12/06/00 4:55 p.m.
Republican Thuggery
Confessions of a right-wing thug.

By Brian McCarthy, a New York City-based attorney

fter staying up all night watching the careening election returns, I returned to my law practice on November 8 in New York City representing mainly union members in labor, employment, and civil-rights matters. As the post-election days mounted and the Democrats' ground troops set up camp in Florida, my sense of helplessness here in New York City grew. My calling came through an e-mail seeking attorneys to help the Republican effort in the Florida Re-Recount. I arrived in Miami on Sunday, November 19.

I was whisked straight to the Versailles restaurant in Little Havana, Miami by Grant Lally and Jeff Cleary, two of New York's most dedicated Republicans, to enjoy a few Mohitos — a Cuban cocktail of rum, mint leaves, and a stalk of sugar cane — and learn what I was about to face.

I spent Monday, November 20 observing the hand re-counting of the Miami-Dade County ballots on the 18th floor of the Stephen P. Clark Government Building. Most striking were the 25 "over votes" (two or more votes punched for president) I observed in the 600 or so hand-counted ballots in one precinct. Two of the 25 "over vote" ballots had six holes — yes, six — cleanly punched for presidential candidates! How can the intent of an anonymous, enigmatic voter ever be divined?

The next day I was a floor manager, while Grant Lally represented our party before the canvassing board. Things quickly heated up when Ivy Koreman, the unabashedly partisan Democrat floor leader for the canvassing board, began to tell counters to speed the process, that it was not necessary to show the observers the ballots and generally became abusive to Republican floor managers and observers.

Lally requested that the canvassing board remove Koreman, by then dubbed "Poison Ivy," from the counting process for her disruptive behavior. The tension escalated when the board's chairman, Democrat judge Lawrence King, threatened Lally with removal. In the end, neither Koreman nor Lally was removed, but the battle lines were drawn.

At 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 22 I was positioned just outside the barrier as a sideline manager, while the media watched and waited from a corner of the room for the counting to begin. The canvassing board members took their seats and announced that, given the Florida supreme court's order extending the deadline to complete the hand recount until only Sunday, just the 10,750 so-called "under votes" of the remaining 655,000 ballots would be hand counted.

Republican party attorneys reminded the board of its ruling one week earlier that a selective hand count of only the 10,000 "under votes" would improperly disenfranchise all other voters, but to no avail. Matters worsened when the board decided to perform this selective hand count on the 19th floor away from the press, public, and designated observers. Not only did this decision violate Florida's Sunshine laws (Fla. Statute 102.166 (6): "Any manual recount shall be open to the public."), it was a fundamentally unfair change in the process. Thirty or so of the observers took the elevator to the 19th floor, followed by several members of the media, to ask for an explanation for why we were being locked out of the ballot counting. Of our group, almost half were women, several were attorneys, one a vascular surgeon and some were congressional staff members. Single shouts turned into unified chants: "Let us see the ballots!" "Let the media in!" "Let us in!" "Stop the fraud!" "No justice, no peace!" (Where's Al Sharpton when you need him?) Some sat on the floor, others stood as we all protested, oblivious to the rolling cameras. Municipal employees watched us through the glass partition, many smiling, as we demanded to see the ballots.

Our group and the media crowded into the T-shaped lobby of the 19th floor with little space to move about. Yet, as Democrat attorneys and election officials walked in and out of the two doors at opposite ends, they were allowed unimpeded access to the elevators. There was no rioting, punching, kicking, or thuggery, as alleged by the New York Times, Joseph Lieberman, David Bonior, and Paul Begala. According to Jerold Nadler's keen olfactory senses, a "whiff of fascism" was in the air. Al Gore has since called it "organized intimidation." Speaking of fascism, six Democrat House Representatives have written a letter to Janet Reno's Justice Department requesting an investigation into our expression of free speech under the Racketeering, Influence and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO).

There were no complaints to the police, arrests made, or injuries reported. Vocal? Yes. Violent? No. For about 45 minutes we yelled, laughed, clapped and reveled in our defense of due process and liberty. With hoarse voices, we met outside the building to continue our protest and were joined by many local Bush-Cheney supporters with homemade signs in hand. Then came the news that the board had reversed itself and decided to discontinue the hand counts in Miami-Dade. Our protest turned into a celebration of justice prevailing in one of the battles in this weeks-long political war started by Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman.

This is the new Republican party.