Memphis judge blocks Senate from removing Ford [Ophelia accuses TN Senate of racism]

Memphis Commercial Appeal ^ | 1-18-2006 | Rick Locker

[Blood of Tyrants]

Ophelia played the race card and claimed that racism was somehow involved in preventing her from stealing this election. A BLACK FEMALE DEMOCRAT judge (and no doubt a political supporter of the Fords) agreed.

BTW, what race IS Ophelia Ford? She claims to be African American, but she looks lily white to me.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Link to Tennessean article http://www.ashlandcitytimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060119/NEWS0201/601190382/1291/MTCN01 of whic no portion may be posted.

[AuH2ORepublican]

SCOTUS did not act improperly in the Powell case. The House didn't *expel* Powell, since one can't expel a member until he has been seated. The House decided to *exclude* Powell under Article I, Section 5, but did so for reasons that were not included among the qualifications for a Representative in the Constitution. The House could have seated Powell and then expelled him, but the Democrat leadership that ran the House knew that they wouldn't be able to get 2/3 of members to vote to expel Powell (I guess it's easier to get votes to exclude than to expel, especially when the person knows that he'd get excluded with anythong above 50%+1, so the person knows that he won't be blamed by black voters for Powell's exclusion), soo they illegally excluded him. After the Court ruled for Powell and he was sworn in to the House, the House could have expelled him then, but it didn't have the 2/3 needed; the House did strip Powell of his seniority, which after all is an internal House rule that cannot be challenged by the courts.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"Legislators do not AFAIK need judicial permission to expel a member, which is an internal matter of theirs"

---

That is correct, but more to the point, the state senate is the sole judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its members (remember, the Senate isn't expelling Ophelia, since they would need 2/3 of the votes). If the state senate rules that Ophelia Ford did not win the election, then the state senate's word is final. State senators will of course face the voters next election, and if the votyers feel that the senators cheated they can vote them out of office.

Indiana RAT Congressman Francis X. McCloskey was certified by the Secretary of State as having lost reelection in 1984, only to be seated by the Democrat House after it excluded the rightful winner. The GOP screamed bloody murder, but there's nothing that any court could have done to stop the House from exercising its constitutional authority. This judge is completely out of line.

[FOG724]

The first state office that former President Carter held, he aquired through the legislature over turning a corrupted election. Carter lost the election but was seated anyway. As a result of the vote fraud they passed a law that you could no longer vote if you had been dead more than three years.

[untenured]

Thanks for your clarification. I guess if Powell had only won by a handful of votes they could've refused to seat him, and once he had been seated they could with a 2/3 vote expel him, but they couldn't refuse to seat him at the beginning of a Congressional term just because they thought he was unsavory. Is that about right?

[AuH2ORepublican]

Yeah, that's correct.

I guess the House could have claimed that, even though Powell won handily, his election was due to voter fraud and thus exclude him, but there would have been hell to pay politically had the House subverted the will of the voters in such a crass and unethical manner; I mean, how much fraud would you need to prove in order to overturn an 80%-20% election?

[fieldmarshaldj]

Thanks, Gail, I check on Thad Matthews's website daily.