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Congressional Black Caucus's objections to electoral vote (last updated August 31, 2004)
Fahrenheit 9/11 shows an attempt by the Congressional Black Caucus to contest the 2000 election, an effort that did not get far because rules required a senator to join in the objection. No senator did join, but even if one had, the objection probably would not have prevented the election of George W. Bush over Al Gore.
Most likely, such an objection would have been overruled quickly and without much notice. If the objection was sustained, it would have invalidated all of Florida's electoral votes and thrown the election into the House of Representatives, where Bush probably still would have won.
Procedures
The Congressional ceremony shown in Fahrenheit 9/11 was the final stage of the United States' presidential election. People voted in November 2000 for a presidential candidate, but their votes actually elected a slate of electors who are in most states obligated to vote for that specific candidate. Those electors then officially voted for the next President of the United States, and whichever candidate received a majority of the electoral votes officially wins when they are counted.
Electoral votes are counted on the first day of the new Congressional session following the presidential election. In alphabetical order, each state calls out how its electoral votes are cast. Before such votes are officially counted, objections can be made. As shown in the movie, federal law (3 USC 15) requires that "[e]very objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received."
As shown in Fahrenheit 9/11, 13 members of the House of Representatives objected to the receiving of Florida's electoral votes, nearly all of them members of the Congressional Black Caucus. No senator joined in such objections. Notably, there was at this time no African-American member of the Senate. As of 2001, there had been only four African-American senators ever, and the most recent member had been Senator Carole Moseley-Braun of Illinois, who served from 1993 to 1999.
What if?
If an objection to Florida's electoral votes had been formally made, the House and Senate would have separated to consider the objection. Each house would have voted on the merit of the objection. Given the apparent lack of support for the CBC's objection, both houses probably would have overruled the objection. The houses would have reconvened and counted Florida's electoral votes.
Even if the House and Senate had accepted the objection, the objection would have simply thrown the election out of the hands of the electoral college and into the Republican-controlled House. If the objection had been accepted, none of Florida's electoral votes would have been counted at all, which would have meant that neither Gore nor Bush would have had the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election.
In such circumstances, the U.S. House of Representatives selects the president with each State casting one single vote and an absolute majority of states being required to elect. Two elections have been decided this way: the 1800 election that inspired the Twelfth Amendment and the 1824 election in which four candidates split the popular and electoral votes so evenly that none received a majority.
Bush easily would have won such an election in the House of Representatives given the Republicans' lead in the House. Even if all states were decided on party lines (an unlikely assumption given the public mood) and even if Bush lost all states which were evenly split between the parties, Bush still would have won 27 states, would have had an absolute majority, and would have been elected president.
Accordingly, whether or not the message was worth sending, the Congressional Black Caucus's objections were ultimately futile on a substantive level.
*
Who were the 13 representatives who objected? They were:
- Rep. Corrine Brown, Florida
- Rep. Eva Clayton, North Carolina
- Rep. Elijah Cummings, Maryland
- Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, Texas
- Rep. Bob Filner, California
- Rep. Alcee Hastings, Florida
- Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., Illinois
- Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
- Rep. Barbara Lee, California
- Rep. Cynthia McKinney, Georgia
- Rep. Kendrick Meek, Florida
- Rep. Patsy Mink, Hawaii
- Rep. Maxine Waters, California
As noted above, two of the objectors (Filner and Mink) were not African-American.
Sources: The relevant federal law, 3 USC 15, can be found on-line here. The National Archives & Records Administration has information about the electoral college system on-line here and the Federal Election Commission has similar information on-line here. A transcript of the electoral-vote counting and the objections by 13 members of the House of Representatives can be found in the Congressional Record (January 6, 2001), available on-line here. The Clerk of the House of Representatives has information about the 107th Congress (2001-03) and other Congresses here. The Senate has information on minorities in the Senate on-line here.
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