GOP meddling at the Justice Department.

Thornburgh, who served as attorney general from 1988 to 1991 and whose law firm represents Cyril Wecht, a nationally known coroner from Pittsburgh, testified yesterday that Wecht had been indicted for mail fraud and a "hodgepodge" of other charges by overzealous prosecutors keen on pleasing political appointees in Washington.

"He has always been a contentious, outspoken, highly critical and highly visible Democratic figure in western Pennsylvania," Thornburgh told the House Judiciary Committee. "In other words, he would qualify as an ideal target for a Republican U.S. attorney trying to curry favor with a department which demonstrated that if you play by its rules, you will advance."

Thornburgh also said that Wecht "was not the only apparent political prosecution in western Pennsylvania," pointing to three high-profile cases of other local Democrats brought by U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan of Pittsburgh.

The Los Angeles Times included this information:

"We should not allow any citizen of the United States to proceed to trial knowing that his prosecution may have been undertaken for political reasons as opposed to being done to serve the interests of justice," Thornburgh said. "Sadly, that appears to have been so in the case against Dr. Wecht."

The U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh, Mary Beth Buchanan, denied that politics had influenced prosecutions. "The prosecution of Dr. Wecht is based solely on the facts and the law. The government intends to try this case in a court of law, where it belongs and is still pending," she said in a statement.

The possibility that political motives fueled corruption cases during the Bush administration stems from allegations turned up in hearings this summer over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys last year. Some of the prosecutors said they believed they were dismissed because they refused to bring cases that would benefit Republican officeholders.

The judiciary panel also heard about potential irregularities in the prosecution of a former Democratic governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, who was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after being convicted on federal corruption charges last year. The case has drawn interest because of an Alabama Republican activist's allegation that then-White House political strategist Karl Rove put pressure on the Justice Department to pursue Siegelman.

The New York Times story added this:

Mr. Thornburgh noted that Ms. Buchanan had conducted a series of high-profile corruption investigations against Pennsylvania Democrats in the months before the 2006 midterm elections, including the one against the former coroner, Cyril Wecht.

“During this same period, not one Republican officeholder was investigated and/or prosecuted by Ms. Buchanan’s office — not one,” Mr. Thornburgh said, noting that there had been accusations of corruption against two prominent Republican members of Congress from Pennsylvania in that same period. He said that Dr. Wecht, a nationally prominent forensic pathologist, “would qualify as an ideal target for a Republican U.S. attorney trying to curry favor with a department which demonstrated that if you play by its rules, you will advance.”

So, what's this got to do with Louisiana? Consider, for a moment, the late September charges brought against a Morgan City man. Here's how The Advocate in Baton Rouge described the case in their September 29 article:

MORGAN CITY — The husband of a state representative is accused of employing at least five illegal immigrants in a case built on statements from the migrants and a former office worker, according to court documents.

Lenny J. Dartez, husband of state Rep. Carla Dartez, D-Morgan City, and a member of the Louisiana Democratic Party’s central committee, was arrested Tuesday on a federal complaint of harboring illegal aliens.

Here are some other bits provided by The Advocate:

A former office worker for the company told agents that Dartez and his office manager allegedly knew the Trinidadians were illegal and processed their payroll information separately from other employees, according to the complaint.

The office worker, who quit the company in May because of a conflict with another employee, also told agents that she recalled from 12 to 15 illegal immigrants from Trinidad working at the company in 2007, according to the complaint.

The investigation of Lenny Dartez began with an anonymous tip that men from Trinidad were living in a group of mobile homes in Amelia and working for his company.

Agents who responded to the tip detained five Trinidad nationals in May, three of whom were riding in a van registered to a Lenny Dartez company and driven by a Dartez employee, according to court documents.

So, of all the oilfield companies operating in Amelia and the Morgan City area, where there is no shortage of foreign nationals working in various capacities, it just so happened that the only company that could be fingered for alleged employing of illegals happened to be owned by a member of the Democratic State Central Committee whose wife happened to be a Democratic member of the Louisiana Legislature.

And, did I mention that Carla Dartez's Republican opponent was backed by an organization headed by a Bush Pioneer?

An amazing chain of coincidences, isn't it? Or, is what the character V said in "V for Vendetta" true? "There are no coincidences, merely the illusion of coincidences."

Here's why this matters, according to Thornburgh:

“The citizens of the United States must have confidence that the department is conducting itself in a fair and impartial manner without actual political influence or the appearance of political influence,” said Mr. Thornburgh, who is now in private practice.

Even in Louisiana.