Black Health Statistics Made Bush Groan
Afro American Newspapers, News Report, James Wright, Posted: Feb 07, 2005
Voting rights and health disparities took center stage at a meeting between the Congressional Black Caucus and President George Bush at the White House Cabinet Room. Individual CBC members raised issues such as homeland security, education, employment and social security, but it was voting rights and health care concerns that drew the greatest reaction from the president.
According to AFRO sources, Bush seemed genuinely taken aback by data presented from the CBC Health Braintrust, chaired by Rep. Donna M. Christensen (D-VI), documenting the poor state of African Americans' health relative to their White counterparts. One congressman said President Bush "audibly groaned" as each statistic revealed the stark portrait of African American's health deficit.
The Jan. 26 meeting, only one week before the State of the Union address, had a distinct purpose, noted Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), chairman of the 35-year-old organization.
"We told the president that he will have three opportunities in the next few days and weeks [for him] to signal to us his willingness to work with us to achieve closing and eliminating disparities," Watt said. "First, the president can make a public statement regarding our meeting that he embraces our agenda. Second, in his State of the Union address he will have an opportunity to speak about the disparities that exist in our Union. Finally, when the president presents his fiscal year 2006 budget, we will know whether there is a real commitment to addressing our priorities based on whether he commits resources."
The controversy over voting rights took place near the end of the meeting. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) spoke to Bush about the District not having voting rights. According to Norton, 500,000 tax-paying District residents do not have a vote in the House or Senate. She noted that soldiers from Washington are dying in the Iraq war, but they and their families have no voting representative in Congress. Published reports said Bush brushed off Norton's comments, but Norton spokeswoman Doxie McCoy disputes this.
"The congresswoman was presenting her issue like other members of the caucus," McCoy said. "When she was finished, Bush just smiled and nodded, and moved on to the next member. Bush did not brush her off; he just did not respond to the issues presented by any of the members."
After Norton's presentation, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) said, according to his spokesman Frank Watkins, "I would like to follow up on Mrs. Norton's point."
But Bush interjected. "I do not favor statehood. I do not support that at all," he said. Jackson rebutted by saying he was not talking about D.C. statehood, but whether the president supported the renewal of the pre-clearance sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which are set to expire in 2007.
The act includes, but is not limited to, the need for states listed under pre-clearance to submit proposed changes to their voting procedures to the U.S. attorney general for review. The attorney general is to then render a decision as to whether those changes would lead to discrimination if implemented. Confusion in the public's mind between the act's provisions -- designed to protect one's Constitutional rights and the 15th Amendment -- which guarantees the right of Americans to vote regardless of "race, color or previous condition of servitude" -- has led to the urban legend that African Americans will lose their constitutionally-enshrined voting rights in 2007. Bush said that he did not know anything about the issue and "would study it."
Bush's opposition to D.C. statehood is nothing new. Norton informed the President that there were three bills pending in Congress to give city residents voting rights, all authored by three Republicans.
Jackson's concern about voting rights comes on the heels of ongoing questions about whether voting irregularities, similar to those that occurred in Florida and other states during the 2000 presidential election, took place in Ohio in 2004. Jackson said the renewal of the pre-clearance sections of the Voting Rights Act, which covers Bush's home state of Texas and many Southern states, is key for Blacks to fully participate in the political process.
Throughout the meeting, Bush did not say what he would do about the many issues raised; it was said that he only nodded and smile. At the meeting's conclusion, Bush said, "We should do this again."
Bush last met with the CBC in 2001 during the early days of his first term. At that time he promised then to meet with the members on a regular basis. Except for a meeting in 2003 with then-chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and a few members on the issue of Haiti, there had been no formal meeting.
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