Minnesota voters send first Muslim to Capitol Hill

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota
(CNN) -- In a political first, a Muslim has been elected to serve in the U.S. Congress.

Keith Ellison, a Minnesota state legislator and lawyer, reached the political milestone by defeating two other candidates in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, which covers the Minneapolis area.

His victory was part of the Democratic wave that seized control of the House of Representatives from the Republicans.

Ellison won 56 percent of the vote, defeating Republican Alan Fine and the Independence Party's Tammy Lee, both of whom garnered 21 percent of the vote. A Green Party candidate received 2 percent.

With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, Ellison received 135,519 votes, Fine 51,896, and Lee, 51,250.

Ellison is also the first African-American from Minnesota to be elected to the U.S. House. He ran on the Democratic-Farmer-Labor ticket in a district that is heavily liberal.

Members of that party, a uniquely Minnesotan movement, describe the DFL as the state chapter of the Democratic Party.

Ellison's winning platform

Ellison's views reflect Democratic ideals and discontent. (Watch what Ellison said about Katrina victims, abortion and insurance for the poor -- 2:38)

He is opposed to the war in Iraq and on his Web site, he has called "for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq."

"I opposed the war before it began. I was against this war once it started and I am the only candidate calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops."

His religious message is one of inclusiveness.

Regarding his Muslim faith, he said, "people draw strength and moral courage from a variety of religious traditions."

"Mine have come from both Catholicism and Islam. I was raised Catholic and later became a Muslim while attending Wayne State University. I am inspired by the Quran's message of an encompassing divine love, and a deep faith guides my life every day."

Ellison's position on the Israeli-Palestinian issue is supportive of the two-state solution and the road map to peace process. He has been critical of the Hamas movement.

"Peace is necessary for both Israeli and Palestinian people, and I wholeheartedly support peace movements in Israel and throughout the region," he said in a statement on his Web site.

He was endorsed by the Twin Cities newspaper, the American Jewish World, which said, "In Ellison, we have a moderate Muslim who extends his hand in friendship to the Jewish community and supports the security of the State of Israel."

Ellison is pro-choice and pro-labor, and supports "universal single payer health care" -- long popular stances among liberals.

The seat Ellison won had been held by Rep. Martin Olav Sabo, the longtime Democratic incumbent, whose retirement sparked a wide-open race. Sabo won 70 percent of the vote for the House seat in 2004.

Source

The Votes Are In! And I Didn't Win. :(

BUT, I got 11.4% of the vote. Not so bad, considering I barely campaigned. Something about breaking up with a husband and having the previous husband die that just takes the thrill out of it. LOL And, I didn't believe I would win. Between my late entry into the race and the local papers hatred of Libertarians that turned the race into "the evil Libertarians against the good Dems/Reps", there was little chance of my swaying the majority.

Here are the results:

NP - Michael J. Wallace	26340	27.42
NP - Bernard L. Stewart	24264	25.26
NP - Jacob Eapen	24096	25.08
NP - Gwen S Todd	10795	11.24
NP - Steve Strayer	10228	10.65
Write-in	335	0.35

Stay tuned. I already have my candidate info site for the next run and have learned a lot about what to expect. Watch this space for me to be the WINNER of the race next time around.

Barack Obama: 'I Inhaled — That Was The Point'

"I inhaled — that was the point."

That was what Illinois Senator Barack Obama, currently on a book tour that may or may not segue into a run for the 2008 presidency, said to New Yorker editor David Remnick this afternoon at the American Magazine Conference, after Remnick asked Obama whether or not his admission of drug use in the book would become problematic if he does, if fact, run for president.

The softspoken Obama, who during an appearance on Meet The Press yesterday admitted he would consider a run for the White House, openly criticized the Bush administration in front of 500 or so magazine executives during a wide-ranging, 45-minute discussion, occasionally with Remnick's prodding. "This is the most ideologically driven administration in my memory, so obstinate in resisting facts, dissenting opinions ... [They entered the White House] with a set of preconcieved notions." Obama said. "I think this administration has done great damage to this country."

"I wouldn't fit in with this administration [because I think] actually being informed is a good basis for policy," Obama said to laughter. "OK, that's a low-blow."

Obama was particularly critical of the war in Iraq. "We've used up so much political capital [in Iraq]," adding that it is "going to take the current military the same amount of time it took the military to recover from Vietnam."

After some lighthearted grilling, Obama said Remnick "sounds nicer in his columns, but turns out to be somewhat of a prickly guy."

Remnick, who at this point could be considered the President of the United States of Magazines, forced Obama to address the topic of religion. "It's not 'faith' if you are absolutely certain," Obama said, noting that he didn't believe his lack of "faith" would hurt him a national election. "Evolution is more grounded in my experience than angels."

Throughout the interview, Obama expressed doubt about his willingness to put his family through the scrutiny of a presidential race. "My wife would be leading the bandwagon for me to be running for president ... if I was married to someone else."

When asked if the White House would be a plac e worth inheriting in 2009, Obama said, "There are a lot of problems to clean up, and nopt a lot of resources to work with." He added that the first agenda of a new president should be to "stabilize and extricate ourselves" from Iraq.

FishbowlNY will be blogging live this week from the American Magazine Conference — the annual pow-wow of high-powered magazine executives — at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix. Check back often for our extended coverage.

Nine ex-Republicans run as Dems in Kansas

Political crossover striking in bedrock Bush territory

By Peter Slevin

The Washington Post

Updated: 3:54 a.m. MT Oct 19, 2006

WICHITA - Paul Morrison, a career prosecutor who specializes in putting killers behind bars, has the bulletproof résumé and the rugged looks of a law-and-order Republican, which is what he was until last year. That was when he announced he would run for attorney general -- as a Democrat.

He is now running neck-and-neck with Republican Phill Kline, an iconic social conservative who made headlines by seeking the names of abortion-clinic patients and vowing to defend science-teaching standards that challenge Darwinian evolution. What's more, Morrison is raising money faster than Kline and pulling more cash from Republicans than Democrats.

Nor is Morrison alone. In a state that voted nearly 2 to 1 for President Bush in 2004, nine former Republicans will be on the November ballot as Democrats. Among them is Mark Parkinson, a former chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, who changed parties to run for lieutenant governor with the popular Democratic governor, Kathleen Sebelius.

"I'd reached a breaking point," Parkinson said, preparing for a rally in Wichita alongside Sebelius. "I want to work on relevant issues and not on a lot of things that don't matter."

The Kansas developments coincide with efforts by Democrats across the country to capture moderate Republican and independent voters dismayed with partisan bickering from both parties, particularly from the Republican right. The spirit of the attempted Democratic comeback in Kansas, set by Sebelius, is a search for the workable political center.

Though yet untested in the election booth, the Democratic developments in Kansas reflect polls in many parts of the country. As elsewhere, Democrats and moderate Republicans say they are frustrated with policies and practices they trace to Republican leadership, including the Iraq war, ballooning government spending, ethics violations and the influence of social conservatives.

A long-standing split among Kansas Republicans has deepened in recent years. One fresh sign came from the Johnson County Sun, which said it would endorse virtually the entire Democratic ticket, including Morrison and Parkinson, after endorsing fewer than a dozen Democrats in the past half-century.

‘The Republican Party has changed’
"So what in the world has happened?" publisher Steve Rose asked in a recent column. "The Republican Party has changed, and it has changed monumentally. You almost cannot be a victorious traditional Republican candidate with mainstream values in Johnson County or in Kansas anymore." Ron Freeman, executive director of the Kansas GOP, called the migrating candidates -- Parkinson, Morrison and seven state House candidates, including one party-switching incumbent -- "a simple case of political opportunism."

"It's really more about them than it is about the party," Freeman said. "They obviously feel the Democratic Party is weak enough that, without any history in the party, they can be front-runners in the party."

Republicans control three-quarters of the state Senate and two-thirds of the House. The state has not elected a Democratic U.S. senator since the 1930s, although voters have been more willing to put Democrats in the governor's mansion. Rep. Dennis Moore became the lone Kansas Democrat in Congress in 1998 by appealing to crossover moderates -- the heart of this year's strategy.

Democrats consider it significant that 58 GOP incumbents in the state House drew Democratic opposition this year, compared with 39 in 2004. In the September primary, moderates mobilized to carry two Board of Education seats held by conservatives who had embarrassed many Kansans by endorsing a fundamentalist-Christian critique of evolution.

The recruiter-in-chief is Sebelius, who persuaded Republican Cessna executive John E. Moore to switch parties in 2002 and run to be her lieutenant governor.

"These are people who felt banished," Sebelius said in an interview before crowing to Democratic campaign workers: "We have some remarkable conversions. My favorite kind of revival is going to a place where someone says, 'I've been a Republican all my life, and I've seen the light.' " Sebelius, who has a solid lead over Republican challenger Jim Barnett, is the daughter-in-law of a Republican former member of Congress, and she likes to say the first Republican she converted was her husband. She has shown, notably in debates over school funding and the state budget, that she can negotiate compromises acceptable to both parties. Kansas has had a balanced budget for four straight years after six years of deficits.

This year, with Moore stepping aside, Sebelius recruited Parkinson, who views himself as squarely in the mainstream, talking up fiscal responsibility and a favorable business climate. He favors embryonic stem cell research, a woman's right to choose abortion and the teaching of evolution as settled scientific theory.

It was also the governor who sold Morrison on the attorney general's race. "She said what I'd been thinking for three years," Morrison said.

In a Morrison radio ad, John Walsh of "America's Most Wanted" introduces the Johnson County district attorney as "one of the toughest prosecutors Kansas has ever seen" and names two of Morrison's best-known murder cases. Walsh asserts, in a dig at Kline, that after 26 years as a prosecutor, Morrison has the "right priorities."

Kline is a confident politician who has buoyed the Republican right and disturbed his opponents. He drafted a law restricting late-term abortion and won a recent Supreme Court case reinstating the death penalty. His most controversial moves were subpoenaing the medical records of more than 80 women and girls who received abortions in 2003 and seeking to require health workers to report the sexual activities of girls under 16.

‘Fairly moderate’
"The office has become much more political under his leadership," Morrison said in an interview in his Olathe office. Morrison says his political hero is former U.S. senator John C. Danforth, the Missourian who recently published a rebuke of the GOP that contends the national party is beholden to the Christian right.

"Most Kansas Republicans are fairly moderate," Morrison said. "They're like most Kansas Democrats."

Kline spokeswoman Sherriene Jones denied Morrison's contention that the Kansas GOP has moved too far to the right: "The Republican Party reflects Kansas values, reflects loyalty and reflects family," she said. "It's Mr. Morrison who has changed."

The Democratic National Committee is spending money and sending staff to Kansas as part of Chairman Howard Dean's much-debated 50-state strategy of extending the party's influence in unlikely places. The DNC will not reveal its spending or the size of the staff, but a spokesman said the infusion permits a statewide organizing effort not possible before.

With Sebelius and Parkinson so far ahead in the gubernatorial race, attention has shifted to the competition for attorney general, considered too close to call. As Parkinson, who describes Morrison as his best friend, puts it, "It's going to say a whole lot about what the state of Kansas is right now."

‘Temporary setback’
Whatever happens, Kansas State University political scientist Joseph A. Aistrup said, the duel between Republican moderates and conservatives will no doubt continue. He said the party switchers represent a "temporary setback" for the state GOP.

"The cultural conservatives have lost before, and they just keep on coming back," Aistrup said. "They don't pick up their marbles and go home."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

U.S. Says Blacks in Mississippi Suppress White Vote

Kate Medley for The New York Times

Ike Brown, chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee of Noxubee County, Miss., faces a federal suit.

MACON, Miss., Oct. 5 — The Justice Department has chosen this no-stoplight, courthouse town buried in the eastern Mississippi prairie for an unusual civil rights test: the first federal lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act accusing blacks of suppressing the rights of whites.

Kate Medley for The New York Times

Roderick Walker, county prosecutor, says the lawsuit is about “fair play.”

The action represents a sharp shift, and it has raised eyebrows outside the state. The government is charging blacks with voting fraud in a state whose violent rejection of blacks’ right to vote, over generations, helped give birth to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Yet within Mississippi the case has provoked knowing nods rather than cries of outrage, even among liberal Democrats.

The Justice Department’s main focus is Ike Brown, a local power broker whose imaginative electoral tactics have for 20 years caused whisperings from here to the state capital in Jackson, 100 miles to the southwest. Mr. Brown, tall, thin, a twice-convicted felon, the chairman of the Noxubee County Democratic Executive Committee and its undisputed political boss, is accused by the federal government of orchestrating — with the help of others — “relentless voting-related racial discrimination” against whites, whom blacks outnumber by more than 3 to 1 in the county.

His goal, according to the government: keeping black politicians — ones supported by Mr. Brown, that is — in office.

To do that, the department says, he and his allies devised a watertight system for controlling the all-determining Democratic primary, much as segregationists did decades ago.

Mr. Brown is accused in the lawsuit and in supporting documents of paying and organizing notaries, some of whom illegally marked absentee ballots or influenced how the ballots were voted; of publishing a list of voters, all white, accompanied by a warning that they would be challenged at the polls; of importing black voters into the county; and of altering racial percentages in districts by manipulating the registration rolls.

To run against the county prosecutor — one of two white officeholders in Noxubee — Mr. Brown brought in a black lawyer from outside the county, according to the supporting documents, who never even bothered to turn on the gas or electricity at his rented apartment. That candidate was disqualified.Whites, who make up just under 30 percent of the population here, are circumspect when discussing Mr. Brown, though he remains a hero to many blacks. When he drove off to federal prison to serve a sentence for tax fraud in 1995, he received a grand farewell from his political supporters and friends, including local elected officials; whites, on the other hand, for years have seen him as a kind of occult force in determining the affairs of the county.

Still, many whites said privately they welcomed the Justice Department’s lawsuit, which is scheduled for trial early next year.

“In my opinion, it puts the focus on fair play,” said Roderick Walker, the county prosecutor Mr. Brown tried to oust, in 2003. “They were doing something wrong.”

Up and down South Jefferson Street, though, in the old brick commercial district, the white merchants refused to be quoted, for fear of alienating black customers. “There’s a lot of voting irregularities, but that’s all I’m going to say,” one woman said, ending the conversation abruptly.

The Justice Department’s voting rights expert is less reserved. “Virtually every election provides a multitude of examples of these illegal activities organized by Ike Brown and other defendants, and those who act in concert with them,” the expert, Theodore S. Arrington, chairman of the political science department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, wrote in a report filed with the court.

Mr. Brown is coolly dismissive of the case against him. He has no office at the white-columned Noxubee County Courthouse, but that is where he casually greets visitors, in a chair near the entrance. A loquacious man, he both minimizes his own role and portrays himself as a central target. Far from being the vital orchestrator portrayed by the government, “when I was in Maxwell prison in ’95 and ’96, the show went right on,” he said.

There are so few whites in the county, Mr. Brown suggests, that the tactics he is accused of are unnecessary to keep blacks in office.

“They can’t win anyway unless we choose to vote for them,” he said with a smile. “If I was doing something wrong — that’s like closing the barn door when the horse is already gone.”

He sees the lawsuit against him as merely the embittered reaction of whites who feel disenfranchised, and he scoffs at a consent decree signed last year in which county officials agreed not to harass or intimidate white candidates or voters, manipulate absentee ballots, or let poll workers coach voters, among other things. “I wouldn’t sign my name,” Mr. Brown said.

But the Justice Department is pressing ahead with its suit, and wants to force Mr. Brown to agree to the same cease-and-desist conditions as his fellow county officials.

The state’s Democratic establishment has hardly rallied around Mr. Brown; privately some Democrats here express disdain for his tactics. Instead, he is being defended by a maverick Republican lawyer who sees the suit as an example of undue interference in the affairs of a political party.

“To do what they want to do, they would virtually have to take over the Democratic Party,” said the lawyer, Wilbur Colom, adding that Mr. Brown’s notoriety had made him the focus of the investigation. “I believe they were under so much pressure because of Ike’s very sophisticated election operation. He is a Karl Rove genius on the Noxubee County level.”

In Jackson, though, a leading light in Mr. Brown’s own party, Mississippi Secretary of State Eric Clark, a longtime moderate in state politics, refused to endorse him.

“Anybody who tries to prevent people from voting is breaking the law,” Mr. Clark said. “I certainly suspect some of that has been going on.”

Back in Macon, in the shadow of the courthouse green’s standard-issue Confederate monument, Mr. Brown spoke of history: “They had their way all the time. They no longer have their way. That’s what it’s all about.” The case is “all about politics,” he said, “all about them trying to keep me from picking the lock.”

But Mr. Walker, the county prosecutor, insisted the past had nothing to do with the case against Mr. Brown. “I wouldn’t sit here and pretend black people haven’t been mistreated,” he said. “I hate what happened in the past. But I can’t do anything about it.”

Source

In Bill’s Fine Print, Millions to Celebrate Victory

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — Even as the Bush administration urges Americans to stay the course in Iraq, Republicans in Congress have put down a quiet marker in the apparent hope that V-I Day might be only months away.

Tucked away in fine print in the military spending bill for this past year was a lump sum of $20 million to pay for a celebration in the nation’s capital “for commemoration of success” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not surprisingly, the money was not spent.

Now Congressional Republicans are saying, in effect, maybe next year. A paragraph written into spending legislation and approved by the Senate and House allows the $20 million to be rolled over into 2007.

The original legislation empowered the president to designate “a day of celebration” to commemorate the success of the armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to “issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe that day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.”

The celebration would honor the soldiers, sailors, air crews and marines who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it would be held in Washington, with the $20 million to cover the costs of military participation.

Democrats called attention to the measure, an act that Republicans are likely to portray as an effort to embarrass them five weeks before the midterm election. The Democrats said both the original language and the extension were pushed by Senate Republicans. A spokesman for the Republican-controlled Senate Armed Services Committee said it was protocol not to identify sponsors of such specific legislation.

The overall legislation was approved in the Senate by unanimous consent and overwhelmingly in the House after a short debate.

Democrats nevertheless said they were not pleased.

“If the Bush administration had spent more time planning for the postwar occupation of Iraq, and less time planning ‘mission accomplished’ victory celebrations, America would be closer to finishing the job in Iraq,” said Rebecca M. Kirszner, communications director for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader.

Lt. Col. Brian Maka, a Pentagon spokesman, said late Tuesday that the event was envisioned as an opportunity for “honoring returning U.S. forces at the conclusion” of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. “As the funds were not used in F.Y. 2006,” the official said, using the initials for fiscal year, “the authorization was rolled over into F.Y. 2007.”

Source: NY Times

Voter group sues Alameda County over new voting system

Three Alameda County voters filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court Wednesday afternoon against the county and its registrar of voters office, over concerns about security and accuracy of the county's new voting system.

The group of voters -- being coordinated by the nonprofit Voter Action organization -- claims Alameda County has not performed independent, expert security vulnerability testing on its new Sequoia voting equipment. The group claims such testing was a prerequisite stipulated by county supervisors before the county would issue payment for the system.

Dave Macdonald, the county's acting registrar, said the county did in fact hire an independent third party to perform vulnerability tests, and those test results will be shown to the supervisors during a public meeting Oct. 10. He called the results "very positive."

"I would challenge anyone to find another county that is going to the lengths we are to ensure the security of our voting system," said Macdonald, adding the county also has yet to start payment for the new system.

In June, Alameda County supervisors approved the purchase of the new Sequoia voting system, which consists mainly of paper ballots that will be scanned electronically as well as 1,000 touch-screen machines.

The handful of voters suing claim the county and registrar, however, did not abide by the county supervisors' decision to test the equipment before purchase. This group contends the county entered into a contract with Sequoia that calls for the company to decide which tests to conduct, and does not stipulate that the testing be done by a third party.

Alameda County Counsel Richard Winnie said that allegation is incorrect, and the contract does not call for Sequoia to decide testing parameters. Winnie added the county has indeed performed its own third-party testing and is anticipating sending payment to Sequoia only after this November results have been certified and the county judges the equipment satisfactory.

Robert Friese, attorney for the trio of plaintiffs, said he does not believe the county and the registrar of voters have performed any testing. If they have, Friese said, that testing has not been done to an acceptable level. He added that he would like the independent, third-party tester to be observed by another impartial referee during the testing to verify the results.

"We are seeking these measures to make sure whoever receives the most votes in a given election in Alameda County is declared the winner," Friese said.

In March, Voter Action sued 18 counties, including Alameda, and the state for allowing touch-screen machines built by the Texas-based Diebold Election Systems to be used in elections. That lawsuit has since been dismissed.

The county's supervisors agreed to purchase the new Sequoia system after having problems with its Diebold machines, purchased in 2001. Those problems included once assigning votes to the wrong candidate.

Diebold eventually agreed in 2004 to pay the state and Alameda County $2.6 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that it made false claims when it sold its equipment to the county.

Source