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More than three decades apart, two
political riots influenced the outcome of U.S. presidential
elections. In 1968, protests at the Democratic National Convention
in Chicago hurt Democrat Hubert Humphrey and helped Republican
Richard Nixon eke out a victory. On Nov. 22, 2000, the so-called
"Brooks Brothers Riot" of Republican activists helped stop a vote
recount in Miami -- and showed how far George W. Bush's supporters
were ready to go to put their man in the White House.
But the government reaction to the two events was
dramatically different. The clashes between police and Vietnam War
protesters in 1968 led the Nixon administration to charge seven
anti-war radicals with "conspiring to cross state lines with the
intent to incite a riot." The defendants, who became known as the
Chicago Seven, were later acquitted of conspiracy charges, in part,
because the protests were loosely organized and because solid
documentary evidence was lacking.
After the Miami "Brooks Brothers Riot" - named
after the protesters' preppie clothing - no government action was
taken beyond the police rescuing several Democrats who were
surrounded and roughed up by the rioters. While no legal charges
were filed against the Republicans, newly released documents show
that at least a half dozen of the publicly identified rioters were
paid by Bush's recount committee.
The payments to the Republican activists are
documented in hundreds of pages of Bush committee records - released
grudgingly to the Internal Revenue Service last month, 19 months
after the 36-day recount battle ended. Overall, the records provide
a road map of how the Bush recount team brought its operatives
across state lines to stop then-Vice President Al Gore's recount
efforts.
The records show that the Bush committee spent a
total of $13.8 million to frustrate the recount of Florida's votes
and secure the state's crucial electoral votes for Bush. By
contrast, the Gore recount operation spent $3.2 million, about one
quarter of the Bush total. Bush spent more just on lawyers - $4.4
million - than Gore did on his entire effort.
Extended Deadline
The new evidence was submitted by the Bush
recount committee to the IRS under an extended deadline for
disclosures of soft-money spending by so-called "527 committees,"
which are not directly related to a candidate's campaign. Bush
lawyers had argued that they were not obligated legally to disclose
how they had raised and spent their money.
The Bush committee finally reversed itself and
filed the
records on July 15. The records were released to the public on
the IRS Web site in late July. Gore's committee submitted its
records in line with the original IRS deadlines.
The documents show that the Bush organization put
on the payroll about 250 staffers, spent about $1.2 million to fly
operatives to Florida and elsewhere, and paid for hotel bills adding
up to about $1 million. To add flexibility to the travel
arrangements, a fleet of corporate jets was assembled, including
planes owned by Enron Corp., then run by Bush backer Kenneth Lay,
and Halliburton Co., where Dick Cheney had served as chairman and
chief executive officer.
Only a handful of the Brooks Brothers rioters
were publicly identified, some through photographs published in the
Washington Post. Jake Tapper's book on the recount battle, Down
and Dirty, provides a list of 12 Republican operatives who took
part in the Miami riot. Half of those individuals received payments
from the Bush recount committee, according to the IRS records.
The Miami protesters who were paid by Bush
recount committee were: Matt Schlapp, a Bush staffer who was based
in Austin and received $4,276.09; Thomas Pyle, a staff aide to House
Majority Whip Tom DeLay, $456; Michael Murphy, a DeLay fund-raiser,
$935.12; Garry Malphrus, House majority chief counsel to the House
Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice, $330; Charles Royal, a
legislative aide to Rep. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. $391.80; and Kevin
Smith, a former GOP House staffer, $373.23.
Three of the Miami protesters are now members of
Bush's White House staff, the Miami Herald reported last month. They
include Schlapp, who is now a special assistant to the president;
Malphrus, who is now deputy director of the president's Domestic
Policy Council; and Joel Kaplan, another special assistant to the
president. [See Miami Herald, July 14, 2002]
The Bush committee records show, too, that Bush's
operation paid for the hotel where the Republican protesters
celebrated after the Miami riot at a Thanksgiving Day party. At the
party, the activists received thank-you phone calls from Bush and
Cheney, and were serenaded by crooner Wayne Newton, singing "Danke
Schoen," German for thank-you very much. [Wall Street Journal, Nov.
27, 2000; Consortiumnews.com's
"W's Triumph of the Will"]
The IRS records show that the Bush recount
committee paid $35,501.52 to the Hyatt Regency Pier 66 in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla., where the party was held.
The House of Masquerades
A number of miscellaneous expenses, reported by
the Bush recount committee, also appear to have gone for party
items, such as lighting, sound systems and even costumes. Garrett
Sound and Lighting in Fort Lauderdale was paid $5,902; Beach Sound
Inc. in North Miami was paid $3,500; and the House of Masquerades, a
costume shop in Miami, had three payments totaling $640.92,
according to the Bush records.
The Brooks Brothers Riot - carried live on CNN
and other networks - marked a turning point in the recount battle.
At the time, Bush clung to a lead that had dwindled to several
hundred votes and Gore was pressing for recounts. The riot in Miami
and the prospects of spreading violence were among the arguments
later cited by defenders of the 5-to-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on
Dec. 12, 2000, that stopped a statewide Florida recount and handed
Bush the presidency.
Backed by the $13.8 million war chest, the Bush
operation made clear in Miami and in other protests that it was
ready to kick up plenty of political dust if it didn't get its
way.
A later unofficial recount by news organizations
found that if all legally cast ballots in Florida had been counted -
regardless of which kinds of chads were accepted, whether
punched-through, hanging or dimpled - Gore would have won Florida
and thus the presidency. Gore also won the national popular vote,
defeating Bush by more than a half million votes, making Bush the
first popular-vote loser in more than a century to be installed in
the White House. [Consortiumnews.com's "So Bush Did
Steal the White House"]
Across State Lines
The evidence also is clear that the Bush campaign
organized the transportation of Republican activists across state
lines into Florida. As early as mid-November, the Bush campaign
called on activists to rush to Florida and promised to pay their
expenses. "We now need to send reinforcements," the Bush campaign
said in an appeal to Republicans on Nov. 18, 2000. "The campaign
will pay airfare and hotel expenses for people willing to go." [See
Tapper's Down and Dirty.]
These reinforcements - many of them Republican
staffers from Capitol Hill - added an angrier tone to the dueling
street protests already underway between supporters of Bush and
Gore. The new wave of Republican activists injected "venom and
volatility into an already edgy situation," wrote Tapper.
"This is the new Republican Party, sir!" Brad
Blakeman, Bush's campaign director of advance travel logistics,
bellowed into a bullhorn to disrupt a CNN correspondent interviewing
a Democratic congressman. "We're not going to take it anymore!"
Around the country,
the conservative media apparatus, led by talk show host Rush
Limbaugh and pro-Bush pundits, rallied the faithful with charges
that a hand recount was fraudulent and amounted to "inventing"
votes.
Bush himself did
nothing to temper the inflammatory rhetoric. Nor did he urge his
supporters to respect the legally sanctioned vote
counting.
Instead, Bush's
recount representative, James Baker, and Bush himself denounced the
Florida Supreme Court, which had ordered that recount results be
included in the official vote tallies. Bush accused
the court of abusing its powers in a bid to "usurp" the
authority of the legislature.
The Battle of Miami
On Nov. 22, 2000, after learning that the Miami
canvassing board was starting an examination of 10,750 disputed
ballots that had previously not been counted, Rep. John Sweeney, a
New York Republican, called on Republican troops to "shut it down,"
according to Down and Dirty. Brendan Quinn, executive
director of the New York GOP, told about two dozen Republican
operatives to storm the room on the 19th floor where the canvassing
board was meeting, Tapper reported.
"Emotional and angry, they immediately make their
way outside the larger room in which the tabulating room is
contained," Tapper wrote. "The mass of 'angry voters' on the 19th
floor swells to maybe 80 people," including many of the Republican
activists from outside Florida.
News cameras captured the chaotic scene outside
the canvassing board's offices. The protesters shouted slogans and
banged on the doors and walls. The unruly protest prevented official
observers and members of the press from reaching the room.
Miami-Dade county spokesman Mayco Villafana was pushed and shoved.
Security officials feared the confrontation was spinning out of
control.
The canvassing board suddenly reversed its
decision and canceled the recount. "Until the demonstration stops,
nobody can do anything," said David Leahy, Miami's supervisor of
elections, although the canvassing board members would later insist
that they were not intimidated into stopping the recount. [Down
and Dirty]
A Sample Ballot
While the siege of the canvassing board office
was underway, county Democratic chairman Joe Geller stopped at
another office seeking a sample ballot. He wanted to demonstrate his
theory that some voters had intended to vote for Gore but instead
marked an adjoining number that represented no candidate.
As Geller took the ballot marked "sample," one of
the Republican activists began shouting, "This guy's got a
ballot!"
In Down and Dirty, Tapper writes: "The
masses swarm around him, yelling, getting in his face, pushing him,
grabbing him. 'Arrest him!' they cry. 'Arrest him!' With the help of
a diminutive DNC aide, Luis Rosero, and the political director of
the Miami Gore campaign, Joe Fraga, Geller manages to wrench himself
into the elevator.
"Rosero, who stays back to talk to the press,
gets kicked, punched. A woman pushes him into a much larger guy,
seemingly trying to instigate a fight. In the lobby of the building,
a group of 50 or so Republicans are crushed around Geller,
surrounding him. ...
"The cops escort Geller back to the 19th floor,
so the elections officials can see what's going on, investigate the
charges. Of course, it turns out that all Geller had was a sample
ballot. The crowd is pulling at the cops, pulling at Geller. It's
insanity! Some even get in the face of 73-year-old Rep. Carrie Meek.
Democratic operatives decide to pull out of the area altogether."
[Tapper's Down and Dirty]
Despite the use of
intimidation to influence actions by election officials, Bush and
his top aides remained publicly silent about these disruptive
tactics. The Washington Post reported that "even as the Bush
campaign and the Republicans portray themselves as above the fray,"
national Republicans actually had joined in and helped finance the
raucous protests. [Washington Post, Nov. 27, 2000]
The Wall Street
Journal added more details, including the fact that Bush offered
personal words of encouragement to the rioters in a conference call
to a Bush campaign-sponsored celebration on the night of
Thanksgiving Day, one day after the canvassing board
assault.
"The night's
highlight was a conference call from Mr. Bush and running mate Dick
Cheney, which included joking reference by both running mates to the
incident in Miami, two [Republican] staffers in attendance say,"
according to the Journal. [Nov. 27, 2000]
The Journal
also reported that the assault on the canvassing board was led by
national Republican operatives "on all expense-paid trips, courtesy
of the Bush campaign." After their success in Dade, the rioters
moved on to Broward, where the protests remained unruly but failed
to stop that count.
The Journal
noted that "behind the rowdy rallies in South Florida this past
weekend was a well-organized effort by Republican operatives to
entice supporters to South Florida," with DeLay's Capitol Hill
office taking charge of the recruitment.
About 200 Republican
congressional staffers signed on, the Journal reported. They
were put up at hotels, given $30 a day for food and "an invitation
to an exclusive Thanksgiving Day party in Fort Lauderdale," the
article said.
Upper
Hand
The Journal
said there was no evidence of a similar Democratic strategy to fly
in national party operatives. "This has allowed the Republicans to
quickly gain the upper hand, protest-wise," the Journal
said.
The Bush campaign
also worked to conceal its hand. "Staffers who joined the effort say
there has been an air of mystery to the operation. 'To tell you the
truth, nobody knows who is calling the shots,' says one aide. Many
nights, often very late, a memo is slipped underneath the hotel-room
doors outlining coming events," the Journal
reported.
On Nov. 25, the Bush
campaign issued "talking points" to justify the Miami protest,
calling it "fitting, proper" and blaming the canvassing board for
the disruptions. "The board made a series of bad decisions and the
reaction to it was inevitable and well justified," the Bush campaign
said. [Down and Dirty]
Still, other
recounts in Broward County whittled down Bush's lead. Gore was
gaining slowly in Palm Beach's recount, despite constant challenges
from Republican observers.
To boost Bush's
margin back up, Republican Secretary of State Harris allowed Nassau
County to throw out its recounted figures that had helped Gore.
Then, excluding a partial recount in Palm Beach and with Miami shut
down, Harris certified Bush the winner by 537 votes.
Bush partisans
cheered their victory and began demanding that Bush be called the
president-elect. Soon afterwards, Bush appeared on national
television to announce himself the winner and to call on Gore to
concede defeat.
"Now," Bush said,
"we must live up to our principles. We must show our commitment to
the common good, which is bigger than any person or any
party."
Changed
Course
To many Gore supporters, the aborted recount in
Miami changed the course of the Florida events, preventing Gore from
narrowing Bush's small lead or possibly edging ahead.
The Brooks Brothers Riot also represented an
escalation of tactics, demonstrating the potential for spiraling
political violence if the recount battle dragged on. The Republicans
were putting down a marker that they were prepared to do what was
necessary to win, regardless of what the voters had wanted.
After the Florida Supreme Court ordered a
statewide recount to determine who won the state and thus the
presidency, Bush sent his lawyers to the U.S. Supreme Court where
five Republican justices decided on Dec. 9, 2000, to stop the
counting of votes. Then, on Dec. 12, the same five Republicans
blocked a resumption. The disruptions in November had played out the
clock so a slim majority on the U.S. Supreme Court could effectively
award the White House to Bush.
Unlike the Chicago Seven case three decades
earlier, no one faced charges for disrupting the Miami recount.
In the Chicago Seven case, the jury acquitted all
defendants of conspiracy charges, though finding five defendants -
David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry
Rubin - individually guilty of inciting a riot, charges that later
were reversed on appeal. Separate government investigations also
faulted the Chicago police for using excessive violence to quell the
1968 protests.
Ironically, the kind of documentary evidence that
might have proved valuable in tying up the loose ends of the Chicago
Seven conspiracy is present in the new filings that the Bush recount
committee made to the IRS. The evidence is clear that the Bush
committee organized the movement of protesters across state lines,
paid for their lodging, moved them into a position for the riot, and
then defended their actions.
After the incident, Bush personally thanked some
of the participants at a celebration paid for by Bush's
organization. Since taking office, Bush has further rewarded some of
the participants with high-level government jobs.
But the biggest reason for the very different
government reactions to the Chicago Seven case and the Brooks
Brothers Riot is obvious: the ultimate beneficiary of the Miami riot
is now president of the United
States. |