[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 152 (Tuesday, October 20, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H11505-H11512]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 
60 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to have the privilege to 
address you here tonight on the floor of the House of Representatives. 
And having been privileged to listen to the gentleman before me speak 
of the energy issue, and not taking particular issue with the delivery 
that he has given nor the facts that he has such a good handle on, I 
would just make this point, Mr. Speaker, and that is that a little over 
1 year ago, 1 year ago last August, many of us Republican Members stood 
on the floor of the House of Representatives and argued that we needed 
to expand the energy for the entire United States of America; all 
energy all the time.
  We started that debate before the adjournment for the August recess, 
and the Speaker didn't want to hear the debate on energy. And so there 
was a motion that was delivered to adjourn abruptly, which was passed 
on a purely partisan vote. We kept debating energy. We were geared up 
to come here and debate energy 1 year ago August. And as we debated 
energy, the microphones were cut off, the lights were shut down, and 
the House of Representatives would have been cleared by order of the 
Speaker except we do have enough sovereignty here to bring in the 
citizens of the United States and our constituents. And even though 
Speaker Pelosi shut down the microphones, turned the C-SPAN cameras off 
to the side and tipped them down and dimmed the lights--didn't shut 
them completely off--we continued to debate energy every single 
business day all the way through August and into September and after 
Labor Day and back again.

                              {time}  2250

  Our argument was not to reject hydrogen. Our argument was to expand 
access to all energy in America. It was the case the American people 
wanted. It remains the case of what the American people want, and the 
American people want access to all energy all the time.
  We are a country that's blessed with a tremendous amount of energy. 
We can produce the nuclear energy that we need and more than we're 
using by far right now. We're blessed with a lot of coal. We have a lot 
of natural gas. If we would utilize the resources that we have, we 
could expand our ethanol, our biodiesel, our wind energy as we're 
doing. If we would develop the energy that we have, we would have a 
surplus of energy.
  It strikes me as a bit odd that the gentleman would focus exclusively 
on hydrogen. I don't take issue with his hydrogen argument; but I will 
say that, as the gentleman says, if we expand our hydrogen energy 
instead of importing a large percentage of our energy, we will be 
exporting renewable energy. That is a long, long way from a reality; 
and we will never be to the point where we can export renewable energy 
unless we're willing to develop all of America's energy.
  Here are some of the answers: All energy all the time. Let's drill in 
ANWR. Why would you leave hydrocarbons underneath Mother Earth? Why 
would we not go out into the gulf and drill for the natural gas and for 
the oil that's out there? Why would we not go up to ANWR and drill up 
there where we have proven on the North Slope that we can drill 
effectively and in an environmentally safe fashion and where the most 
extreme environmentalists can fly over the North Slope or walk across 
it or ride around on Todd Palin's snowmobile?
  They couldn't find an oil well if you directed them to it because 
they aren't big, wooden derricks with oil bursting into the air from a 
gusher or a geyser. They are submersible pumps in casings that are 
underground, and they are wells that are drilled on permafrost, and 
they are roads that are accessed only during the time of the many 
months when there's actually frost there for them to run on ice roads. 
You can fly over that countryside, and you can't see the wells unless 
you know exactly what you're looking for.
  We need to drill in ANWR. We need to drill in the Outer Continental 
Shelf, in all of our Outer Continental Shelf. We need to open up the 
leases on it. We need to drill it for oil. We need to drill it for gas. 
We need to expand our nuclear.
  John McCain, in his Presidential campaign, said we need to build 45 
new nuclear plants in the United States in a short period of time. Now, 
I don't know if that's the right number, but I

[[Page H11506]]

know that zero is the wrong number. The people on the other side of the 
aisle, the Pelosi majority, are opposed to nuclear; they're opposed to 
ethanol; they're opposed to biodiesel. They argue some food versus fuel 
argument that's completely specious, and they can't make the argument 
with me.
  I'd be happy to yield to any one of you who thinks you can. I'll take 
you on directly right now. The facts are in my head, and they're not 
even in your data because they don't exist.
  We need to expand more and more of this energy. They're opposed again 
to anything that is petroleum. They're opposed even to the expansion of 
natural gas, although the Speaker was informed a year and three or four 
months ago that natural gas is actually a hydrocarbon. It isn't one 
that puts as much CO2 into the air as burning oil or gas or 
diesel fuel does.
  I'm having trouble finding a source of energy that's suitable to the 
liberals and to the environmental extremists in this Congress, Mr. 
Speaker.
  I look across the spectrum of the energy that we have, and I'll tell 
you the energy that I'm for. I'm for hydroelectric. I'm for 
hydrocarbons of all kinds. I'm for drilling every place that I have 
said for gas and oil. I'm for coal. I'm for nuclear. I'm for wind, 
ethanol, biodiesel, solar. There are a number of them I'm probably 
forgetting. I want all energy all the time. I want the whole energy pie 
to grow, and I want to be able to use American energy. We can be energy 
independent. It doesn't necessarily have to be our goal, but we have to 
be where we have the capability to be energy independent.
  The idea that comes from the other side of the aisle is to make 
energy more expensive. I mean, I listened to the gentleman talk about 
let's follow the European model. Let's hurry up because the Germans are 
going to be ahead of us. Well, they are all right. Their $9 gasoline is 
ahead of us. They've had a policy that has been costly energy, fewer 
cars and more bicycles for a long time; and the Germans aren't the 
champions in Europe of bicycle riding. I will submit that the Danes may 
well be the ones in the running for first place in bicycle riding in 
Europe, but their idea is that there is no such thing as bad weather. 
It's just bad clothing. It rains 170 days a year in Denmark, and they 
ride bicycles 365 days a year in Denmark.

  That's all right. Ride those bicycles, but you don't have a mountain 
in that country, and you barely have a hill. In this country, we have 
long distances between places. Grandma is not going to put chains on 
her bicycle and ride it to town through the hills and through the 
mountains in America. We have a different lifestyle. We have different 
demands. We have different priorities.
  Let's let the markets decide. Let's not drive up the price of gas as 
they've done in Europe and make it scarce and costly, $7.50 to $9 a 
gallon. Let's keep it competitive, because energy, like money, Mr. 
Speaker, is fungible, and it takes energy to make anything that we 
decide to make. Whatever we decide to manufacture takes energy. Even if 
you sold a minimal amount of energy to manufacture it, it still takes 
energy to deliver.
  So every component of our economy is linked to the cost of energy; 
and if we're going to compete against the rest of the world, it's our 
responsibility to have a price of labor that's competitive, a lower 
regulation so the burden of government is not too high on our 
businesses that are producing products and services, and we have to 
have an intellectual property and know-how and low energy costs so we 
can compete with the rest of the world.
  If you look at America's industrial might, a lot of it grew during 
the period of time when we led the world in energy production. They 
discovered oil in Pennsylvania; and shortly after that, they discovered 
oil in Texas. They developed the ability to drill and to produce oil, 
which was a cheap, compressed, concentrated form of energy; and it 
remains that way. We developed the skills also, and those skills that 
we market around the world, this source of energy and the knowledge 
base that came from drilling and developing wells, is something we've 
sold to the rest of the world. It has had great profit to the United 
States.
  We simply cannot be a Nation, a huge Nation as we are, that is 
shifting over into this idea of green jobs. Green jobs are not green 
jobs. They're government-regulated, -created jobs. That means that 
they're not market-driven jobs, but they're jobs that are driven by 
government regulation. When you drive jobs by government regulation, 
that means they're more costly than the market would have them. The 
costs go up because of the regulation that's produced by government. So 
the argument that we will create green jobs is a false promise argument 
because it's the government that sets the regulations that produces the 
necessity to have green jobs.
  Now, I want renewable energy. I want it to compete with the rest of 
the energy in this country and on the planet. It's clearly true, in 
looking at my record, that I have been a long-time supporter of 
renewable energy. There are 435 congressional districts in America. I 
have the privilege and the honor to represent the Fifth Congressional 
District of Iowa. That is one of 435 districts, the western third of 
the State, roughly speaking.
  We raise a lot of corn and soybeans and cattle and hogs and eggs. 
When you add up the BTUs that are generated from ethanol, from 
biodiesel and from the wind generation of electricity and when you put 
it into the common denominator of British Thermal Units, the 5th 
District of Iowa, out of 435 congressional districts in America, 
produces more renewable energy than any other.
  Now, there are a few reasons that we've done that. One is to meet the 
demand. We have the resources, and we've created the know-how, and now 
we've become the knowledge base that can export that knowledge to the 
rest of the country and, one day, to the rest of the world.
  Even though I'm in the middle of renewable energy and even though 
I've been engaged in it for many, many years and even though I've 
watched, let me say, the successes, the victories and some of the 
calamitous defeats that have taken place and the resurgence of the 
business model that shows that they can compete against the other 
sources of energy, at least given the structure that we're working with 
today, I work with all of that.
  Mr. Speaker, I'll tell you that we have to have all energy all the 
time, not a simple focus on a single kind of energy, not a lockout of 
petroleum because some people say that it produces more CO2. 
I'll not argue the science of that, but this myopic belief that we can 
limit the emissions of CO2s and that somehow or another we 
can set the thermostat of the Earth is simply false.
  The premise of the science is wrong. Some will say, Well, just argue 
the economics because you can't win the argument on science. No, Mr. 
Speaker. When you have a huge policy like cap-and-trade that's built 
upon a flawed premise such as CO2 emissions by the United 
States have dramatically increased the temperature on the planet and if 
we significantly reduce the CO2 emissions in the United 
States it will turn the Earth's thermostat down, it's a false 
scientific premise, Mr. Speaker.

                              {time}  2300

  And I have looked at this and asked some simple questions that aren't 
answered very well by the people who claim to be the scientists, and 
they fall into this category.
  How much volume is the Earth's atmosphere altogether? So if you would 
take the total metric tons of the volume of the Earth's atmosphere and 
draw it into a circle, a graph that would describe how much that is, 
and draw it into an 8-foot circle, because that is what fits on the 
wall, a foot higher than my hand, an 8-foot circle in diameter, and 
that represents all of the Earth's atmosphere, then Mr. Speaker, you 
draw how big would the circle be, the circle of CO2, carbon 
dioxide that has been emitted by U.S. industry into the atmosphere of 
the Earth and that is suspended in the atmosphere that might--might, 
but not certainly--but might affect the Earth's temperature, that 
CO2, the cumulative level of all CO2 emitted by 
the United States into the atmosphere since the dawn of the Industrial 
Revolution, Mr. Speaker, how much is that?
  What have we done? And my data goes back 205 years. What has the 
United States industrial might and the totality of its emissions in 
burning all the coal and all the natural gas and all the crude oil in 
the form of gasoline

[[Page H11507]]

and diesel fuel and other forms, kerosene and jet fuel, the other 
forms, propane, all of those forms of energy that have been burned and 
then the CO2 that has been emitted and suspended in the 
atmosphere, how much in 205 years, as compared to all of the Earth's 
atmosphere that you might draw in an 8-foot circle, how big would that 
circle be, the cumulative total of all U.S. CO2 in the 
atmosphere be in 205 years?
  Mr. Speaker, it is shocking to boil these numbers down to the real 
truth. An 8-foot circle of all the Earth's atmosphere, the cumulative, 
and that means 205 years' worth of CO2 from the United 
States put into the atmosphere, that circle is certainly not 8-foot, 
that is all the atmosphere, or 7 foot or 6 foot or 5 foot or 4, 3, 2 or 
1. We might think that circle is a couple feet, if we listen to the 
environmental extremists.
  But the real size in relation to all the Earth's atmosphere as drawn 
in an 8-foot circle, the real diameter of the cumulative total of 
CO2 is .56 inches, Mr. Speaker. That is about like this, 
about the size of a bullet, the tip of my little finger. That is how 
big that circle would be, .56, just a little over half an inch in 
diameter. That is the cumulative total of all the CO2 in 205 
years.
  The Waxman-Markey bill proposes that if we would just reduce one year 
of that, in annual figures that would be \1/205\ of the cumulative 
total, by 17 percent for a few years and then raise that up a little 
more and finally reduce it to 83 percent by the time we get to the year 
2100, and by that year they believe that the Earth will have diminished 
its increased temperature by let's say 1.5 degrees centigrade.
  That is their calculus. And we here on the floor of the House of 
Representatives would conclude and America would accept the leadership 
of this Congress because they don't know and they don't have access to 
the truth, and they are certainly not hearing it from both sides of the 
aisle, they accept the idea that surely no person in this Congress and 
certainly not a majority would be cynical enough to advance some idea 
of science that was bogus in an effort to try to create a plan called 
cap-and-trade, which would be the largest and most insidious tax 
increase in the history of the world. And for every dollar it 
collected, only about one out of five would get into the United States 
Treasury, and the rest of it is wasted in the process like friction in 
a motor.
  That, Mr. Speaker, is what we are dealing with with cap-and-trade. 
And when I listened to the gentleman talk about hydrogen, I don't take 
issue with his data or his argument. I will just add that there is much 
more that we need to do to see the big picture. The big picture means 
all energy all the time, and let's go ahead and use it.
  There is no reason to store a lot of hydrocarbons underneath the 
crust of mother Earth in the territory of the sovereign United States 
of America and not use it. The only reason I have heard, and it is not 
a very good one, is the Speaker of the House's statement, ``I am trying 
to save the planet. I am trying to save the planet.'' And, yes, it was 
a broken record delivery, Mr. Speaker.
  So, that is the energy issue that needed to be talked about for a 
long time. We have talked about health care for so long we have about 
forgotten to take up the energy issue.
  I would take us then to a contemporary issue that emerged today in 
the news, and it is something that the American people do need to know 
about, Mr. Speaker, as any subject matter that comes up here on the 
floor, the American people need to know. There are more subjects than 
we can possibly have time to address.
  Mr. Speaker, at the end of my talk I will introduce this article into 
the Record, The Washington Times published at 4:45 a.m. and updated at 
7:25 a.m. today, October 20, 2009, by Ben Conery entitled ``Justice 
Concludes Black Voters Need Democratic Party. I will make that 
available at the conclusion.
  Here is the article. The Justice Department concludes that black 
voters need the Democratic Party. This is a Washington Times article, 
and I will go through some of the highlights here and then seek to 
summarize it, Mr. Speaker.
  Voters in the small city of Kinston, North Carolina, have decided 
overwhelmingly to do away with party affiliation for their local 
elections for mayor and city council. They didn't want them to be 
labeled as Democrats or Republicans or Libertarian or Communist or 
whatever they might be--I don't know if there are any down there in 
Kinston, actually--but they wanted to eliminate the party label and 
just run candidates in a nonparty way. But the Obama administration 
overruled the overwhelming majority of the electorate of the city of 
Kinston, North Carolina, and decided that they couldn't offer ballots 
and elect their local candidates unless they had a party label.
  The Justice Department's ruling, and it affects the races for city 
council and mayor, went so far as to say this: Partisan elections are 
needed so that black voters can elect ``candidates of choice'' 
identified by the Department as those who are Democrats and almost 
exclusively black.
  The Justice Department--I would say they are questionable in the way 
they are currently named--the Department ruled that white voters in 
Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats. What that 
means, that is veiled language for, white voters that aren't Democrats 
are racists. That is what it says in this article. It is a conclusion 
drawn by the Justice Department. And I will say their conclusion and 
their decision on its face is racist, Mr. Speaker.
  It says, therefore, that the city cannot get rid of party 
affiliations, this is a Department of Justice ruling, for local 
elections because that would violate black voters' rights to elect 
candidates they want.
  What does this possibly mean? It doesn't fit the logic where I come 
from. It says that several Federal and local politicians would like the 
city to challenge the decision in court, and I would too.
  Mr. Speaker, I would call upon the city of Kinston to challenge this 
Justice Department decision in court. They have a right to hold their 
local elections, and the Department of Justice should not be making the 
presumption based on the racist presumptions that they are.
  The voter apathy, they say, is the largest barrier to black voters' 
election of candidates they prefer. A little code word, ``candidates 
they prefer.'' How do they know who these candidates are who are 
preferred? The way you have to register who you prefer is, go to the 
polls and vote. Voter apathy cannot be fixed by a wrongly made decision 
on the Department of Justice.
  There is some language here by Mr. Steven LaRoque, who led the drive 
to end the partisan local election. He called the Justice Department's 
decision ``racial as well as partisan.'' And he went on to say, ``On 
top of that, you have an unelected bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., 
overturning a valid election. That is un-American.'' Steven LaRoque, 
Kinston, North Carolina.
  Continuing on, the point is made that this is the Justice Department, 
the Eric Holder Justice Department, that ended and dismissed the voting 
rights case against the New Black Panthers Party in Philadelphia.

                              {time}  2310

  Now, I have seen this film, and I've examined this case, at least to 
a respectable depth, where they have, let me say, as the New Black 
Panthers in Philadelphia, there is videotape that's in the possession 
of the Department of Justice, unless somehow they have destroyed the 
evidence on their hands, of four members of the Black Panther Party in 
Philadelphia in quasi-paramilitary garb standing before the polling 
places in Philadelphia, one of them at least wielding a billy club and 
intimidating white voters that came in to vote in the polls, and the 
video that I heard, one of those Panthers called a white voter a 
``cracker.'' This was the most open-and-shut case of voter intimidation 
in the history of the United States of America, Mr. Speaker, and the 
Eric Holder Justice Department cancelled the case and dropped it even 
though there was, and I'll go down through some of the details of this, 
a judgment that was, I believe, agreed to.
  Now, going on, then in Kinston, here are some comments that come from 
the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and this is Abigail Thernstrom, 
whom I know and whose judgment that I respect tremendously. She said, 
the Voting Rights Act is supposed to protect

[[Page H11508]]

against situations when black voters are locked out because of racism. 
This is Abigail Thernstrom, Civil Rights Commission, U.S. Civil Rights 
Commission. She continues, and I quote, ``There is no entitlement to 
elect a candidate they prefer on the assumption that all black voters 
prefer Democratic candidates''; Abigail Thernstrom, U.S. Commission on 
Civil Rights.
  So Kinston, the city that decided they didn't want to have partisan 
elections, now is essentially ordered by the Department of Justice to 
have partisan elections on the assumption of the Department of Justice 
that apparently black voters won't know who to vote for if they go to 
the polls and they don't have a Democrat label on the names of the 
candidates that are apparently black Democrat candidates.
  And that's been the history of what's going on in Kinston. They 
should have the right to select candidates without regard to race, and 
this is a decision that is based on race at its core. It says that the 
city had uncommonly high voter turnout in the last election with more 
than 11,000 of the city's 15,000 voters casting ballots, but Kinston's 
blacks voted in greater numbers than whites the last election, 
presumably because Barack Obama was on the ballot, where he won in that 
city by a margin of 2-1, and that was--excuse me. He won a victory in 
that city, but the election, the vote to determine that they would be 
electing their local candidates on a nonpartisan ballot passed by a 2-1 
margin in Kinston, and yet the Justice Department overturned that 
decision because they concluded that black candidates--or, excuse me, 
black voters wouldn't know who to vote for unless they had a D beside 
their name.
  That is pandering. That is a racial decision on its face, Mr. 
Speaker, and America can't tolerate that kind of thinking from a 
Justice Department that shut down the most open-and-shut voter 
intimidation case in history, Philadelphia.
  And so I go on. One of the statements made is in a letter dated 
August 17. The city received this letter from the Justice Department. 
Their answer was elections must remain partisan because the change's 
effect will be strictly racial. In other words, if you don't label the 
candidates as Democrats or Republicans and you look at the anticipated 
result of the elections, there might be somebody that's not black that 
gets elected to office. This is the logic of the Justice Department.
  What happened to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s ``I Have a Dream''? What 
happened to the content of the character rather than the color of the 
skin? We have come 180 degrees, Mr. Speaker, from the time when Martin 
Luther King, Jr. stood down here in front of the Lincoln Memorial and 
gave his ``I Have a Dream'' speech and inspired a people of this 
Nation, the people of this Nation and the people of the world when he 
talked about content of character, not color of the skin. That's the 
dream that I've had for America. I was inspired by that speech, and I 
don't know any American that wasn't inspired by the speech.
  But I'm now watching Americans in positions of significant power that 
have forgotten the philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr., and they have 
fallen back to a purely partisan philosophy. This is an Attorney 
General that declared people that were Republicans as not being willing 
to discuss the issue of race and being cowards when it comes to the 
issue of race. Well, Mr. Speaker, I've shown no reticence to discuss 
that. I think it's important for us to have those open discussions, and 
if we don't have the open discussions on race, we'll never get to the 
point where we can actually joke and laugh with each other and be 
people that are God's children pulling together in the same country for 
the same cause, which I believe we can and must do, and I think it's 
God calling to us.
  Continuing on in the article, and I will quote Loretta King, who made 
this, issued this statement from the Department of Justice, and she 
said, and I quote, ``Removing the partisan queue in municipal elections 
will, in all likelihood, eliminate the single factor that allows black 
candidates to be elected to office''; Loretta King, who at the time was 
the Acting Head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, 
wrote in a letter to the city of Kinston, North Carolina.
  She also wrote that voters in Kinston vote more along racial than 
party lines, and without the potential for voting a straight Democratic 
ticket, I quote again, Loretta King, ``The limited remaining support 
from white voters for a black Democratic candidate will diminish even 
more.''
  Purely a bald-faced racial decision coming from the Department of 
Justice, and, by the way, from the very DOJ official that formerly 
killed the case of voter intimidation that was already made in 
Philadelphia with the new Black Panthers and their billy clubs out in 
front of the polling places in Philadelphia. That's tolerated by this 
Justice Department, but being able to go to the polls and vote for 
someone in a local city election like city council or mayor and not 
having a party label on them, Democrat and Republican, is not tolerated 
because this Justice Department does the calculus that somehow it will 
diminish the elections of Democrats if they're not labeled as 
Democrats, and they presume that African Americans can't make that 
decision without the label.
  And actually, looking at the Presidential results, you have to 
wonder, if 96 percent of African Americans voted for Barack Obama, one 
would be able to draw that as an indication that certainly ethnicity 
was a factor when they went to the polls. I don't think that can be 
denied. But again, Loretta King's statement that the limited remaining 
support from white voters for the Democratic candidate will diminish 
even more. Now, she is, as I said, the same official that put the 
brakes on the New Black Panther case of voter intimidation.
  And then we have a situation where, after a judge ordered a default 
judgment against the Panthers who refused to answer the charges or 
appear in court, the Justice Department dropped the charges against all 
but one of the defendants saying, and I quote, this is very likely 
Loretta King's statement, ``The facts of the law did not support 
pursuing them.''
  Really? The most open-and-shut case in the history of the United 
States of America of voter intimidation, videotaped witness after 
witness, what facts were not there to support pursuing a case of voter 
intimidation?
  I recall the cases in Florida during the Presidential election of the 
year 2000 when the case was argued that a mile and a quarter away a 
traffic check was voter intimidation because some people were going to 
drive through the traffic stop and show up at the polls. That was the 
argument made by the party of the same people that have decided that 
you have to have a label of Democrat on the ballot so that African 
Americans know who to vote for.

                              {time}  2320

  That's what's said here. That's Loretta King's decision. She's in the 
Department of Justice. Eric Holder is her boss; President Obama is his 
boss. And they are all accountable for this breach of a constitutional 
concept, if not the Constitution itself.
  Ms. King's letter in the Kinston statements said that because of the 
low turnout, black voters must be viewed as a minority for analytical 
purposes and that minority turnout is relevant to determining whether 
the Justice Department should be allowed to change election protocol.
  Really.
  Can't we get back again to the content of the character? Is it not 
possible for someone of good conscience and good character and good 
judgment to represent other people of good conscience, good character, 
and good judgment? It had better be, Mr. Speaker, because if we can't, 
if somehow skin color trumps good conscience, good character, and good 
judgment, this country is in a very sad shape indeed. How in the world 
with this logic did this Nation then elect Barack Obama as the 
President of the United States?
  And that would be my question. And I don't think it can be answered 
by the logic, if you call it that, that's been delivered in this 
decision that's imposed upon the City of Kinston, North Carolina.
  Continuing. Loretta King wrote: ``Black voters have had limited 
success in electing candidates of choice during recent municipal 
elections.'' Again, that's candidate of choice. Who's to determine what 
a candidate of choice is?

[[Page H11509]]

That would be the candidate that was voted for by the people who went 
to the polls. And if people of one color show up in a lower percentage 
than people of another color, that doesn't mean that they're 
unrepresented; it doesn't mean that you're supposed to jigger the game 
in order to produce a different result.
  If you don't like the results, look at the way you're represented, 
make a decision upon the people that are elected to the city council 
and to the mayor's position in Kinston, North Carolina, and everywhere 
else in America. But don't base it on skin color as the basis.
  This is so un-American, so unconstitutional, and it echoes back to 
the majority decision that was written by Justice O'Connor in the 
affirmative action cases at the University of Michigan where Justice 
O'Connor looked at the formulas that were used to produce the proper 
color and gender of the people that got into the school in Michigan, be 
it the broad student body at the University of Michigan or the 
University of Michigan School of Law. And in her decision, her majority 
opinion, she wrote that, you know, the Nation wasn't--and I am 
paraphrasing here--the Nation wasn't quite ready for a colorblind 
admission process, that we really needed to have a quota system as long 
as that quota system was based on individual analysis of individual 
applicants rather than a broader application that would be used as a 
formula.
  And Justice O'Connor also wrote, and again this is paraphrasing, she 
also wrote that but even though that is the case today, perhaps we 
should come back and revisit this in 25 years or so. Maybe America will 
be ready for the kind of a policy that allows for merit rather than 
skin color or gender to be the qualifications that allows people into 
law school, Mr. Speaker.
  That is breathtaking to me to think that a Supreme Court Justice of 
the United States, with the support of a bare majority, but a majority 
of the Supreme Court, could write, could put in print something so 
utterly illogical that only one could conclude that the decision was if 
we're going to go back and revisit this in 25 years and determine if 
the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment actually will apply 
if society is ready for equal protection in 25 years, Justice O'Connor 
concluded that the Constitution itself needed to be suspended for 25 
years and maybe we could come back and adhere to the Constitution if it 
was convenient at a later date in a subsequent generation.
  This is the rationale of Justice O'Connor that opens the door for 
this kind of rationale and Department of Justice, civil rights 
division, and you could have Loretta King write, Black voters have 
limited success in electing candidates of choice during recent 
municipal elections--even though the city is about 2-1 black in 
turnout--doesn't reflect that and she needs to rig the game so the 
candidates of her choice are more likely to be elected without regard 
to justice. And this is the Justice Department of the United States of 
America.
  Abigail Thernstrom of the Civil Rights Commission blasted the 
Department's interpretation of the law. And I would agree with Abigail 
Thernstrom when she said, ``The Voting Rights Act is not supposed to be 
compensating for a failure of voters to show up on Election Day.''
  And she continues, ``The Voting Rights Act doesn't guarantee an 
opportunity to elect a candidate of choice. My candidate of choice 
loses all the time in elections.'' So does mine.

  Are we really going to rig the game because our candidate of choice 
didn't win?
  And then also continues, ``The decision that employs similar 
reasoning and language as in other cases of the Kinston ruling''--and 
here's the decision--"implementation of nonpartisan elections appears 
likely to deprive black-supported candidates of meaningful partisan-
based support and to exacerbate racial polarization between black and 
white voters.''
  What could more exacerbate racial polarization between black and 
white voters than a decision by the Department of Justice, Mr. Speaker, 
based strictly upon skin color that's designed to give an advantage 
based upon skin color that disregards the idea that a man or a woman 
can represent another man or a woman with logic and character and 
understanding and decency without regard to skin color?
  Martin Luther King has got to be rolling over in his grave to see 
where racial politics have taken the United States of America, Mr. 
Speaker.
  And now, Mr. Speaker, I would shift on to a few more subject matters.
  As I spoke about the energy issue and the Kinston, North Carolina, 
issue, I'll take up the issue of Kevin Jennings.
  Kevin Jennings, the appointee of President Obama to be the safe and 
drug-free schools czar. Now, paint that image out in one's mind's eye. 
All of the schools in America got along fine without someone who was in 
charge of safe schools. That was a local issue. Drug-free schools, 
local issue. Nancy Reagan said, ``Just Say No,'' and that got published 
through our schools and that was a good thing. But we didn't need a 
safe and drug free schools czar.
  Well, now we have one, one of 32--maybe as many as 47 czars--that 
have been appointed by President Obama. And, Mr. Speaker, these czars 
have not come under the confirmation hearings, open hearing scrutiny of 
the United States Senate even though a number of them have power that 
eclipses that of the Cabinet members themselves. No, these czars are 
appointed to sometimes circumvent the confirmation process and the 
vetting process that takes place and just simply give them a job and 
grant them a power and authority eclipsing, in some cases, that of the 
Cabinet members who have been vetted and had hearings and had been 
confirmed in the United States Senate.
  So we have Kevin Jennings, the safe and drug-free schools czar. Kevin 
Jennings, the man who--and I will go through a list of things--but the 
part that caught my attention the most and first was as a teacher in 
Massachusetts--and by law, Kevin Jennings, as a teacher in 
Massachusetts, was a mandatory reporter, which means under the laws of 
Massachusetts--and they may have had a different name for it--that is 
the name for people in Iowa who have to report--if a child that is in 
your care and custody and responsibility in the class is being abused 
mentally, physically, or sexually, it's the obligation of the mandatory 
reporters, which are listed, and all teachers are mandatory reporters, 
to report to--in Massachusetts, I believe it's their equivalent of HHS, 
Health and Human Services Department.
  Kevin Jennings had a student come in, whom he has written in his book 
in 1994 and addressed it in the speech in the year 2000. This is Kevin 
Jennings' words and his analysis, not mine, Mr. Speaker; but his speech 
and his writings are about a 15-year-old boy who came in and sought the 
counsel of teacher Kevin Jennings.

                              {time}  2330

  He said, Well, I have been having sexual relations with an adult male 
in the restroom at the bus stop, and I want to talk to you about it. 
Kevin Jennings' advice was, I hope you knew to use a condom. It seems 
to be the sum totality of his advice, Mr. Speaker. And that is the 
focus of his repeated narrative of the 15-year-old boy.
  Now here are some problems. As a mandatory reporter, this child was 
being abused. It was a violation of the law. It was statutory rape 
under Massachusetts law. Kevin Jennings was compelled by law to report 
this as a teacher, a mandatory reporter. He did not. But he wrote about 
it in his book. He talked about it in his speeches. And some have 
argued, after the fact, that the young man was actually 16, not 15. But 
as long as Kevin Jennings argues that he is 15, then what he knew or 
what he thought he knew is a controlling factor, and he was obligated 
to report the sexual abuse of a child, the intergenerational sexual 
abuse, statutory rape of a child. He did not do that.
  And he has repeated himself up until recently, by my documentation, 
and probably after that, by the year 2000. Now he has been appointed 
the ``Safe and Drug-Free Schools'' czar, a man with such a colossal 
lack of judgment that he couldn't follow the law in the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts to protect the safety of the children. The legislature of 
Massachusetts, as leftwing as they are, saw fit to put into the law 
guidelines for their teachers and their other mandatory reporters. And 
Kevin Jennings, the czar of ``Safe and Drug-Free Schools,'' couldn't 
see

[[Page H11510]]

fit to even follow the law in Massachusetts, let alone possess a moral 
compass that would have been a prudent one. He has since said he could 
have made a better decision.
  Now I wouldn't argue that a man that made a single mistake in, I 
believe the year was 1988, should be punished for that in perpetuity. I 
would argue, though, that a man that made that mistake, that saw fit to 
highlight it in his book in 1994 or 1995 and highlight it in at least 
one speech in the year 2000--it happened to be in Iowa, by the way, Mr. 
Speaker--a man that has that kind of flawed judgment that is standing 
in front of groups that promote homosexuality and making the case that 
he has been a protector and advocate of that lifestyle was pretty proud 
of his decision to advise this young man whom he referred to as 
``Brewster, `` I hope you knew to use a condom.''
  That is a colossal lack of judgment. The momentary flaw in his 
judgment in his advice to Brewster, the colossal lack of judgment and 
repeating it as if it were a merit rather than a demerit in his book 
and in his speech in Iowa in the year 2000, and I would suspect many 
times before and after until he has been called on it, a single 
incident is not enough to judge a man by and not enough to disqualify 
him by, but it is something to get our attention.
  And then, Mr. Speaker, we can look at Kevin Jennings in a broader 
view. What has been the totality of his record as an adult 
professional? And his focus has been on the promotion of homosexuality. 
In at least four books and perhaps five that he has written, every 
single one at a very minimum touches on the issue. Most of the material 
focuses on the issue. He has written the foreword to a book called 
``Queering Elementary Education.'' Now I will submit that kids that are 
in kindergarten, first-, second-, third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade in 
elementary school don't need to be burdened with those kinds of 
decisions. They don't need an advocate for homosexuality or any kind of 
sexuality in those years. They need to be left alone to find their way, 
to study academically, to go outside at recess and play sports, and get 
to make friends and build an understanding of parental, adult and 
teacher guidance. They don't need to be burdened with the idea of 
trying to queer elementary education, to quote the title of the book 
that Kevin Jennings has written the foreword to. And by the way, on the 
back cover is William Ayers' comments on the value of that book, 
``Queering Elementary Education.'' This is Kevin Jennings.
  Now, we can continue with Kevin Jennings, the hostility towards 
religion that he has demonstrated clearly. He has written about it in 
his book, ``Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son.'' He has written cavalierly 
about his own drug abuse. And rather than put that into the 
Congressional Record, Mr. Speaker, I will just say that if students 
read the language, the narrative that Kevin Jennings writes about his 
own drug abuse and being at the airport watching the planes land, they 
can only draw one conclusion: That it's all right to use drugs and 
probably won't end up in a bad result. In fact, if you use drugs, you 
can end up the ``Safe and Drug-Free Schools'' czar in the United States 
of America. That is the model that is there if Kevin Jennings remains 
as the czar of ``Safe and Drug-Free Schools.''
  So what does he have to offer? What does he have to offer about 
school safety? Well, the only thing he has to offer is his relentless 
advocacy to pass anti-bullying laws in the State legislatures across 
the land. About 20 States have adopted some legislation to that effect. 
Anti-bullying laws are designed to exclusively protect kids who are 
viewed as homosexual kids. Now I want to protect all kids. And I don't 
want any children bullied. By the same token, I don't believe that we 
need to have special laws that are based upon the perceived notions 
that go on in people's heads. We can punish the overt acts that are 
used as violence or intimidation against these kids in school, and we 
can protect all kids.

  Kevin Jennings' advocacy has only been to protect those kids he views 
as homosexual. He has been offended by what he called the ``promotion 
of heterosexuality.'' And for want of finding the actual text, Mr. 
Speaker, I will paraphrase this, Kevin Jennings, in one of his 
speeches--and I actually typed this up with my hands from the YouTube--
said that every time kids read ``Romeo and Juliet,'' they are being 
aggressively recruited to heterosexuality. Kids are being aggressively 
recruited to heterosexuality by reading ``Romeo and Juliet.''
  So here is a man who is now today the ``Safe and Drug-Free Schools'' 
czar who is opposed to ``Romeo and Juliet'' because the implication is 
it's a young man and a young woman who are attracted to each other and 
who are in love. And he objects because he believes they are being 
aggressively recruited to heterosexuality. What would please and 
satisfy Kevin Jennings if ``Romeo and Juliet'' are anathema to his 
beliefs?
  This goes on. But the lifetime career of 20 years and the totality of 
his professional engagement has been the promotion of homosexuality, 
much of it within our schools, and much of it that was within our 
schools was focused on elementary education. And some of the pamphlets 
that they handed out, one called ``Little Black Book,'' at Brookline 
schools in Massachusetts was referred to by then-Governor Romney as 
something that should never fall in the hands of school kids. This man 
would be a czar of ``Safe and Drug-Free Schools.''
  And when I asked one of the top principals in the United States of 
America with the medal commemorating his achievement hanging around his 
neck if a man of the resume, the bio, of Kevin Jennings had been hired 
by his school inadvertently and the resume had been discovered and 
reviewed, could he continue to teach on the faculty of this top-notch 
principal's school? And the principal's answer was, No way. No way we 
could keep someone like that on our faculty.
  So, Kevin Jennings, Mr. Speaker, at least in the mainstream schools 
in America, couldn't teach in the classroom because he has been such a 
proponent of activism when it comes to dealing with a narrow component 
of sexuality in America. And he has been pushing it on our kids in this 
country.
  He has also been a supporter of and an admirer of Harry Hay. We saw 
the White House official just a few days ago who said she was inspired 
by Mao Tse Tung, the murderer of 70 million Chinese. Kevin Jennings has 
been inspired by Harry Hay, who is the cover boy for NAMBLA magazine, 
the North American Man Boy Love Association.

                              {time}  2340

  That organization that promotes intergenerational sex between men and 
boys and says it's all right and it doesn't hurt them--in fact, it may 
give them pleasure and be healthy for them--this person who has been on 
the cover of their national magazine was lauded by Kevin Jennings, and 
Jennings said of Harry Hay, I am always inspired by Harry Hay. 
Astonishing.
  A man of this caliber and this philosophy cannot be the safe and 
drug-free schools czar in the United States of America. Surely, out of 
306 million people, we can find one--can't there be one that has lived 
an exemplary life? One who wouldn't be objectionable to any parents? 
One who has advocated for the safety of all of the kids, not a narrow 
view of those whom he would label as a homosexual kid? Couldn't we find 
somebody that at least hasn't been public about their drug abuse so as 
to tell these kids to stay away from drugs, that drugs will ruin your 
potential, if they don't kill you and end your potential, they will 
ruin your potential? Can't we have somebody that hasn't been obsessed 
with sexuality, but someone who has been obsessed with the well-being 
of our children on the whole? Yes, we should. And the kids in this 
country do not have the ability to discern on a judgment call when you 
have an activist like Kevin Jennings as the czar of safe and drug-free 
schools. And those kids trust the adults that put people in positions 
of authority and power; they only discern that adults have made the 
decision to approve Kevin Jennings.
  The President of the United States needs to fire Kevin Jennings and 
put someone in place who is an example for parents and children or else 
eliminate the position entirely, Mr. Speaker.
  And now I have vented myself on that particular issue. I continue 
onward. And in my pocket, as I will carry for a long time until we get 
to the bottom of this, Mr. Speaker, is, out of one

[[Page H11511]]

of the trees right here outside the United States Capitol, another 
acorn. Now, never fear, Parliamentarian, I'm not going to ask to 
introduce this acorn into the Record. I just point out that this is 
something that America needs to be focused upon.
  The ACORN organization and their 361 affiliates, headquartered at 
2609 Canal Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, originating in Arkansas 
and having powerful influence in cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, 
New York--Brooklyn, for example--Baltimore, Washington, D.C., San 
Diego--name your city, 120 cities in the United States, ACORN has a 
presence; ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform 
Now. And these are the people that started out advocating for bad loans 
in bad neighborhoods under the Community Reinvestment Act, shaking down 
lenders and intimidating lenders to make those bad loans in bad 
neighborhoods; the people that came to the Capitol building and lobbied 
to reduce and lower the standards of underwriting for a secondary 
mortgage market for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, lowered their 
capitalization, their regulatory standards so that they could push 
these lenders into making more bad loans in bad neighborhoods.
  They criticized lenders for red-lining neighborhoods and refusing to 
loan into these neighborhoods that they had a red line drawn around. 
And then they had the audacity--that's the President's word, isn't it, 
Mr. Speaker? Then ACORN had the audacity to go back to these lenders, 
shake them down, demand a check so that they would move their 
demonstrations away from the doors of the banks so people would come in 
and do business. Once they were paid off, they left, but then they came 
back with another ruse, which is, you need to make more bad loans in 
these bad neighborhoods--that's the shorthand version. They didn't use 
that language, I'm sure.
  And ACORN got to the point where they drew their own red line. 
Instead of the lenders drawing a red line around areas and communities 
and refusing to make loans, ACORN drew a red line around areas and 
communities and demanded that the lenders make loans into that area, 
and they demanded specific dollar amounts of loans on real estate, in 
particular, going into those areas. And so then they positioned 
themselves to actually broker the loans.
  And ACORN Housing opened up, and people walked into those doors like 
Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe. They walked in with a video camera, and 
there they posed themselves as a pimp and a prostitute and said that 
they wanted to borrow some money to buy a home so they could set up a 
house of ill repute to put teenage girls in as prostitutes, 13-, 14-, 
15-year-old girls from El Salvador, obviously illegal kids, in a sex 
slave arrangement being organized and facilitated by workers at ACORN 
in Baltimore, to start out--the film is in sequential order--then 
Washington, D.C.; then Brooklyn, New York; then San Bernardino, 
California; then San Diego, California.
  All of that unfolded, and what we saw inside the doors of ACORN was 
essentially the same thing. We saw the face of a criminal enterprise 
that was set up to draw down tax dollars of all kinds, primarily 
Federal tax dollars, in a corrupt criminal enterprise to help 
facilitate child prostitution and gaming the IRS for child tax credits, 
for--I didn't hear him say first-time homeowners credit, but I did hear 
them say earned income tax credit.

  And so the taxpayers of America are writing checks that are being 
brokered by ACORN in any way that they possibly can, passing that 
through into the hands of the individuals who are the beneficiaries of 
government largesse. And the administration of it is that it's ACORN 
that takes a cut out of the dollars that go through.
  Five cities we saw the film. I believe, tomorrow, we will see the 
sixth city, the film from the sixth city. And I believe that there are 
more beyond that yet, Mr. Speaker.
  And so this country has got to clean this up. We have an ACORN that 
has corrupted the home mortgage loan process. They have demanded and 
maneuvered for bad loans in bad neighborhoods. They have precipitated 
the decline, and the toxic mortgage component of this economic decline 
very much traces back to ACORN.
  ACORN has admitted to over 400,000 fraudulent or false voter 
registration forms turned in in the last election cycle. They have 
denied that that turns into fraudulent votes, Mr. Speaker. Now, why 
would anyone spend millions of dollars to register hundreds of 
thousands of fraudulent voters and at the same time argue, well, we 
paid for all of that--on commission, by the way, so many registrations 
per pay day--but we didn't get anything out of it because these 400,000 
were fraudulent or false, so don't worry, nobody voted illegally? Not 
true. It is unconceivable, Mr. Speaker. And I have made that argument 
for months, but here and a couple of weeks ago the story hit the news 
about Troy, New York, bringing prosecutions against ACORN because of 
dozens of fraudulent votes that were introduced in Troy, New York, and 
the ones that I read about were absentee ballots.
  So we have the convictions of 70 ACORN employees. We have ACORN under 
indictment in the State of Nevada as a corporation to be in violation 
of the election laws in Nevada, and 361 affiliates. All of this we've 
got to get to the bottom of, Mr. Speaker.
  I do appreciate your attention and your indulgence, and I yield back 
the balance of my time.

               [From the Washington Times, Oct. 20, 2009]

          Justice Concludes Black Voters Need Democratic Party

                            (By Ben Conery)

       Kinston, N.C.--Voters in this small city decided 
     overwhelmingly last year to do away with the party 
     affiliation of candidates in local elections, but the Obama 
     administration recently overruled the electorate and decided 
     that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without 
     the Democratic Party.
       The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for 
     City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan 
     elections are needed so that black voters can elect their 
     ``candidates of choice''--identified by the department as 
     those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.
       The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote 
     for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the 
     city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections 
     because that would violate black voters' right to elect the 
     candidates they want.
       Several federal and local politicians would like the city 
     to challenge the decision in court. They say voter apathy is 
     the largest barrier to black voters' election of candidates 
     they prefer and that the Justice Department has gone too far 
     in trying to influence election results here.
       Stephen LaRoque, a former Republican state lawmaker who led 
     the drive to end partisan local elections, called the Justice 
     Department's decision ``racial as well as partisan.''
       ``On top of that, you have an unelected bureaucrat in 
     Washington, D.C., overturning a valid election,'' he said. 
     ``That is un-American.''
       The decision, made by the same Justice official who ordered 
     the dismissal of a voting rights case against members of the 
     New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, has irritated 
     other locals as well. They bristle at federal interference 
     in this city of nearly 23,000 people, two-thirds of whom 
     are black.
       In interviews in sleepy downtown Kinston--a place best 
     known as a road sign on the way to the Carolina beaches--
     residents said partisan voting is largely unimportant because 
     people are personally acquainted with their elected officials 
     and are familiar with their views.
       ``To begin with, `nonpartisan elections' is a misconceived 
     and deceiving statement because even though no party 
     affiliation shows up on a ballot form, candidates still 
     adhere to certain ideologies and people understand that, and 
     are going to identify with who they feel has their best 
     interest at heart,'' said William Cooke, president of the 
     Kinston/Lenoir County branch of the National Association for 
     the Advancement of Colored People.
       Mr. Cooke said his group does not take a position on this 
     issue and would not disclose his personal stance, but 
     expressed skepticism about the Justice Department's 
     involvement.
       Others noted the absurdity of partisan elections since 
     Kinston is essentially a one-party city anyway; no one among 
     more than a half-dozen city officials and local residents was 
     able to recall a Republican winning office here.
       Justice Department spokesman Alejandro Miyar denied that 
     the decision was intended to help the Democratic Party. He 
     said the ruling was based on ``what the facts are in a 
     particular jurisdiction'' and how it affects blacks' ability 
     to elect the candidates they favor.
       ``The determination of who is a `candidate of choice' for 
     any group of voters in a given jurisdiction is based on an 
     analysis of the

[[Page H11512]]

     electoral behavior of those voters within a particular 
     jurisdiction,'' he said.
       Critics on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights are not so 
     sure. ``The Voting Rights Act is supposed to protect against 
     situations when black voters are locked out because of 
     racism,'' said Abigail Thernstrom, a Republican appointee to 
     the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. ``There is no 
     entitlement to elect a candidate they prefer on the 
     assumption that all black voters prefer Democratic 
     candidates.''
       Located about 60 miles from the Atlantic Coast in eastern 
     North Carolina, Kinston has a history of defying governmental 
     authority. During Colonial times, the fledgling city was 
     known as Kingston--named for King George III--but residents 
     dropped the ``g'' from the city's name after the American 
     Revolution.
       In Kinston's heyday of manufacturing and tobacco farming, 
     it was a bustling collection of shops, movie theaters and 
     restaurants. Now, many of those buildings are vacant--a few 
     have been filled by storefront churches--and residents are 
     left hoping for better days.
       In November's election--one in which ``hope'' emerged as a 
     central theme--the city had uncommonly high voter turnout, 
     with more than 11,000 of the city's 15,000 voters casting 
     ballots. Kinston's blacks voted in greater numbers than 
     whites.
       Whites typically cast the majority of votes in Kinston's 
     general elections. Kinston residents contributed to Barack 
     Obama's victory as America's first black president and voted 
     by a margin of nearly 2-to-1 to eliminate partisan elections 
     in the city.
       The measure appeared to have broad support among both white 
     and black voters, as it won a majority in seven of the city's 
     nine black-majority voting precincts and both of its white-
     majority precincts.
       But before nonpartisan elections could be implemented, the 
     city had to get approval from the Justice Department.
       Kinston is one of the areas subject to provisions of the 
     landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires the city to 
     receive Justice Department approval before making any changes 
     to voting procedures. Kinston is one of 12,000 voting 
     districts in areas of 16 states, almost exclusively in the 
     South, that the Voting Rights Act declared to have had a 
     history of racial discrimination.
       In a letter dated Aug. 17, the city received the Justice 
     Department's answer: Elections must remain partisan because 
     the change's ``effect will be strictly racial.''
       ``Removing the partisan cue in municipal election will, in 
     all likelihood, eliminate the single factor that allows black 
     candidates to be elected to office,'' Loretta King, who (at 
     the time) was the acting head of the Justice Department's 
     civil rights division, wrote in a letter to the city.
       Ms. King wrote that voters in Kinston vote more along 
     racial than party lines and without the potential for voting 
     a straight Democratic ticket, ``the limited remaining support 
     from white voters for a black Democratic candidate will 
     diminish even more.''
       Ms. King is the same official who put a stop to the New 
     Black Panther Party case. In that case, the Justice 
     Department filed a civil complaint in Philadelphia after two 
     members of the black revolutionary group dressed in quasi-
     military garb stood outside a polling place on election day 
     last year and purportedly intimidated voters with racial 
     insults, slurs and a nightstick.
       After a judge ordered default judgments against the 
     Panthers, who refused to answer the charges or appear in 
     court, the Justice Department dropped the charges against all 
     but one of the defendants, saying ``the facts and the law did 
     not support pursuing'' them.
       Ms. King's letter in the Kinston case states that because 
     of the low turnout black voters must be ``viewed as a 
     minority for analytical purposes,'' and that ``minority 
     turnout is relevant'' to determining whether the Justice 
     Department should be allowed a change to election 
     protocol.
       Black voters account for 9,702 of the city's 15,402 
     registered voters but typically don't vote at the rates 
     whites do.
       As a result of the low turnout, Ms. King wrote, ``black 
     voters have had limited success in electing candidates of 
     choice during recent municipal elections.''
       ``It is the partisan makeup of the general electorate that 
     results in enough white cross-over to allow the black 
     community to elect a candidate of choice,'' she wrote.
       Mrs. Thernstrom of the civil rights commission blasted the 
     department's interpretation of the law.
       ``The Voting Rights Act is not supposed to be compensating 
     for failure of show up on Election Day,'' she said. ``The 
     Voting Rights Act doesn't guarantee an opportunity to elect a 
     `candidate of choice.' . . . My `candidate of choice' loses 
     all the time in an election.''
       When asked whether Justice had ever ``either granted or 
     denied'' requests either ``to stop partisan elections or 
     implement partisan elections,'' Mr. Miyar, the department 
     spokesman, said it was impossible to retrieve past decisions 
     on that basis.
       But he did provide, based on the recollection of a 
     department lawyer, a single precedent--a decision during the 
     Clinton administration denying a bid from a South Carolina 
     school district to drop partisan elections.
       That decision employs similar reasoning and language as the 
     Kinston ruling: ``Implementation of nonpartisan elections . . 
     . appears likely to deprive black supported candidates of 
     meaningful partisan-based support and to exacerbate racial 
     polarization between black and white voters.''
       But the 1994 decision doesn't mention the necessity of the 
     Democratic Party and doesn't mention low turnout among black 
     voters in that school district as a factor affecting their 
     ability to elect candidates they prefer.
       Kinston City Council member Joseph Tyson, a Democrat who 
     favors partisan elections, said nothing is stopping black 
     voters in Kinston from going to the polls.
       ``Unfortunately, I'm very disappointed with the apathy that 
     we have in Kinston among the Afro-American voters,'' he said.
       Mr. Tyson, who is one of two black members of the six-
     member City Council, said the best way to help black voters 
     in Kinston is to change the council's structure from citywide 
     voting to representation by district. Kinston voters 
     currently cast as many votes in the at-large races as there 
     are council seats up for election--typically three, or two 
     and the mayor.
       ``Whether it's partisan or nonpartisan is not a big issue 
     to me, whether or not the city is totally represented is what 
     the issue is to me,'' he said. ``If you have wards and 
     districts, then I feel the total city will be represented.''
       Partisan local elections are a rarity in North Carolina. 
     According to statistics kept by the University of North 
     Carolina School of Government in Chapel Hill, only nine of 
     the state's 551 cities and towns hold partisan elections.
       The City Council could take the Justice Department to court 
     to fight decision regarding nonpartisan elections, but such a 
     move seems unlikely. The council voted 4-1 to drop the issue 
     after meeting privately with Justice Department officials in 
     August.
       ``What do I plan to do? Absolutely, nothing,'' Mr. Tyson 
     said. ``And I will fight, within Robert's Rules of Order, 
     wherever necessary to make sure that decision stands.''
       The Justice ruling and Kinston's decision not to fight it 
     comes in the wake of a key Voting Rights Act case last year. 
     In that decision, the Supreme Court let a small utility 
     district in Texas seek an exemption from the law's 
     requirements to receive Justice Department approval before 
     making any changes to voting procedures. But the court 
     declined to address whether the law itself is constitutional.
       Critics of the law argue it has changed little since its 
     1965 inception and that the same places the law covered then 
     no longer need Justice Department approval to make changes to 
     voting procedures.
       Proponents, including Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., 
     said the law is still necessary to ensure equal voting rights 
     for all Americans.
       In Kinston, William Barker is the only City Council member 
     who voted to continue discussing whether to challenge the 
     Justice Department's ruling.
       He said he voted against eliminating partisan elections 
     because the proposed new system would declare a winner simply 
     on who received a plurality of votes instead requiring 
     candidates to reach certain threshold of votes based on 
     turnout.
       ``Based on the fact that the voters voted overwhelmingly 
     for it, I would like to see us challenge it based on that 
     fact. My fight is solely based on fighting what the voters 
     voted on,'' he said. ``It bothers me, even though I'm on the 
     winning side now, that you have a small group, an outside 
     group coming in and saying, `Your vote doesn't matter.' ''

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