|
|
"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
|
Senate Election Inquiry Clears Democrat From Louisiana
|
|---|
| Parent(s) |
Race
|
| Contributor | Brandonius Maximus |
| Last Edited | Brandonius Maximus Dec 04, 2008 04:52pm |
| Logged |
0
|
| Category | Investigation |
| News Date | Thursday, October 2, 1997 10:50:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | A Senate committee voted unanimously today to drop its inquiry into the election of Senator Mary L. Landrieu after months of partisan wrangling, the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars and a foray into the roguish world of Louisiana politics.
By a vote of 16 to 0, the Rules Committee agreed with the recommendation of its chairman, Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, to dismiss the investigation triggered by Woody Jenkins, Ms. Landrieu's Republican opponent. Mr. Jenkins claimed that voter fraud and corruption had cost him the race, which he lost by 5,788 votes out of the 1.7 million cast.
In its report to the full Senate, which is expected to ratify the recommendation, the committee stated that investigators uncovered a host of election irregularities and ''isolated incidences of fraud,'' but no evidence compelling enough to overturn the election.
''In the few exceptions of fraud that we have uncovered,'' Mr. Warner said, ''there is no evidence of an organized, widespread effort to secure fraudulent votes on behalf of any individual, and certainly no evidence of any effort to secure votes specifically on behalf of Senator Landrieu.''
Beaming after the announcement, Senator Landrieu, a Democrat who has been dogged by Mr. Jenkins's charges since her election, called it a great victory and the ''best vote to come out of the Rules Committee in 10 months.''
''It has been an unwelcomed baptism by fire for me in the Senate,'' she said, grinning widely. ''And the voters everywhere should view this as a lesson how not to conduct these challenges in the future.
''No Senator in my opinion, no Republican, no Democrat, should ever have to go through this type of unwarranted and prolonged and costly investigation with no rules and no guidelines, with the whole exercise resting precariously on the vagueness of the traditions of the Senate.''
She vowed to work with Senator Wendell H. Ford, the senior Democrat on the Rules Committee |
| Share |
|
|
2¢
|
|
| Article | Read Full Article |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
|
