A perfect storm of opportunism and racism

Crass political opportunism resulted in outright racism June 16 when Democratic Party leaders violated their own rules and precedent to oust Rep. William Jefferson from a key position on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

Jefferson, whose Capitol Hill office had been raided on May 20 in an unprecedented, unconstitutional police-state act by the FBI, has been accused of bribery by that racist, repressive agency but not charged.

Democratic Party rules and precedent require that no representative be forcibly removed from a special committee before being indicted. Jefferson, the first African American from Louisiana to be elected to the House since Black Reconstruction, is also the first Democratic Party representative to be involuntarily removed from a committee position by the party. A vote by the 50-member Democratic Party Steer ing Committee set the stage for a full caucus vote of 99-58 to remove Jefferson, leading to the full House vote that formally removed him.

The FBI claims to have videotapes, marked bills and confessions from Jeffer son’s associates regarding the bribery charges, which have to do with a small technology firm getting business in West Africa. The FBI is notorious for stings and frame-ups of Black political figures. Jefferson has not been charged with any crime yet and therefore has not had a chance to defend himself.

Whatever the charges against Jeffer son, even if all true—and there is no reason to take the FBI’s word for anything—the consequences of his alleged act are insignificant in comparison to the damaging racism displayed by the Democratic Party leadership, its humiliation of the Con gressional Black Caucus—which called Jefferson’s removal a discriminatory act—and its willingness to jump on the FBI bandwagon by echoing the unproven charges made in an affidavit and calculatingly leaked to the press

Furthermore, sending the FBI to raid Jefferson’s congressional office, allegedly to stop corruption, ignores the pervasive corruption in Washington. Mainly white, male lobbyists are busy bribing politicians with political action funds, campaign donations, trips, dinners and promises of future jobs. The politicians then write legislation to benefit every monopolized, multi-billion-dollar industry in the U.S., from weapons to pharmaceuticals, oil, agribusiness and so on.

The drive to oust Jefferson was led by Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader. The presumption of innocence was thrown overboard along with the party rules in order to pursue Pelosi’s politically bankrupt electoral strategy of campaigning against the Republican “culture of corruption.”

As part of the imperialist establishment, the Democratic leaders will never campaign against the police-state tactics of George W. Bush, the brutal colonial war of aggression, the racist treatment of Katrina survivors in New Orleans, the racist campaign against undocumented workers, and the imprisonment of a generation of African American and Latin@ youth.

Pelosi wants to run on the non-political platform of being against corruption—a slogan used ad nauseam by political demagogues to evade attacking the real evils of capitalism—and threw Jefferson overboard in an unprincipled attempt to gain political advantage and big contributors in the 2006 elections.

Pelosi showed her racism and opportunism when confronted by Tim Russert on the May 7 airing of Meet the Press.

Russert pointed out that “The top Democrat on the ethics committee of the House of Representatives, Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, was reported, first by The Wall Street Journal, to have quietly directed at least $178 million in taxpayer funds to a network of home-district friends, business partners, contributors, former employees. Along the way, he curiously became a multimillionaire in real estate, and federal investigators are looking at whether he failed to properly disclose scores of newly acquired assets.

“You have Congressman Jefferson of Loui siana, someone pleaded guilty and said he had paid him bribes. … [T]he Democrats have ethical challenges, too, correct?”

Pelosi replied, “I’ve asked for the Ethics Committee to investigate Mr. Jefferson.”

But she never responded to Russert’s charges against Mollohan, who is accused of enriching himself to the tune of millions. That is because Pelosi and the Democrats had negotiated a deal to get Mollohan to step down voluntarily from the Ethics Committee while keeping his seat on the powerful House Appropri ations Committee.

Jefferson is not accused of using his position on the House Ways and Means Committee to violate the law. But Mollo han is directly accused of using his position on the Appropriations Committee for massive personal enrichment.

Pelosi publicly tried to force Jefferson to resign. When he refused, she and her cohorts forced him out. But Jefferson himself offered to step down on two basic conditions: First, that a uniform standard be applied, which would mean that Mollohan would also have to step down from an important committee post. And second, that a Louisiana representative be appointed to the committee in Jefferson’s place in order to protect the interests of New Orleans, which is struggling for federal funds and assistance.

Pelosi callously turned down both requests. She chose to protect a white member of Congress and persecute an African American. And she chose to disregard the interests of the Katrina survivors, who are overwhelmingly Black. Oppor tun ism and racism converge under the leadership of imperialist liberals such as Pelosi and the Democratic Steering Committee.

Even if the Democratic leaders feared Jefferson could be proved guilty, they could have easily exposed the racist selectivity of the FBI campaign against him. For example, they could have demanded that, in the name of equal justice under the law, nothing be done to Jefferson until Dick Cheney and his gang at Halliburton were put behind bars for conspiring with the oil industry, the arms industry and the construction industry to defraud the masses of the U.S. out of billions of dollars.

They could have demanded that the offices of military contractors and their contacts in Congress and in the Pentagon be raided by the FBI to seek evidence of promoting multi-billion-dollar contracts for weapons systems, and that the investigation of Jefferson be put on hold until the billionaire criminals are brought to justice.

But it is an unwritten rule that no one in the political establishment of the ruling class is allowed to attack the class itself, nor are they allowed to denounce ruling class racism. This is the code that applies to high-level white politicians. It is part and parcel of the system of racism and national oppression that has existed in this country since slavery began. Pelosi and company are upholding that tradition with a vengeance.