We are deeply saddened by the loss of Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald.  We lost a dear friend.  America lost a true fighter.

Congresswoman Millender-McDonald was a pacesetter on numerous fronts. She was the first African American woman in history to hold the chairmanship of the powerful Committee on House Administration; the first African American woman to serve on the Carson City Council; the first woman to hold the chairmanship of the powerful Insurance and Revenue & Taxation Committees of the California State Assembly in her first term; the first African American woman to give the national Democratic response to President Bush’s weekly radio address; the first Democratic chair of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s issues; and the first to be named Honorary Curator of the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach.

In her role on the Committee on House Administration, Congresswoman Millender-McDonald called the first election reform field hearing in history as she investigated widespread voter irregularities and disenfranchisement in Ohio.

In addition, she worked with former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and Ambassador John Miller on human trafficking and women’s rights issues around the world.  She had spoken out against genocide in Darfur, Cambodia, and other regions where human rights are violated.

Congresswoman Millender-McDonald was recently rated as one of the five most effective Members of Congress in a University of California study because of her ability to work across the aisle to pass legislation.

Congresswoman Millender-McDonald’s legacy in fighting for justice and equality at home and abroad will be remembered.

On behalf of all Democrats, we extend our heartfelt condolences to Congresswoman Millender-McDonald’s family and friends. She will be sorely missed by all who knew her.

Eric C. Bauman
Chair
Los Angeles County Democratic Party

Ensuring every vote counts in elections
By Dianne Feinstein - from The Sacramento Bee - April 22, 2007

The 2006 vote count in Sarasota County, Fla., exposed major weaknesses in our nation’s voting system. Nearly 240,000 voters cast ballots on Nov. 7. But when their votes were tallied, things didn’t square up: There were 18,000 fewer votes in the 13th Congressional District than were recorded in other contests on the same ballot.

So-called undervotes occur in every election. But the rate of undervotes on Sarasota County’s touch-screen machines was five times the rate seen on absentee ballots in the same contest.

Clearly, something went wrong. Was it a software glitch? Did poor ballot design lead voters mistakenly to overlook the congressional race? Was there tampering? We don’t know. After an investigation, Florida election officials say software was not to blame. But other experts say machine failure cannot be ruled out.

In the end, Republican Vern Buchanan was declared the winner over Democrat Christine Jennings, by only 369 votes. Thousands of votes were never recorded. And since the machines were not equipped to provide a paper trail that could be verified by the voters, we may never know what the true count was.

This sort of uncertainty is unacceptable. That’s why I am introducing legislation to reform our nation’s voting systems. The Ballot Integrity Act would:

• Require that all voting systems used in federal elections have a voter-verified paper trail, and ban the purchase of new voting systems that do not provide a paper trail.

• Establish a $600 million grant program to help states purchase voting systems equipped to produce a voter-verified paper trail.

• Create a $3 million competitive grant program to develop a voting system with a voter-verified paper trail, with full accessibility for the disabled.

• Require random public audits of electronic voting tallies, and open voting system software to inspection by independent computer analysts.

• Require that all voting places offer emergency paper ballots in case of system failures or delays.

These changes are critical to ensuring that every vote counts. To leave things as they stand today is to invite trouble.

The danger is real. In last year’s midterm elections, one-third of voters — 55 million Americans — cast ballots on electronic voting systems. Some jurisdictions have machines that leave a voter-verified paper trail; others do not.

In Sarasota County’s 13th Congressional District, recounts were conducted, but they were essentially pointless. That’s because the recount there simply entailed tallying the same electronic record again. And so the same flawed result was produced, with no way to find out why 18,000 votes went missing.

Inaccurate election tallies are an urgent problem, but so far they have not been addressed adequately. It has been more than four years since the Help America Vote Act, to reform federal elections, was passed by Congress and signed into law. But experts have identified several serious issues:

• The nonpartisan Election Reform Information Project found that new electronic voting machines may lack necessary security safeguards, and that statewide voter registration databases may not be accurate.

• In two studies in 2006, the Brennan Center for Justice, at the New York University School of Law, found more than 120 security threats to voting machines. The Brennan Center also found a notable lack of scientific study of voting system cost, security and accessibility — especially for disabled voters.

The problems in Sarasota County are a warning that must be heeded. If similar problems had occurred in the last election in Montana or Virginia — states with tight U.S. Senate contests — control of the Congress might have been unclear.

The good news is that some states are beginning to act. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has announced plans to replace touch-screen voting systems with paper ballots counted by scanning machines. Other states are considering similar plans.

These are moves in the right direction. But they are not enough. We must have uniform national voting standards.

The stakes are high. Inaccurate vote counts erode voter confidence. And if voters lose faith, they may give up on voting altogether.

Voting is fundamental to our democracy and is guaranteed by the Constitution. But the right to vote is diminished if we don’t count the vote accurately. It is imperative that Congress ensures that voter choices are recorded accurately, free from error or mischief.

Copyright © The Sacramento Bee

FROM HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI - April 20,2007

The American People Are Ready For a New Direction In Iraq

This week, the House appointed conferees on the Iraq Accountability Act for reconciliation with the Senate version of the emergency supplemental. The legislation that Congress will send to the President’s desk supports our troops, honors our commitments to our veterans, holds the Iraqi government accountable, and provides for a responsible redeployment from Iraq.

Democrats are ready to work with the President to change the direction in Iraq, but the President must accept the facts and put aside partisan attacks and heated rhetoric:

Fact 1: The Pentagon confirms Congressional Research Service report saying the White House claim that Congress is delaying the funding for the troops is false. “The Pentagon says it has enough money to pay for the Iraq war through June, despite warnings from the White House that troops are being harmed by Congress’ failure to quickly deliver more funds.” [AP, 4/19/07]

Fact 2: Today, the President’s own Defense Secretary. Robert Gates, once again said that we cannot have an open-ended commitment in Iraq: “I’m sympathetic with some of the challenges that they [the Iraqis] face…[But] the clock is ticking.” [AP, 4/19/07]

Fact 3: Fully 70 percent disapprove of the way the President Bush is handling the war, and six in 10 Americans trust Democrats in Congress over the President on the war. [ABC News/Washington Post, 4/16/07; CNN Poll, 4/18/07]

The President continues to push for a war without end, while the American people believe it is time for a new direction. Democrats want to work together with the President to responsibly wind down this war.

House Democratic Leaders call President’s attention to crucial facts in Iraq war debate>>

National Organization for Women
San Fernando Valley – Northeast Los Angeles Chapter
(818) 769-2035 info@sfvnow.org www.sfvnow.org

For Immediate Release: April 18, 2007
For Information: Jan B. Tucker (310.618.9596 or Cell 818.720.3719)

JUSTICE GINSBURG’S DISSENT IS CLARION
CALL OF ALARM FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS
NOW Chapter Will Hold Forum on
Ramifications of Gonzales v Carhart Decision

The San Fernando Valley/Northeast Los Angeles Chapter of the National Organization for Women (SFV/NELA NOW) will hold a forum on the ramifications of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v Carhart which today upheld laws that ban the “Intact Dilation & Extraction” method of terminating a pregnancy. The forum will be held Sunday, April 29, 2007 beginning at 12:00 noon at 11178 Burbank Blvd North Hollywood (Doctor Detox). Also on the agenda will be reports on local issues ranging from family law to discrimination and harassment in the workplace.

Linda Pruett, Co-President of SFV/NELA NOW said that “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent in the Gonzales case is a “clarion call of alarm for women’s rights.” Ginsburg, writing with the support of Associate Justices Souter, Breyer, and Stevens, said that:

In reaffirming Roe, the Casey Court described the centrality of “the decision whether to bear . . . a child,” Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 453 (1972), to a woman’s “dignity and autonomy,” her “personhood” and “destiny,” her “conception of . . . her place in society.” 505 U. S., at 851-852. Of signal importance here, the Casey Court stated with unmistakable clarity that state regulation of access to abortion procedures, even after viability, must protect “the health of the woman.” Id., at 846.

And that:

Today’s decision is alarming. It refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously. It tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). It blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between previability and postviability abortions. And, for the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman’s health.

Jan Tucker, another SFV/NELA NOW Co-President stated that “this decision is a wake-up call for doctors: what the U.S. Supreme Court did today, overturning by a single vote the decisions of six of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, is to take away a doctor’s right to choose the best medical procedure available to protect a woman’s health. At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court has said that it’s okay to force a woman to maintain a compulsory pregnancy for a dead fetus when the safest way to remove it may be the Intact D&E procedure.”

Take a Moment for Death By William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t - April 12, 2007

He was just a blue-eyed Boston boy,
His voice was low with pain.
I’ll do your bidding comrade mine,
If I ride back again.
But if you ride back and I am left,
You do as much for me.
Mother, you know, must hear the news,
So write to her tenderly …

- “Two Soldiers”

Let’s take a moment, you and I, to slice through the shouting and the posturing and the politics. Let’s elbow out some space, just a wee margin, away from fired US Attorneys and Gonzales and subpoenas and Karl Rove, away from Cheney and Bush and spending bills and withdrawal plans and all the rest of it. Let’s put a little room between these things and ourselves, not because these things are unimportant, but because something underneath it all still manages to get ignored even within the maelstrom of a failing administration, and we need to talk about it.

A soldier from Massachusetts was killed in Iraq last week. He was an Army Sergeant, and was 25 years old.

A soldier from New Mexico was killed in Iraq last week. He was a Specialist, and was 21 years old.

A soldier from Alabama was killed in Iraq last week. He was a Staff Sergeant, and was 31 years old.

A soldier from Indiana was killed in Iraq last week. He was a Private, and was 20 years old.

A soldier from California was killed in Iraq last week. He was a Staff Sergeant, and was 25 years old.

A soldier from New Hampshire was killed in Iraq last week. He was a Captain, and was 25 years old.

A soldier from North Carolina was killed in Iraq last week. He was a Specialist, and was 33 years old.

A soldier from Michigan was killed in Iraq last week. He was a Specialist, and was 23 years old.

A soldier from Arkansas was killed in Iraq last week. He was a Private, and was 21 years old.

Nine soldiers, whose names I am withholding out of respect for their families, are gone. Nine soldiers gone in less than a week, nine names added to the bloody list, a list that totals 45 soldiers killed in Iraq over the short passage of twelve days in April. 45 soldiers killed in less than two weeks, added to the 81 soldiers lost in March, added to the 80 soldiers lost in February, added to the 3,292 lost since Bush’s wretched misadventure in Iraq began four long years ago.

This is the “surge” you’ve heard about, three months along now, and that smothering euphemism is brutally appropriate. Critics tried to label this newest fiasco an “escalation” in the media when it began, so the truth of it wouldn’t be buried under kinder, gentler, politically soothing terminology. Yet “surge” is the word, and the lethality of it all is only lost when we fail to take a moment to encompass it.

Bush and his people have “surged” about 200 American soldiers into the cold ground over this new year, have “surged” about 200 folded American flags into the trembling hands of shattered families, have “surged” woe and horror and sorrow into the hearts and souls of people from all points on the national compass. They have not “surged” any kind of success into the Iraq equation, of course, but this becomes mere grist for the political mill only when the rest of us fail to take a moment and remember that failed policies these days are always paid for in blood.

45 soldiers in 12 days. Will it be 90 soldiers in 24 days? One hundred soldiers when the time comes to turn the calendar page? More?

Who can say? The only constant is butchery, and as we slide along this axis of inevitable carnage day after day, we can depend upon a daily dose of death to present itself before us. We can, and must, engage in the political fights of this hour. We must demand accountability, push for hearings and subpoenas, and work to corner this deranged administration so that maybe, just maybe, a chance to stop the killing can be seized.

Take this moment, just a small slice of time, for death. In all the noise and thunder and shouting, don’t forget to take that small moment. It is the very least we, the living, can do.

——————————————————————————–

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: “War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You to Know” and “The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.” His newest book, “House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America’s Ravaged Reputation,” is now available from PoliPointPress.