Get Ready for a Black Congress

By Michael Moore, AlterNet. Posted October 16, 2000.

There is a quiet revolution about to happen on November 7. Few in the media or electorate have paid any attention to it. Because I would so like to see it happen, I am reluctant to speak of it for fear that it will freak out the wrong people and thus prevent it from occurring.

No, I'm not talking about my fantasy that 100 million nonvoters will turn out to vote for Ralph, or that great Cheney rumor floating around the web (the one where he drops out the week before the election and Bush appoints Colin Powell), or the other great rumor about George W. paying a visit to Reagan on his deathbed (Who starts this stuff? Keep it up!).

What I am referring to is the STRONG possibility that the U.S. House of Representatives is about to be taken over by... African Americans!

That's right. After 200+ years of white guys running Congress and occupying the White House, get ready for "The Black House!"

In a scenario that might make D.W. Griffith return from the grave and demand the sequel rights to "Birth of a Nation," the black members of Congress are about to fall into a palace coup and make every redneck and racist run for cover.

The Democrats are only 6 seats shy of winning back control of the House. All indications are such, thanks to so many Republican incumbents choosing not to run for reelection this year (and the back-to-back suicide moves by the Republicans to shut down the federal government and then overthrow a popularly-elected President), the Democrats may just pull it off.

The ace card, which Democratic members are privately cheering on, is Ralph Nader. I have spoken to aides of a half dozen members of Congress and they are all convinced that Nader's presence on the ballot is going to bring out millions of voters who had planned on not voting. If that happens, once in the voting booth, who do you think those disgruntled, pro-Nader voters are going to plunk down for when they gaze down at the section for "Member of Congress" on the ballot? The Republican? I don't think so. Because the Greens have so few candidates running for Congress, those Nader voters are going to vote for the Democrat for Congress.

The 1994 election that gave the House to Newt and the Republicans was decided in 19 districts where the Republican won by a thousand or so votes. A few Nader voters could make all the difference.

So how does that put African Americans in control of the House?

Thanks to the seniority they have accumulated, no fewer than TWENTY-TWO members of the Congressional Black Caucus stand to take over the chairmanships of 22 House committees and subcommittees!

That's right. If the Democrats get the House back, Rep. John Conyers of Detroit will become the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York will be the chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. And Rep. Julian Dixon of California will head up the House Intelligence Committee.

Three of the most important committees in Congress will be led by African Americans for the first time in our history.

But wait. It gets better.

Nineteen -- yes, 19 -- subcommittees in the House of Representatives will have as their chairmen/chairwomen 19 other members of the Congressional Black Caucus!

How cool is that? I never thought I would live to see such a thing. In a week where I have just read that the black household median income is $27,000 compared to $44,000 for whites, where I read that ONE-THIRD of African American men between the ages of 18 and 35 are prohibited from voting in this election because of our bigoted judicial system, for me to then hear that nearly two dozen African Americans might be calling the shots next year in Congress was the kind of good news that rarely comes my way.

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