June 1 2011 The Legacy of the Mission: “To Right Wrong. To do Justice”
President's Johnson's “We Shall Overcome Speech” before the Special Session of the Congress and the assembled Supreme Court of the United States was a day of transformation of voting as a legislative grace to that of a verification of voting as a right of the People
That moment in time marked a pinnacle in the freedoms of Americans and mankind. The President provided executive authority to the long standing state statutes and practices which prevented racial minorities from the representation in the American government in the speech, and introduced legislation that would “strike down all restrictions in Federal, State and local elections”
That hour in time marked that opportunity would be extended to all segments of the American society.
And in those hours there was built the foundation of the Constitutional promise: that equal was equal upon each and all citizens, whether it was in California, or Maine ot Texas or Illinois or any of the other states and territories of the United States.
Unfortunately, several confederate statutes lay hidden in suspension behind the statutes,words and practices of state laws while the debate upon the precision of the bill and of federal authority continued.
When the bill finally did pass, court challenges arose and persisted the term of President Johnson. It was a sad day that passed when the executive authority and strength behind the words of legislation transferred to the hands of others as several of the devises persisted.
One which came back to regular ( pre-1965 ) practice is in Illinois' election code, now found at
Illinois 5-10. It used to be Chapter 46 of the Illinois statutes, and it is a bit ironic that more time was spent toward revising the organization of the statutes than the internals of the statutes. Originally enacted in 1871, state code provides for a “citizen challenge” for statutory provisions including repeated certifications, punctuations, legibility, confusion, along with proper candidate statements and
qualified voters being submitted to election authority for (equal) placement upon ballots. It was enacted to evade the state's prohibition of Amendment XV and the first civil rights bill. It did so by allowing a private citizen challenge a candidacy for 'qualified voters' and sufficiency. These challenges were most visible carried out along racial lines, but were as much used by an incumbency to eliminate opposition before an election. (This practice of contouring the ballot and gaining election without or by nominal opposition is a practice that extends beyond the party lines of the established political parties though it is not a practice adopted by all established candidates. It has however taken new forms where established political organizations hire infiltrators to manufacture signatures for the opposition, thus providing for the disqualification of the opposition based upon sustainable challenge: “the signature submitted is fraudulent”.)
I must admit that upon the events in the election to the United States Senate from Illinois in the 2010 elections, I filed a suit based upon the simplicity of the ideal: That voting is a liberty right of candidacy, extended to individuals, upon equal qualifications which are natural and non-discriminatory. Voting is not apportioned to the political parties or a reserved right of the States, but to be preserved for
for all Americans.
My suit wasn't upon race or upon President's emphasis of the racial polarities or upon the barriers to registration, but upon the events in the processes leading to the election of the Federal office and its effect upon the liberty right I hold in deciding as to whether or not to seek public office. Clearly the statutes include a tiered method of nomination, whereby “ established parties” submit 5,000 but no more than 10,000 (party) signatures”and independent and “new party” candidates are required to submit 25, 000 qualified signatures. This is not quite the principle of one person one vote, at least statistically. But as it seemingly reasonable to maintain the state's rights of administering elections,it has been the accepted practice .
But it is an invidious process. Not much different than that lower fruit of registration delays and frustrations the President spoke of in the parallel of registration: “The day is long. The hour is late. The official in charge is absent.”
After a tedious and illusionary process of litigation before the state courts, the matter is dismissed as
moot: “the statute is the intent of the Legislature” “the day has passed for the issue to be justiciable”
“try again next time”.
Providing authority to a state enactment absent the constitutional moorings, and upon the existence of the statute is part of the mechanism of detachment. It defies and evades review. “Every devise of which human ingenuity is capable,has been used to deny this right.”In the cases of 2010, several of the candidates submitted more than 25,000 signatures, yet the process of attrition by the citizen challenges “reduced that number” which was then reported to the Board as “insufficient to statutory requirement”. The candidates were each issued a letter stating that their submission was insufficient to statutory requirement . It was rubber stamped by the Chairman of the Board of Elections, and removed from equal placement on the ballots. In all, over 250,000 signatures amongst the several independent candidates were nullified by a rule of invalidation of the 25,000 plus submitted signatures.
The concept of “citizen challenges” has lead developed a character of sanctioned abuse .Parties and candidates hire complaintants and their attorneys with the express purpose of challenging opponents. There are several instances in which “the opponents signatures are manufactured for the express purpose of providing evidences for the removal of the opponents”.“No law we now have on the books,
and I have put three of them there, can insure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it”.Of the challenged candidates for 2010 in the United States Senate, none survived the process to see their names equally on the ballots. Four were from distinct racial minorities, and the remainder were “fringe candidates”.
Taking the process to the Federal court, there are the several burdens. Not the last of which are defining the constitutional imbalance and processing the complaint at the state level. The sufficiency
that the process resulted in the removal of several (all objected upon) independent candidates is not enough. Hard to believe that such happens forty years after the President declared “ Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote”
It may well be best to lay aside the processes of contouring the elections and await another President
that would renew vision that President Johnson invoked “And should we defeat every enemy, and should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation. For, with a country as with a person, "what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
