Abattoir Inspection

The AP reports here that the House of Representatives struck from the record comments made by Florida Representative Connie Brown. Brown was defending the position that the U.N. shouldn’t be barred from observing the U.S. Presidential election in November.

"I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again," Brown said. "Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, 'Get over it.' No, we're not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world."

Steve Buyer, an Indiana Republican demanded the comments be stricken, and presiding officer Texan Mac Thornberry ruled that there was a violation of the House rules because "members should not accuse other members of committing a crime such as, quote, stealing, end quote, an election." The House then voted along party lines to strike the comments.

First of all, it’s kind of funny that you keep a record, but then get rid of the parts of the records for which you don’t care. If it’s a violation of House rules to make such an accusation, isn’t it more appropriate to keep them officially on the record so that you can note them in the future?

Second, don’t accusations of criminal activity get made on the House floor pretty often? I certainly don’t claim to read the Congressional Record with any degree of regularity, but I would think that such comments must come up relatively often. Especially with House members who . . . you know . . . have committed crimes? Was no observation officially made on the house floor of the conviction of James Traficant?

Third, doesn’t the fact that the vote was along party lines indicate that no one was really interested in whether such a statement offensive to the decorum of the House so much as it was a statement offensive to the majority party that could be penalized under the House rules?

Finally, as to the underlying issue, why are we afraid of outside verification of our electoral process? If it really is so great (and I believe it is, warts and all), then why don’t we let representatives of the U.N. or other bodies see what we have to offer, and how we go about ensuring fair elections? Are we willing to sell the sausage, but not let the abattoir be inspected? Do we value verity or simply verisimilitude?