Date: 1985-04-30
Speaker: VANDER JAGT (republican)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. I believe that there are Members of the majority who are genuinely puzzled about the deep disillusionment and the intensity of the outrage of the minority. because I do believe that there are Members of the majority who honestly believe that on election night Frank McCloskey was ahead by 72 votes and then on the basis of a partial recount a partisan secretary of state of Indiana quickly certified McIntyre the winner and that. therefore. on January 3. that they voted to wait until there was a completed recount to make a determination. Unfortunately. those are not the facts. One of the most disillusioning. frustrating. and tragic things about this whole sorry spcciacle is that the facts are so clear. so convincing. and so undisputed by anybody who will focus on them for longer than 10 minutes. On election night. Rick McIntyre. not Frank McCloskey. was ahead by 260 votes. That lead did not mean a cottonpicking thing because under Indiana law the secretary of state is required to wait at least 10 days before he certifies a winner so as to give the counties an opportunity to make any corrections of mistakes that might have been made. And the next day it was discovered that two counties had indeed made significant mistakes. When the one county. Vanderburgh County. made its correction. McCloskey then went ahead by 72 votes. When the second county. Gibson County. that had counted two precincts two times made its correction. then on the basis of completed and corrected and final and certified electionnight vote totals. Rick McIntyre was a winner by 39 votes. And at that point the secretary of state did the only thing he could do under Indiana law. and that was certify McIntyre a winner. Even the most partisan among us would have certified McIntyre a winner at that point because to have done anything other than that would have nade that indi..-%.Jal guilty of a felony. So Rick McIntyre arrIved here with a csrtificate that had no cloud o er it in its issuance and there was no allegation of illegality or fraud. And under those circumstances. in 81 out of 81 cases fcr two centuries this Kouse has honored that valid certificate pending the outcome of a recount or someother dispute. Now. when the recount was completed. the majority has made much today that it was tainted recount. Eat that is beside the point. Rick McIntyre was entitlcd to be seated not on the basis of a recount but on the basis of the original certification where the n~ajority leader has said there is a prima facie case of validity and a presumption that it is indeed valid and duly cetified. and nothing had overcome that presumption when that recount. tainfcd or not tainted. was completed. So the task force begins its work. and if you use a strict construction of Ind~ana law or a liberal construction of Indiana law. McIntyre wins. So the task force set asideand they have told us they did so. in the debate todayIndiana law and constructed its own set of rules. a third set of rules. by wiich the votes were then counted. In the nexttothelast meeting in Evanston on April 10. the task force voted to count 10 unnotarized absentee tallots that had been held at the precinct level. At that point. the task force made a fateful decision: It decided to send out investigative and affadavit teams to the county clerks to see if there were similar ballots that had been afforded similar security. Arid at that point. when the task force made that fateful decision. a McCloskey supporter sptid. "I wanted to cry. because I knew there were similar ballots and I knew when they were counted. that was the ball game." Little did that supporter dream that the task force would then. inconsistent with its own rules. suddenly resurrect the Indiana law that had been ignored up until then. and stop counting 32 votes away from the finish line with their man 4 votes ahead. Mr. Shumway. the director of elections. in testimony before the task force here said. because of the same circumstances. "I guess I would have counted those ballots." Even the chairman of the task force has said. "It was an extremely close call." An extremely close call. with a 4vote victory out of 233.000 votes with 32 yet to be counted. is not establishing by the preponderance of the evidence that that official certificate. which has never been impeached. should be set aside. The Speaker has said he did not want Rick McIntyre seated on January 3. in spite of the certificate. because he believed that rubbing shoulders with us would establish a comradery over a 6month time that would give us a predisposition in favor of Rick McIntyre. He may be right. but I hope that there is a deeper predisposition in the hearts of every Member of this body. A predisposition to uphold the Constitution which gives primacy to State law in determining State election. A predisposition in favor of two centuries of precedents which says that a valid certificate must be overcc.-ei by the preponderance of the evidence and a predisposition on behalf of the people of the Eighth District of Indiana. who by more than 2 to 1 say there ought to be a special election. That is why the minority and the Ameica.n people are outraged that the majority would superimpose its will on the people of the Eighth District who are naive enough to believe that in America they ought to determine who represents them.