Consciousness of Guilt
(R) Rep Bilbray sworn in early to thwart law.

August 26, 2006 by mugsy.

First, the background…

You’ve probably heard the story of former Republican Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, now serving an 8+ year prison sentence for bribery. So bold-faced crooked was Cunningham, he lived on a boat named the “Duke-Stir” owned by a defence contractor, and even wrote a “bribe menu” on government stationary of what he charged for certain votes. The poster-boy for the Republican “Culture of Corruption”. An emergency election for his replacement was held in San Diego on June 6th between Democrat Francine Busby and Republican Brian Bilbray.

Twelve days before the election, in a move CA50 (California District 50) election officials said was to ENSURE the security of the election, sent every single Diebold touchscreen voting machine home with a different election official, breaking the “chain of custody” rules (if you aren’t already familiar with Diebold voting machines and their insecurity & hackability, visit here, here, here and here).

Surprise, surprise, Republican Brian Bilbray won, despite trailing in the polls on election day. When news of the voting machines being sent home with election workers for overnight stays… many laying unattended in garages and in cars for nearly two weeks before the election… reached the Busby campaign, they immediately cried foul and filed for a criminal investigation in local district court.

Sensing danger, a mere seven days after the election, Washington flew Bilbray to D.C. where he was quickly sworn in by House Speaker Denny Hastert (R), the effect being that Bilbray was no longer under the jurisdiction of the local CA50 courts, approximately two weeks before the election results in California were finalized.

Here is the public statement from Busby’s attorney:

As lead counsel in the election contest in California’s 50th Congressional District, I wish to bring to your immediate attention, the intent of Congress to terminate elections before the votes are counted and long before certification. It is now proven that the Congress intended this precise result when they swore in Brian Bilbray only 7 days after the June 6 special election, and then subsequently argued that this action deprived everyone but the House of Representatives of all jurisdiction, right or power to do anything about it, nor even to have a recount or investigation of the vote!

(…)

“The defendants’ position is that the court is powerless (i.e. without jurisdiction) to do anything about this election contest, because Bilbray was sworn in only 7 days after the June 6, and long before the election was legally final on or about June 29.

More from “BradBlog“, which has been following this story closely:

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The CA50 special election was held on June 6, on illegal voting machines as has been described here many times. (link omitted). On June 13, Brian Bilbray was sworn in to House of Representatives. On June 30, the election certified by Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas. And on August 22, defendants filed a brief and moved to dismiss, stating that because Bilbray has already been sworn in, the Court has no jurisdiction whatsoever and the House has exclusive jurisdiction to judge who its members are and the qualifications of those members.

Ya know folks, I don’t know about you, but the very fact that the Republicans rushed to swear in Bilbray in order to side-step the law, shows a consciousness that something was wrong and they needed to move quickly before the courts could take their seat away.

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