"Dump Dornan, Seat Sanchez"/WW Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the November 20, 1997 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- LATINOS, WOMEN TELL GINGRICH: "DUMP DORNAN, SEAT SANCHEZ" By Vanessa Lewis Imagine this. An election for Congress takes place. The incumbent is voted out. But instead of yielding his seat, he insists on returning to the House of Representatives, where he is allowed to take the floor and attack the person elected to replace him. Impossible? No, it's been happening for months. House Majority leader Newt Gingrich has allowed right-wing Republican Robert Dornan, a former representative from southern California, to not only be present on the floor of the House, but to repeatedly get the microphone and attack the woman who defeated him, Rep. Loretta Sanchez. That's why on Nov. 9 eight women elected officials stormed Gingrich's office in Washington. They demanded that Sanchez be allowed to take her seat and that an investigation of the 1996 election requested by Dornan be ended. They said that after 11 months and $500,000 spent on the investigation, it has turned up no significant illegalities that would affect the outcome of the vote. The 1996 congressional election shook up Garden Grove in conservative Orange County, Calif. Dornan lost his seat to Sanchez--a woman, a Latina and a Democrat. The race was close, but Sanchez was the clear and official winner with a margin of 984 votes. Dornan, however, wanted the election invalidated, claiming Sanchez had won due to widespread voting by "illegal aliens." He then called for an investigation by the House and Senate. The corporate media define Dornan's attack on Sanchez as a partisan battle. But it would be more appropriate to classify these attacks by race and gender lines. Latinos came out to vote for Sanchez in record numbers. As a matter of fact, Latino voters came out to the polls in record numbers all over the country in 1996. Reactionary incumbents were ousted in Florida, Texas, Connecticut, Nevada and New York--all areas with large Latino voter turnouts. The continuing anti-immigrant campaign has played a big role in this development. As immigrant rights are stripped away, many look to citizenship and voting to protest the attacks on them. It's not just Republican reactionaries who try to keep people of color from voicing their opinion. It is the entire ruling class and its political establishment. ELECTIONS STACKED AGAINST OPPRESSED In this year's New York mayoral campaign, Black, Latino and immigrant workers took their struggle against police brutality to the polls after the brutal beating of Haitian worker Abner Louima. Civil rights leader Al Sharpton almost made it to a run-off with Ruth Messinger in the Democratic primary, but then the election board claimed to have found more votes for Messinger and canceled the run-off. As people of color take to the polls, they are continually being disappointed. No matter how many come out to vote, the rules are subject to change at any time. The struggle to seat Rep. Loretta Sanchez may seem to involve a simple electoral question, but in essence it is a struggle against racism and sexism. That eight women elected officials nearly blockaded the Speaker of the House in his office shows how tense the situation has become. For the struggle to win real equality for women and people of color, however, it must go beyond the voting booth and the reach of elected officials under capitalism. Those hundreds of thousands of people who made it to the polls must take it to the streets. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to: info@workers.org. Web: http://workers.org) ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-11.15.97-03:33:53-31200