Senate Democrats Say Enough is Enough

Senate Democrats Say Enough is Enough!

Senator for Life, Mary Landrieu
Friday, June 27th, 1997 -- Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, told Rules Committee Chairman John Warner (R-VA) to stuff it yesterday, refusing to further cooperate in any way with a "review" of the contested election of Senator Mary Landrieu in Louisiana.

The Republican candidate, Louis "Woody'' Jenkins, has alleged that vote fraud allowed Landrieu to claim victory. She won by 5,788 votes out of 1.7 million cast. Landrieu was sworn into office January 7th, pending the outcome of an investigation.

Democrats said months of work had found little doubt of Landrieu's victory. Senator Wendell Ford (D-KY), the minority leader on the Rules Committee, said the only fraud was "testimony solicited on behalf of Mr. Jenkins by a known criminal.… There is no way that we, in good conscience, can or should proceed with this investigation,''

Senator Ford went another step forward and asked the Justice Department to investigate witness tampering and criminal interference by Republicans with the Senate review of the Landrieu/Jenkins election.

The Republican-controlled Senate Committee has certainly attached more credibility than due, or usual, to the tired charge that the election was fixed. As I wrote earlier this year, in Louisiana there is no such thing a a clean election. Republicans knew, going into this witch hunt, that Landrieu would almost certainly be able to uncover similar activities by Jenkins' people in a state where voter fraud is simply "part of the process."

In selecting Louisiana as a battleground of electoral morals, the GOP show once again their complete misunderstanding of the American mind.

Read my lips: American voters know that politicians lie, steal, cheat, have scandalous love affairs, hold people up for money, and engage in less-than-fair tactics. It's the human condition. The question for the electorate is "Who does it better?"