Posted on 12/23/2006 5:38:30 PM PST by Congressman Billybob
Most of you know her as Nancy Pelosi. When I first met my one-time neighbor, she was daughter to one Mayor of Baltimore, Tommy D’Alesandro, Jr., and sister to Tommy, III, who’d later become Mayor.
Some of the stories about her, as she prepares to become Speaker of the House, have mentioned her past, but not honestly. At most, the glowing stories refer to the Baltimore City politics she grew up in as “rough and tumble.” Politics there and then were much more than rough and tumble. They were crooked as a dog’s hind leg.
I know. I grew up there. I made my first run for public office there, in 1971. Lemme tell y’all how Baltimore politics were conducted, then.
First, it was all Democrats. The last Republican was elected to the City Council in 1943. And among the Democrats, the law of the jungle applied. The strongest won, and prospered. The weakest lost, and were destroyed.
Elections in Baltimore were run by the machines, which had a feudal relationships like barons in the Middle Ages. Strongest was the D’Alesandro machine. Second to that, but working hand and glove with it, was Jack Pollack’s machine. Pollack personally was a frugal man, never accused of taking a penny for himself. But he kept hundreds of thousands of dollars in safe deposit boxes, to be dispensed as needed. Pollack had, in his pocket, many politicians including Congressman and State Senators, plus more than a few judges.
Election day funds were called “walking around money.” Each precinct captain got a stack of money proportionate to the vote he was expected to produce. Sure, the captain would keep some for himself. But a wise captain would keep his greed within limits, and use most of his allotment to buy votes.
Was this illegal? Absolutely. Then, now, and all years in between. But that’s the politics that Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi grew up in. And what did the successful politician do in Baltimore when he, and now she, had won? Reward your friends. Punish your enemies. Start gathering the money and allies to win the next election.
Honesty or corruption had nothing to do with this process. Results were all that counted. This was displayed in the D’Alesandro family history. Tommy, Jr., was never indicted for anything. But Tommy, III, was sloppy.
He was indicted for rape as a young man. He was indicted for corruption as Mayor. Both times, the charges were dismissed when the principal witness made herself / himself scarce until the charges were dismissed. In the latter case, the witness turned up alive and well in a Las Vegas casino, after the charges against D’Alesandro were dropped. The same charges against Councilman Mimi DiPietro, had not been dismissed. When I as a candidate pointed out that DiPietro could still be tried for corruption, the D’Alesandro response was to send a compliant State’s Attorney before a compliant judge, to drop those charges also.
With a clear understanding of how her politics were developed, D’Alesandro’s actions as pending Speaker make more sense. She stood by Jack Murtha in his bid for Majority Leader, because Jack had stood by her. It was irrelevant that Murtha missed being indicted in Abscam because he decided to take his agreed-upon bribe of $50,000 later, rather than right away.
D’Alesandro/Pelosi’s background also explains her actions concerning the Chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee. She is crosswise with Jane Harman, the senior Democrat, so she dropped Harman like a hot rock. Next in line was Alcee Hastings, a loyal ally and leading member of the Congressional Black Caucus. But he’d been removed as a federal judge for taking bribes from drug dealers. She dropped Hastings the same way that the D’Alesandro machine had relied on black votes, but then turned their backs on blacks after the election.
Even something that may happen January 2nd, when the House is sworn in, may reflect D’Alesandro’s culture of corruption. According to the official results from Florida, Republican Vern Buchanan, won the 13th Congressional District by 369 votes. But D’Alesandro can use her power as Speaker to steal that election for the Democrats and install Christine Jennings as the “winner” and new Congresswoman. The Democrats did that in 1984 over a seat in Indiana. It would be in character for D’Alesandro to do that in 2007.
The more you know about a politician, the better you can predict his/her motive and actions. You now know more about Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi than most of the MSM reporters and editors either know, or dare to report. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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About the Author: John Armor is a lawyer specializing in constitutional law, who may again be a candidate for Congress in the 11th District of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
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Regarding 1984 election theft ............
A Federal appeals court, in a decision written by the Supreme Court nominee Antonin Scalia, on Tuesday dismissed a challenge to Representative Frank M. McCloskey's seat as the winner of one of the century's closest House elections.
A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the Constitution clearly made the House the only judge of who won an election to a House seat.
It upheld a Federal district judge who had dismissed the challenge by Mr. McCloskey's Republican opponent.
''We simply lack jurisdiction to proceed,'' Judge Scalia wrote. ''It is difficult to imagine a clearer case of 'textually demonstrable constitutional commitment' of an issue to another branch of government to the exclusion of the courts.''
After the first House-controlled vote recount in 24 years, the House in a party-line vote said Mr. McCloskey, a second-term Democrat, defeated Rick McIntyre by four votes, 116,645 to 116,641, in 1984. The two are facing a rematch this fall in Indiana's Eighth Congressional District.
In the 1984 election, Rep. McCloskey faced conservative state senator Rick McIntyre. Buoyed by President Reagan's strong coattails, McIntyre trailed McCloskey by only 72 votes after the initial vote count. A tabulation error, however, resulted in an overcounting of McCloskey votes and the Republican Indiana Secretary of State certified McIntyre as the winner by 34 votes, ignoring other recounted tallies that actually showed McCloskey was in the lead. The Democratic-controlled House refused to seat either McIntyre or McCloskey and conducted their own recount. In the end, the House seated McCloskey after declaring him the winner by just four votes (116,645 to 116,641). The vote was largely along partisan lines and in response every Republican House member marched out of the chamber in protest.
BTTT
You have it right, as far as I can tell. (I moved to Baltimore in 1967 when Tommy III was mayor.)
That's what Republicans do when an election is stolen from them ... they get angry and march out!
bttt
BUMP
I worked for Martin until '67. But I have no memory of Baltimore politics of that era. I must have heard the name of the mayor, but I'm drawing a blank.
BTTT
BTTT! More people need to read this.
Thanks for the informative post.
Was her father made?
Sounds like it from this column. Also sounds like she saw corruption at the dinner table nightly as a child.
(Also notice the mention of organization)
Roots in faith, family and party guide Pelosi’s move to power
http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives/012403/012403a.htm
(Catholic's, you will not like this column at all)
BTTT
Does that link still work for you?
- Mind you, this was a ‘positive’ piece (cough)
The brother was a prize as well
(scroll down)
http://www.newsbusters.org/node/5653
When you have time to read them:
http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=13916
BTT for relevancy to what is happening today.
Chrome pops this website up as malwares contamination !
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