[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 29 (Wednesday, March 7, 2001)]
[House]
[Page H718]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2045
                            THE FLORIDA VOTE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cantor). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, first of all let me thank the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. 
Hilliard) and the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) for their 
discussion tonight over the fight to get the right to vote. I want to 
take that a step forward to discuss the fight to make sure every vote 
counts.
  Before I begin, I want to talk a bit about the coup d'etat. I know 
those are strong words, Mr. Speaker, but that is what happened in 
Florida, on November 7, because, without a doubt, more people, not just 
in the United States, went to the polls and voted for Al Gore, more 
people in the State of Florida went to the polls and voted for Al Gore. 
In fact, I represent Duval County, the Third Congressional District of 
Florida, where 27,000 votes were thrown out, 16,000 of them African 
Americans, 22,000 overvotes, 6,000 undervotes, that have never been 
counted.
  I was particularly disturbed last week when the Miami Herald, and I 
have got to give credit, if you read the article, they did not say that 
Al Gore lost Florida, but the media went in and talked about the 
election and indicated that in four counties, four counties, if the 
recount was done, that Bush would have won. But I knew for a fact they 
were not talking about Duval, because we just started counting the 
votes, the undervotes in Duval Monday. We have been in court. And so we 
are still counting the undervotes in Florida, over 100,000 votes that 
were not counted, not one time.
  Let me discuss what an undervote is. An undervote is like if you come 
from Duval County and you have those old machines and the machines spit 
the vote out so they were not counted. I asked the leadership of this 
House, when were we going to have a hearing on the illegal activities 
that occurred in Florida, the illegal activities that occurred on 
November 7. The response was that next week we are going to have a 
hearing on profiling, racial profiling.
  Now, I really think that is very important, but that has nothing to 
do with the election in Florida and what happened in Duval County and 
in Seminole County, where people went in to the supervisor of elections 
and filled out forms, and in Martin County, where they went in to the 
supervisor of elections and took forms out and where the Secretary of 
State in the State of Florida took $4 million of taxpayers' money, 
subcontracted to a firm in Texas to identify felons, and many that were 
identified and kicked off of the roll had never been arrested.
  Yes, there were a lot of criminal activities that occurred in Florida 
on November 7. I cannot move forward because we are debating tomorrow a 
tax cut as if someone had a mandate on November 7. That is what is 
disturbing to me. The issue that we discussed today, turning back the 
clock for American workers, we would not be discussing those items if 
we did not have that coup to take place in Florida.
  Mr. Speaker, my people in Florida want to know, when in Congress are 
we going to have a hearing on the illegal activities that took place in 
Florida during the election and after the election?
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. BROWN of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. We are 
not in the majority, so we cannot set the time and place of the 
hearing. It is my hope that we will have a hearing, that the leadership 
of the Congress, the leadership of this House will hold hearings on 
what happened in Florida. The right to vote, and the right to have your 
vote counted, is the heart and soul of our democratic process.
  We just had a discussion a few moments ago about how people suffered, 
people struggled, people that I knew died for the right to vote. I will 
never forget in June of 1964, three young men, Andy Goodman, Michael 
Schwerner, white, Jewish from New York; and James Chaney, black, from 
Mississippi, were arrested, jailed by the sheriff, then taken over to 
the Klan where they were beaten, shot and killed because they were 
there to help people register to vote. Then Jimmy Lee Jackson in 
Alabama and others.
  Ms. BROWN of Florida. This is round one, Mr. Speaker. We will 
continue this discussion.

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