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Committee to Elect
Vivian Houghton Attorney General
MEDIA ADVISORY
For immediate release:
Thursday, September 19, 2002
Houghton Chides Brady/Schnee at
Wilmington Press Conference
Calls for Delaware to move beyond
two party system to address people's needs. Vows to attack the virus of
injustice by putting putting "people first."
Contact:
Wilmington, DE: At a
Wilmington press conference today, Green Party candidate for Attorney
General Vivian Houghton called upon voters to reject her opponents'
inability to address major issues facing Delaware citizens. In the speech
to a room full of supporters and other interested citizens, Houghton
condemned the racial inequities in the criminal justice system, the lack
of health care coverage for over 100,000 uninsured Delawareans, and
obstacles to greater democracy such as political corruption through
corporate campaign contributions. She cited how her opponents seem more
interested in counting numbers than working to solve these problems.
Calling Schnee/Brady "a political
duo that has two heads but basically speaks with one voice on a number of
important issues," Houghton distinguished herself by stating her
support for legislative initiatives such as HB 99 to guarantee civil
rights to people no matter their sexual orientation, calling for an
immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty, and passage of HB
552, The Delaware Health Security Act, insisting that health care be
treated as a basic human right.
Throughout her half hour long address,
Houghton pointed out how undue corporate influence upon our state
government has hurt Delawareans and others. From overly friendly
corporate tax laws that played a part in producing the Enron debacle, to
DNREC's "dereliction of duty" to stop chronic polluters,
Houghton vowed to reverse the trend of government agencies' failure listen
to and use information, ideas, and solutions generated from grassroots
community groups.
FULL TEXT OF HOUGHTON SPEECH (BELOW)
The Attorney General's Race: Moving
Beyond Democrats and Republicans
by Vivian Houghton
As the Attorney General's race
enters the last month and a half, the one thing that's clear is this:
there are basically two candidates.
The one candidate is called
Brady-Schnee, a political construction that has two heads but
basically speaks with one voice on a number of important issues like the
death penalty, corporate power, the health care industry, and racism
within the criminal justice system.
The other candidate is me, the
"people first" candidate. No political mannequin produced
by the dying and corrupt two-party system, I speak with an individual,
politically independent voice. Campaigning from one end of the state
to another, the Houghton campaign has earned its way to the forefront of
the race, not because I am so special as a person, but because my
political vision has been shaped by the same concerns that people express
over their dinner tables or on the job with their coworkers.
One of the concerns people
have is the bankruptcy of a two-party political system that, in spite of
its big promises, spends more time ignoring folks than listening to them.
Consequently, the level of political disillusionment in the country
and state has risen to crisis proportions. No wonder the nation's
voter turnout is the lowest among industrialized countries. And we
have the same problem right here in Delaware. The 10% turnout for
the Sept. 7 Democratic and Republican primaries was a pathetic,
embarrassing example of the two parties' ineptitude and unpopularity.
One example of how the parties
have gotten themselves into such a hole can be found in the Delaware
Attorney General's race. We live at a time when it has become
increasingly obvious that corporate funds buy influence and sometimes even
buy elections. Yet during a public debate when I confronted Brady
and Schnee with this very issue, they acted dumbfounded, as if the idea
that corporate money could influence Delaware politicians was foolish.
Like Mr. Schnee, Ms. Brady
also scoffs at the idea that big money buys political influence. At
the same debate I already mentioned, she claimed, "Anyone who thinks
that . . . is mistaken."
Yet of all people, Ms. Brady
should know the power of money in politics. Among Republican
attorneys general, she is one of the loudest voices in support of those
corporations who oppose multi-state lawsuits against industries like the
pharmaceutical industry.. This is why she turned down a request from
Nevada officials to team up with them in their recent suit against 12
major drug companies. Nevada has charged the companies with grossly
inflating the costs of prescription drugs and thereby defrauding Medicare
and Medicaid as well as individual patients. Those hurt the most by such
cost gouging are of course the poor, working people and seniors.
Ms. Brady also knows about the
politically corrupting power of corporate money because of what goes on
under her own nose right here in Delaware. One of the things that's
been going on under her nose is MBNA's exploration of ways to skirt local
and federal campaign donation laws. As a result of MBNA's borderline
contribution practices, the credit card company now finds itself under
investigation by the Federal Election Commission for allegedly providing
Congressman Jim Moran, a Virginia Democrat, with an illegal loan in order
to buy the congressman's support for new bankruptcy legislation that MBNA
wants passed. In a related matter, MBNA's emergence in 2001 as Sen.
Joe Biden's biggest campaign contributor has helped the bank turn Biden
into one of the bankruptcy bill's foremost supporters. With such
facts buzzing like flies around Ms.. Brady's head on a hot summer day, she
insults the public when she claims she doesn't hear the buzz. Her
insistence that corporate money doesn't buy political influence contains
as much truth as the proposition that fisherman don't place worms or flies
on their hooks with the intention of catching fish.
Unfortunately, the Brady-Schnee
duo have not only waded hip-deep into hypocrisy by downplaying the
corruption related to corporate influence in politics, they also ignore,
for all practical purposes, an issue that should be important to any
attorney general: the racial inequities that plague our criminal justice
system.
To give you an idea of what I
mean by inequity, listen to these two facts:
Fact #1: For every
white person who is imprisoned in Delaware, 9.4 blacks are
imprisoned in spite of the fact that blacks make up only 19.2% of the
population.
Fact #2: In Delaware,
which has a total person of color population of approximately 25
percent, over half those on death row are non-white, a startling
disproportion.
These facts reflect national
trends. For instance, as a majority of Americans now recognize, the
death penalty debate in our country is often a coded dialogue about
race and economic status. As all the data show, if you're a person
of color or poor you're far more likely to be executed for a capital crime
than is a wealthy Caucasian. Additionally, who you kill plays a
significant role in determining what punishment you receive, since the
death of certain people is viewed as less important than the death of
others. For instance, from 1977-1998, of the 500 prisoners who were
put to death in America 81.80 percent were convicted of the murder of a
white person in spite of the fact that about 50% of the nation's murder
victims are African American.
These and related racial
trends aren't abstractions that don't affect us; they play out here in
Delaware, right in the midst of us. The execution of Abdullah Tanzil
Hameen by lethal injection in Smyrna in May of last year was an example of
how the ideological debate about the death penalty often gets in the way
of making sensible criminal justice decisions.
Hameen was a man whose record
of remorse, self-improvement and helping others was such that an
astounding array of people, including parole board members, prison
officials and concerned citizens pled for his sentence to be commuted to
life in prison. Yet in spite of this, Hameen's appeal was rejected and he
was put to death. "Why did this happen?" you might ask.
The answer is that it happened because the death penalty debate in
Delaware has become a sort of amateur theater production in which various
public officials step on stage to act the part of tough guys who establish
their importance by wearing executioner masks. The fact that Brady-Schnee
have neither the courage nor conviction to separate themselves from this
circus is an example of the lack of political backbone that characterizes
too many politicians.
The good news is that not all
elected officials lack honor on this issue. Delaware State Senator Simpson
is one person who has preserved his integrity. He has authored a
bill, Joint Resolution No. 3, which would establish a commission to
investigate problems related to the death penalty's use in Delaware. Among
the major reasons cited by Simpson for his bill are:
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The fact that "income
and resources of the defendant play a significant role in the death
penalty process," and
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The existence of
statistical evidence that "racial bias continues to have an
impact on which defendants are chosen to face capital charges."
Unhappily, because of
political maneuvering in the state senate, Simpson's bill has been
prevented from being fully debated. Well, when I'm elected attorney
general, you can take this to the bank: I will use my influence to
support bills like this and to oppose the death penalty. Unlike Brady-Schnee
I am not afraid to step up to the plate and boldly dismantle inequity when
I see it. The issue here isn't an academic debate about the
theoretical usefulness of the death penalty in stopping crime; the issue
is that the death penalty is applied so racially unfairly in Delaware and
the United States that no impartial person can reasonably support its
continuation. This is even more true today than it was 5 years ago, now
that DNA evidence is increasingly used to overturn convictions that were
once thought to be solid convictions. If you put the wrong person to
death, you can't rectify the problem later. This is why I not
only support Simpson's bill, but, until it or a similar one is passed, I
am 100% behind Delaware emulating the recent Maryland moratorium on the
death penalty. It's about time.
Ms. Brady of course does not
agree with such thinking. In fact, she salivates so much at the prospect
of giving someone capital punishment that when Amy Grossman and Brian
Peterson were arrested for killing their newborn infant in a Newark motel,
Ms.. Brady appeared on national TV, trying to drum up support for an
execution even before she knew all the facts. After this
embarrassing spectacle, her office later was able to secure a sentence of
only 2.5 years for Grossman and 2 years for Peterson. However, in a
similar case the following year, Ms. Brady's office was able to do a
little better by getting 5-year sentences for two Filipinos for committing
a similar crime. The couple, 20-year-old Abigail Caliboso and her
boyfriend 19-year-old boyfriend, Eric Jose Ocampo, received much heavier
sentences in spite of cooperating with the police, which Grossberg and
Petersen, Caucasian yuppies from New Jersey, refused to do.
Unlike Ms. Brady, Mr. Schnee
occasionally makes a comment about the impropriety of racial inequity in
the criminal justice system, but his voice on the issue is a tiny, timid
one that lacks the force to address the problem head-on. Instead,
Mr. Schnee mostly concentrates on quarreling with Ms. Brady over the
number of minorities who work in the Attorney General's office. Talking
about this issue is not in itself bad, since it sheds light on the fact
that we need more minorities in the AG's office. Regrettably, though, Mr.
Schnee doesn't know how to go beyond this issue to discuss race in a
deeper, more analytical way. He refuses to oppose the death penalty
or to speak out systematically against racial biases in the sentencing of
African Americans and other people of color. Mr. Schnee, although a
decent man, apparently prefers to do his thinking at a safe distance from
the problems he addresses. On the campaign trail and in public
debates, he displays no familiarity with the zones of suffering where
racial injustice tracks down people like a virus in search of a body to
infect. Delaware needs an attorney general who isn't afraid to attack the
virus of injustice back. Delaware doesn't need an attorney general who
tells the virus, "You can do what you want just as long as you don't
bother me!"
Another area of concern for
Delawareans is health insurance, a problem that Brady-Schnee, who belong
to political parties which have close financial ties to the insurance and
pharmaceutical companies, aren't equipped to handle. They aren't
equipped to handle them precisely because they are too financially
connected to the companies to monitor them vigorously. As people say
on their front stoops and in church basements and in parks and in union
halls: "He who pays the piper, calls the tune."
I, on the other hand, don't
have this problem since I have no financial ties to these industries.
Therefore, as Delaware's Attorney General, I will take my marching
orders regarding health care rights from no one except "we the
people." This means I will investigate insurance companies'
behavior and I will prosecute any individual company or group of companies
that illegally deny customers health care procedures, medications or
office visits that the customers' health warrants. I will also use my
position to advocate for a system of justice that includes a vision of
health care as a basic human right that should be taken out of the hands
of for-profit insurance companies and overseen instead by a single-payer
system. In this regard I support Delaware's House Bill 552,
The Delaware Health Security Act.
Our state is in dire need of
health care reform. Because of this, Delaware requires an attorney
general who is not afraid of HMO's, drug companies, and health care
bureaucrats. Without strong will and clarity of vision in the AG's
office, health care delivery will suffer as profit-hunger continues to
replace proper medical care as the center of the health industry.
Already there are 100,000 Delawareans who have no health care
insurance and another 100,000 who have sub-standard health care. Not
surprisingly, the lack the lack of adequate medical coverage falls
disproportionately on the low-income. Delaware is 44th among the states in
the percentage of low-income children without health insurance. This
is a horrible statistic. What makes it even more depressing is that
Delaware's below-average health care system exists in the midst of a
wealthy state that is known nationally as the nation's "corporate
capital."
Unfortunately, the title
"corporate capital" explains exactly what the problem is in
terms of health care as well as in terms of other issues of concern.
The fact is that too often in our state more care is given to the
health of our corporations than to the health of our people.
Take Enron as an example.
Delaware's pro-business incorporation and tax laws have made
Delaware a haven for big money, which is why approximately 520,000 firms
have been incorporated there. Enron is one of the companies that has taken
advantage of these pro-corporate laws. It did so by setting up 685
subsidiaries in Delaware. Enron did this so it could avoid paying local
taxes and at the same time could hide some of its high-stakes deals from
investor scrutiny. Tragically, some of these deals helped to bring
Enron crashing down on the heads of its employees and many small
investors. It is in this sense that the "health" of corporations
too often is given precedence over people's health in our state.
Delaware needs an attorney
general who isn't afraid to study such problems clear-mindedly. The
other candidates don't have the analysis, independence, or political will
to do this. I do.
As I said when I began this
statement earlier, there are basically two candidates in this race. One
is called Brady-Schnee, a political duo that has two heads but
basically speaks with one voice on a number of important issues.
The other candidate is me, the
"people first" candidate. I'm independent and I don't take my
marching orders from any big contributors or giant corporations or big
banks. We need more democracy and less autocracy in Delaware. This
is why I speak in the name of reform. I don't like the fact that our
criminal justice system is contaminated by inequity and I plan to change
that as soon as I get into office.
Thank you.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
CONTACT
Committee to Elect
Vivian Houghton Attorney General
800 West Street
Wilmington, Delaware 19801
(302)239-2572
agcandidate@vivianhoughton.com
http://vivianhoughton.com/vivian
Green Party of
Delaware
P. O. Box 6044
Wilmington, Delaware 19804
(302)738-9963
greenpartyde@yahoo.com
http://www.gpde.org
Green Party of the
United States
1314 18th Street, Lower Level
Washington, D.C. 20036
866-41GREEN (toll free)
info@greenpartyus.org
http://greenpartyus.org
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