Last week, Reps. John Conyers (D-MI) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), both of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to the former Ohio Secretary of State and Co-Chair of the state’s Bush/Cheney ’04 campaign committee, J. Kenneth Blackwell, inviting him to appear next week at a subcommittee oversight hearing on voter suppression issues.
To the surprise of almost nobody, Blackwell has refused the invitation to testify, claiming his “schedule [would] not permit” him to attend the hearings.
The snub, according to both the following report from Jon Craig at the Cincinnati Enquirer and additional indications given to The BRAD BLOG by a Judiciary staffer other than the one quoted by Craig, may lead to an escalation of the longtime standoff between Conyers and Blackwell. A congressional subpoena requiring an appearance by the controversial former SoS, who presided over one of the worst-run Presidential Elections in American history, may well be in the offing.
As Craig reports today at the Enquirer’s political blog…
Jonathan Godfrey, a Conyers spokesman, said Blackwell has not responded and could be subpoenaed if he doesn’t appear voluntarily.
“I don’t think it’s unlikely,” Godfrey said today of a subpoena.
Though our own Judiciary source spoke to the same point, if not quite as directly, the comments above from Godfrey offer an additional indication that we may be headed to a showdown.
Such a subpoena would require a majority vote of the committee, which likely wouldn’t come in time for the hearings currently scheduled for next Friday, according to Craig’s report.
I don’t think he likes to sweat and he is too accustomed to telling folks how to do his electioneering to “his” specificiations which he “receives from somewhere”.
He is an election priest from the dark side of the force. But he is not good at hiding it. They have enough power not to care about that at the moment in Amurka.
But is that America I see emerging from twelve years of fog?
That guy broke every rule in the book to give Ohio to gb – he should be in jail already!!!
Are you kidding me?! Man I can barely believe that Blackwell is still causing problems.
God damn it, subpoena the bastard already. Screw the MAYBE attitude.
SUBPOENA FIRST
this is insane. What are we gonna wait another fucking 20 years before we subpoena this fucker?
Did Conyers really think Blackwell would voluntarily testify? What bad drugs is he on?
Bush and Cheney were in Columbus on Election Day meeting with Blackwell. SmartTech servers Blackwell used for Ohio returns were the same servers hosting the RNC. This on it’s face is a conflict of interest and should be an issue demanding immediate full scale investigation.
If the RNC is at all complicit then Bush/Cheney as the leaders of RNC are guilty under RICO.
There was a mysterious freeze of results on election night, and then when the web site unfreezed, Bush was the leader. Come on John Conyers, quit playing nice with these assholes who hold themselves above the rule of law on a daily basis. Did they treat you nice? No they would just as soon see you lynched in the town square. When the dems wake up to the fact of how vicious, vindictive, rascist and corrupt the GOP is and start treating them like the blatant lying murderous criminals they are we may get somewhere. The GOP deserves no respect and their credibility is ZERO!!!!!
Get tough John NOW!!!!
Perhaps it is because his lawyer is in Mukasey’s pocket?
The judiciary committe members Shumer and Feinstein still don’t have a clue that they are political retards for advocating for Mukasey:
(Raw Story, emphasis added). Perhaps the lawfirm name is going to be changed to Blackwell, Giuliani, Mukasey, Shumer, and Feinstein?
I also could not believe that Blackwell is still at large.
Very disappointed to read that Conyers had taken CONSTITUTIONAL CRISES off of his website.
We are to blame for not supporting Conyers more by holding AfterDowningStreet parties and trying harder to inform our neighbors, even if it takes printing articles on the truth about bushco and sending them to local churches.
Kucinich has introduced articles of impeachment against bush and he also deserves continued support. We aren’t just critics at a play people.
Dennis4President
I’m from Ohio and suffered through the Ken Blackwell Secretary of State days. Conyers nailed it in his book. Blackwell did everything he could to skew the Ohio vote to the GOP. He then attempted to run for Governor with the backing of the ‘Patriot Pastors’ who used every trick in the books to violate their ‘non-political’ tax-exempt status in pushing the Blackwell candidacy. Not even Ohioans (who are the easiest to fool population in the country) fell for that one and Ken was soundly trounced by Ted Strickland who has extremely high approval ratings after his predecessor, Bob Taft fell to 8%. Keep after Blackwell. I know the guy and ‘slick’ doesn’t even begin to tell the story.
I cherish my copy of Free Press with the Blackwell-in-prison photo. I guess he’s just too busy running around, making half-assed statements on behalf of such organizations as the Club for Growth and the Family Research Council to comply. By the way, Vman, has that legendary “meeting” with Blackwell and Cheney on election day (other stories have said it was Rove who allegedly “flewi into Colubmus,” which strikes me as risky and a waste of energy given modern communications that can supposedly steal an election from afar). I also don’t recall anything about a “freeze,” after which Bush was leading. (There was a whole lot more going on in Ohio that night in 2004 than just that simple scenario). I think you may getting confused with the Clermont County freeze in August of 2005 where Paul Hackett was leading in the Oh-02 congressional race and then all of a sudden, when the Clermont County machines were functioning again (they said the stall was caused by “humidity”), Jean Schmidt pulled it out.