The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 360, Ed. 1 Monday, November 20, 2000 Page: 4 of 12
twelve pages : ill. ; page 17 x 10 in.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
4A The Baytown Sun
Opinion
Monday, November 20,2000
e SUptoton g>un
Founded 1922
Wanda Gamer Cash, Editor and Publisher
Whitney Jones, Managing Editor Richard Nelson, Asst. Managing Editor-Sport's
Fred Hartman, Publisher Emeritus
1950-1974
Cheers to animal
responders group
C
Many local businesses and veteri-
nary clinics have bulletin boards
for such notices to be pinned.
Cheers to the Goose Creek and
the Anahuac school districts for
(heers to the volunteer
members of the Baytown
''Animal Control Citizen
Responders and veterinarian
Cynthia Lipps. The Responders
are a group of animal lovers work- the glowing marks received in the
ing to make more comfortable the Academic Excellence Indicator
lives of animals incarcerated by System report. The AEIS rates
Baytown Animal Control. The school districts and campuses
Responders work overtime finding across the state, and both local
homes for the wayward creatures, districts are shown to be perform-
Last week, a dog was brought into ing above state averages.
Baytown Animal Control with a Performance indicators include
flattened foot. Just before the dog Texas Assessment of Academic
was to be euthanized, Lipps came Skills passing rates, end-of-
to the rescue. She and her staff course examination passing rate,
successfully operated on the dog and attendance rate and drop-out
— identified as a pure-bred blue rate for the full year,
healer. They had to amputate his Cheers to all three Baytown-area
two middle toes, and as playoff football team's. Lee,
Responder chairwoman Marilyn Barbers Hill and Dayton high
Kinney said, making him a schools all recorded shutouts in
. University of Texas fan for life. the bidistrict round on Friday.
And a life is what he now will Eagles and Broncos fans showed
have. Despite the injury, within a their school and^ommunity spirit
week, he was adopted. For more ’ by braving the cold and wet
- information about.pet adoption, or weather to watch their .teams play
' "to volunteer with the Responders? * Todaj»edUort*i ms nritiMbv
. ■ call (281) 422-7600., Richard Nelson, assistant manag-
* "® Jeers^o those who abandon ing editor-sports for the Baytown
unwanted animals. Good homes ’ Sun. ‘on behalf of the newspaper’s
can be found with some effort. *editorial board.
Litters
O'
cmotimm Wm
Commentary
Bush, Gore must stop for good *
This is the richest and freest
country in human history, and one
of the happiest. But two groups are
in danger of messing it all up: its
top politicians and the media.
Instead of providing responsible
leadership in a moment of uncer-
tainty — the virtual tie in the presi-
dential election — the rival cam-
paigns are^ratcheting up their
rhetoric and drivipg the country leled in our history.”
toward a constitutional crisis.
Morton
Kondracke
that “the Democrats ... are politiciz-
ing and distorting these events (and)
risk doing so at the expense of our
democracy.”
„The danger is that the two sides,
Having politicized the case, can’t
and won’t quit. The side that loses
in one court is likely to appeal, ulti-
mately to the all-Democrat, highly
political Florida Supreme Court and
then, possibly, to the Supreme
The polls have to close at some
point, result has to be accepted
Monday, a gentleman in Broward counted to their satisfaction and make up
County voted, assumably according to his their own minds, once and for all, about
conscience. Votes were counted, a deci- what they should do in this very difficult
sion was rendered. One would think that time.
particular moment of decision had After all, isn’t that what states’ rights
passed. are about?
"
that the next president, whether it’s announced that transition plans. There’s a possibility Attorney
Vice President A1 Gore or Texas were under way for Bush’s takeover ' General Janet Reno, who is deeply
Gov. George W. Bush, will have his of the White House. distrusted by Republicans, might . ... ,
legitimacy constantly and bitterly' Transition planning is not find grounds to challenge the
provocative — both candidates Florida result in federal court on
should be doing it and are — but civil rights grounds,
the Gore campaign used the Conceivably, Florida may not be
announcement to accuse the Bush able to send electors when the
campaign of trying to “presump- Electoral College meets Dec. 18.
tively crown themselves the victors Gore would have a majority of the
dividing the American people.” remaining state electors, but
questioned by the opposition.
A country that’s now evenly
divided between the parties is on
the verge of being dangerously
polarized, with its government
unable to accomplish anything.
The media’s role in this disaster is
We can’t go around applying gag
orders, though, because we’re a country
that guarantees free speech. Thankfully.
Today we hear, however, that he has
had a change of conscience and beep
permitted to alter his vote — after the
^act- ’ People want to know what’s happening,
Considering the miserable'mess the others make their living-by being infor-
media, candidates, and voting public native. Evert the politicians, as a matter
have made of this election, I might- like of fact, are just doing their jobs as well
to change mine, as well: Of course, it’s as they can.
after the fact... So the best we can hope for is a mea-
But then, why should that matter? sure of decency from all those involved
Perhaps, though, this election process and a speedy resolution to this dilemma,
is moving forward just as it should. It appears that our system does work,
Picture a situation in which the voting albeit rather awkwardly at times. As long
public makes a singularly unwise deci- as we can avoid dishonesty and too much
sion. We should be able to take corrective human error, we may find ourselves
action, as Broward County has done. If, pleased with the process as we watch it
after we recognize our mistake, we move, unfold.
second the motion, and ratify the motion, I do, however, think there have been
it might be OK to hold a new election. some remarkably ignorant actions by
We would promote an extremely unstable huge groups of the people involved in
situation, and that’s precisely what the this mess, and I really do wish they’d get
News, where I’m a commentator,
declared a Gore victory in Florida
at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, although
polls were still open in the
Republican-leaning Panhandle
region, which is located in the
Central Time zone.
Besides possibly skewing the
Constitutional framers hoped to avoid.
But what the heck? That’s democracy,
right?
Under the present circumstances, if
we could do it, I’d recommend a gag
order. We could apply it to the candi-
a grip on reality. At some point the polls
have to close, and whether you’re not in
line, whether you’ve left the line, whether
you’ve made a mistake on your ballot
and didn’t think of it until you got home
and watched the nightly news -— or even
dates, the media, the campaign organiza- whether you’ve changed your mind and
tions even me, if you like and we think that’s a good enough reason to
could leave the people of Florida alone change your vote, too — we have rules,
with the checks and balances that have and they need to be kept,
already been imposed. Maybe, if we left lM. King
them in peace, they could get their votes Baytown
About Us
comparatively minor, but real. In a Instead of letting Florida courts Republicans could challenge the
mad, competitive rush to “call” consider a citizen challenge to the vote in other states—or even - |
election results, the networks not hard-to-read “butterfly ballot” in encourage Democratic electors to
only got it wrong but may have dis- Palm Beach County, the Gore cam- defect,
couraged people from going to the paign has joined the fray, with Conceivably, the process could
polls, thereby helping produce the Daley claiming that “if the will of become so tangled that no president ~
current crisis. the people is to prevail, A1 Gore will have been chosen by
The networks, including Fox should be awarded a victory and be Inauguration Day (Jan. 20,2001), in
our next president.” which case Speaker Dennis Hastert
There is some reason to think the (R-Ill.) would become acting presi-
Palm Beach County ballot is illegal, dent — unless other novelistic
Florida law seems to require that intrigues occur,
the marking block be located to the The reality the nation faces is
right of a candidate’s name. Reform worse than any political fiction —
Party candidate Pat Buchanan’s box namely that the next president will
- was to the left and placed in a way be seen as taking power not by strict
Florida result, the wrong call may that may have conftised Gore vot- “constitutional means but by political . 4
have affected voter behavior in the ers. agitation and court shopping. Could
Midwest and Western states. For Some 19,000 ballots were dis- he possibly govern effectively?
sure, the networks second error, qualified because they were double- After a decade of toxic politics -
announcing a Bush presidential vie- marked. On the other hand, 421,900 capped by the impeachment of
tory after 2 a.m., caused the conces- ballots in the county were success- President Clinton, there was a
sion call from Gore to Bush, which fully cast, which the courts might chance for the nation to reclaim the
was later retracted. It nearly pro- well find to be evidence that no sig- internal tranquillity it deserves,
duced a public concession. nificant “disenfranchisement” The United States is prosperous
The Gore campaign already has occurred. It has been, and rightly is, the leader
declared that any outcome except a Moreover, the number of disquali- of and model for the world. But its
Tied ballots does not significantly leaders, with assistance from the
exceed those in previous elections. media, are doing their best to make
And, usually, courts do not invalidate it a spectacle that would be comical
elections unless there has been fraud, were it not so depressing,
which did not occur in this case. Morton Kondracke is executive
In response to Daley’s remarks, editor of Roll Call, the newspaper
Bush chairman Don Evans declared of Capitol Hill.
Gore victory is illegitimate.
It has stated this in incendiary
terms, with campaign chairman
William Daley declaring that
20,000 voters ip Palm Beach
County had been “disenfranchised,”
resulting in “an injustice unparaj-
Officials
Texas
Our editorial board columns should include a photograph of the
the editonal board to dis- ber not for publication should be included. We
cuss issues affecting the community. To ask that submissions be limited to one per
am SSt* ““ana *»»
BkUe- Letters endorsing wopposing political can-
marketing (krector, tee Anne Robbins, bus? didates or issues will not be published within
ness manager; and Richard Nelson, assistant two days of an election, except in direct rebut-
managing editor-sports. tal to a letter previously published in The
Baytown Sun. Please send signed letters to:
Wanda Gamer Cash or Whitney Jones. The
Baytown Sun, P.O. Box 90. Baytown. 7X
The Baytown Sun welcomes letters Of up to 77522.
300 words and guest columns pf up to 500 Or, fax them to: (281) 427-1880. Or, email
words on any item of public interest. Guest us at: sunnews@baytownsun.com.
Let us hear from you
Governor
George W. Bush (R-2002)
State Capitol, P.O. Box 1242
Austin, Texas 78711
800-843-5789
Lieutenant Governor
Rick Perry (R-2002)
State Capitol
Austin, Texas 78711
800441-0373
Attorney General
John Comyn (R-2002)
800-337-3928
Comptroller of Public Accounts
Carole Keeton Rylander (R-2002)
800-531-5441
Land Commissioner
David Dewhurst (R-2002)
512463-5256
Commissioner of Agriculture
Susan Combs (R-2002)
512463-7435
Railroad Commissioners
Charles Matthews (R-2000)
Michael Williams (R-2002)
Tony Garza (R-20Q4)
Senator District 4
David Bernsen (D-2002)
4098394444
5124630104
Senator District 6
Mario Gallegos (D-2000)
P.O. Box 41
Galena Park, Texas 77547
5124630106
7136788600
Senator District 11
Mike Jackson (R-2002)
1109 Fairmont Parkway
Pasadena, Texas 77504
713-9480111
Senator District 15
John Whitmire (D-2000)
803 Yale, Houston, Texas 77007
7138548701---------
Representative District 20
Zeb Zbranek (D-2000)
P.O. Box 2050
Liberty, Texas 77575
8004386202
Representative District 127
Joe Crabb (R-2000)
P.O. Box 2910
Austin, Texas 78768
281-422-2233
Representative District 128
Fred Bosse (D-2000)
885-A Uvalde Road
Houston, Texas 77015
7134536336
Harris County
wmmmmmm
warn
■MMHwn
District Clerk
Charles Bacarisse (R)
713755-5711
District Attorney
John B. Holmes (R)
713755-5800
County Clerk
B.F. Kaufman (R)
7137556405
County Treasurer
Jack Cato (R)
713755-5120
County Attorney
Michael Fleming (R)
713755-5101
Sheriff
Tommy Thomas (R)
7137556044
Constable, Precinct 3
James Douglas (D)
2814274791
IMHMttlillMBiNUMHMiHMl
1
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Cash, Wanda Garner. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 360, Ed. 1 Monday, November 20, 2000, newspaper, November 20, 2000; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1020001/m1/4/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.