Reply #24: Like-father-like-son minority vote suppression? Kean Sr's sordid past at

[ProgressiveEconomist]

electiontime ought to be played up from now to Election Day 2006, now that Hamilton has gotten the ball rolling on tarnishing Kean Sr's squeaky-clean nonpartisan image. Kean Sr's tactics in 1981 still are the very definition of minority vote suppression, embodied in a 1983 consent decree wherein Republicans pledged not to do it anymore, anywhere in the country. Kean Jr is running against a Hispanic-surname Democrat. Is Dad counseling him to court the caucasian vote in NJ and try to keep the Hispanic vote down? If so, Dad's recent unscrupulous behavior on the 9-11 Commission provides a unique opportunity to associate the father's unsavory politics with the son's.

Kean Sr's willingness to put scruples aside at election time is legendary but largely forgotten. I was shocked when I first heard that Kean Sr. had been elevated to head a supposedly nonpartisan panel of such importance. Whenever Republicans engage in minority vote suppression, they're violating a consent decree settling a civil rights lawsuit against Kean's 1981 STORMTROOPER election tactics in New Jersey. Tom Kean evidently will do ANYTHING to win an election.

Before his PT911 lapses, Kean had managed to cultivate a popular, squeaky-clean image, with his sordid past far behind him. But this weekend's events, two months before a crucial election, harken back to an election 25 years ago: See also the GD thread at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2115808 .

From http://www.democrats.com/node/59 :

"Voting suit revisits intimidation claims--Letters targeting Ohio minorities said to violate settlement after Kean-Florio race in'81;

Monday, November 01, 2004 BY ROBERT SCHWANEBERG, (Newark) Star-Ledger Staff

Armed guards wearing armbands patrolled polling places. Signs warned of criminal penalties for voting illegally. Hundreds of thousands of letters returned as undeliverable were used to compile a list of voters to be challenged at the polls....

It was 1981, during one of the closest elections in New Jersey history -- one that wasn't decided until a recount that dragged on nearly a month found Republican Tom Kean had defeated Democrat Jim Florio for governor by less than 2,000 votes.

State and county prosecutors launched probes into voter intimidation. Furious Democrats filed a $10 million federal lawsuit accusing the Republican state and national committees of depriving minorities of their constitutional right to vote. But the criminal probes went nowhere and the lawsuit was settled a year later for $1. The Republicans admitted no wrongdoing, but signed a promise never to target minority voters for special treatment -- anywhere in the nation...."