Linked with The World Can’t Wait, Won’t Wait, Isn’t Waiting.
She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.
She says: « We are way more powerful when we turn to each other and not on each other, when we celebrate our diversity, focus on our commonality, and together tear down the mighty walls of injustice ».
Cynthia McKinney is an outspoken leader for peace, human rights, and justice. As a result of questioning her congressional colleagues about the lack of full investigation after September 11 attacks, a retaliatory campaign successfully unseated her for one term, but in 2004 she was easily reelected. In her first term, she got legislation passed to extend health benefits for Vietnam War veteran victims of Agent Orange and sponsored legislation to end the use of depleted-uranium weapons. As a ranking member of the Human Rights Subcommittee, she prompted the UN to investigate the Rwanda genocide. (Read all on 1000peacewomen 2005).
Cynthia McKinney – USA
She worked for the US Congress, the US House of Repr., House Armed Services Committee.
Honors and recognition: McKinney has been featured in a full-length motion picture titled American Blackout. On April 14, 2006, she received the key to the city of Sarasota, Florida and was doubly honored when the city named April 8 as « Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney Day » in Sarasota. On June 14, 2000, Rep. McKinney was honored when part of Memorial Drive, a major thoroughfare running through her district, was renamed « Cynthia McKinney Parkway. » Memorial Drive leads from south Atlanta to Stone Mountain. Her father had previously been honored when a portion of Interstate 285 in Atlanta was dedicated as « Billy McKinney Parkway. »
2002 Primary defeat: In 2002, McKinney was defeated in the Democratic primary by DeKalb County judge Denise Majette. It was stunning by itself that Majette, who had never run in a partisan contest before, was able to unseat the seemingly entrenched McKinney. However, Majette won by an overwhelming margin, garnering 58% of the vote to McKinney’s 42%. McKinney protested the result in court, claiming that thousands of Republicans, knowing they had no realistic chance of defeating her in November, had participated in the Democratic primary to vote against McKinney in revenge for her anti-Bush administration views and allegations of possible voter fraud in Florida in the 2000 Presidential Election. Like twenty other states, Georgia operates an open primary; voters do not claim a political party when they register to vote, and may participate in whichever party’s primary election they choose. Thus, relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in California Democratic Party v. Jones, which had held that California’s blanket primary violated the First Amendment (despite the fact that the Court explicitly differentiated – albeit in dicta – the blanket primary from the open primary in Jones), on McKinney’s behalf, five voters claimed that the open primary system was unconstitutional, operating in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the associational right protected by the First Amendment, and various statutory rights protected by §2 of the Voting Rights Act. The district court dismissed the case, noting that the plaintiffs had presented no evidence in support of the Equal Protection and VRA claims, and lacked standing to bring the First Amendment claim. It interpreted the Supreme Court’s Jones ruling to hold that the right to association involved in a dispute over a primary – and thus, standing to sue – belongs to a political party, not an individual voter. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this result (Osburn v. Cox, 369 F.3d 1283 (2004)) in May 2004, noting that not only were the plaintiffs’ claims meritless, but the remedy they requested would likely be unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s decision in Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut. On October 18, 2004, the Supreme Court brought an end to the litigation, denying certiorari without comment (Osburn v. Georgia, 04-217) (cert denied, 541 U.S. __) …
… 2004 return to Congress: Majette declined to run for reelection to the House, opting instead to become a candidate to replace retiring Senator Zell Miller, a conservative Democrat. McKinney instantly became the favorite in the Democratic primary. Since it was taken for granted that whoever won the Democratic primary would be the district’s next congressman, McKinney’s opponents focused on clearing the field for a single candidate who could force her into a runoff election. They apparently hoped in the interim to drive up McKinney’s negatives enough to make it easier to defeat her in the runoff. However, her opponents’ efforts were unsuccessful, and five candidates entered the Democratic primary. As a result of the fragmented primary opposition, McKinney won just enough votes to avoid a runoff. This all but assured her return to Congress after a two-year absence. However, in a break from traditional practice, the House Democratic Caucus did not restore her seniority. If her seniority had been restored, McKinney would have been a senior Democrat as ranking member of the International Relations Committee—a post currently held by California Congressman Tom Lantos, who also chairs the Human Rights Caucus. Lantos is considered to be strongly pro-Israel. McKinney hosted the first delegation of Afro-Latinos from Central and South America and worked with the World Bank and the U.S. State Department to recognize Afro-Latinos. She stood with Aboriginals against Australian mining companies; and with the U’wa people of Colombia in their fight to save their sacred land from oil rigs …
… Anti-war, human rights, and impeachment efforts: Until 2000, McKinney served on the House International Relations Committee, where she was the highest-ranking Democrat on the Human Rights Subcommittee. McKinney felt that it was important that US policy reflect a deep respect for human rights, so she worked on legislation to stop conventional weapons transfers to governments which are undemocratic or fail to respect human rights. Her legislation to end the mining of coltan in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo was mentioned in the United Nations Security Council’s « Special Report on Ituri, » January 2002-December 2003. On November 18, 2005, McKinney was one of only 3 (out of 406) to vote for H.R. 571, introduced by House Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, on which McKinney sat. Hunter, a Republican, offered this resolution calling for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces in Iraq in place of John Murtha’s H.J.Res. 73, which called for redeployment « at the earliest possible date. » In her prepared statement, McKinney accused the Republicans of « trying to set a trap for the Democrats. A ‘no’ vote for this Resolution will obscure the fact that there is strong support for withdrawal of US forces from Iraq …
… In voting for this bill, let me be perfectly clear that I am not saying the United States should exit Iraq without a plan. I agree with Mr. Murtha that security and stability in Iraq should be pursued through diplomacy. I simply want to vote yes to an orderly withdrawal from Iraq. » Rep. McKinney is a co-sponsor of Rep. John Conyers’s H.R. 635, which would create a Select Committee to look into potential grounds for the impeachment of President Bush. On January 20, 2006, she also signed a statement by the group The World Can’t Wait called Drive Out the Bush Regime. On December 9 McKinney submitted legislation before Congress for the impeachment of President Bush [6] and entered into the Congressional Record (pages E2253 – 2255) extended remarks on why she felt impeachment should take place …
… Georgia 4th congressional district election, 2006: the August 2006 primary runoff were won by Hank Johnson against Cynthia McKinney.
(very long full text, also with links to difficult juridic expressions).
Read: The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney, By Greg Palast, AlterNet, June 18, 2003.
Read: Help Cynthia Retire the Debt Accrued Campaigning for all of us.
Read: American Thinker.
Read: Half of the States Have Produced All Black Members of Congress.
Read: Gwinnett Daily Post.
Read: Now What?
links:
the US House of Repr., House Armed Services Committee on wikipedia,
informations about;
House Armed Services Committee, this week schedule of 28.2.07;
US Senate, Armed Services;
United States House of Repr., Committee on the Budget;
Committee on the Budget on wikipedia;
Budget.senate.gov: democratic website, republican website.