Subpoenas rain in Demo hearing

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, July 23, 2002

It was just after 10 o’clock and the crowd in the L. Seawell Jones Room of the Dallas County Courthouse Annex was beginning to get restless.

An estimated 150 Selma residents had been subpoenaed to appear before the five-member Alabama Democratic Party panel convened to hear the challenge to the June 25 primary runoff election between LaTosha Brown and Yusuf Salaam for the state House of Representatives District 67 seat.

Brown is contesting Salaam’s 138-vote victory in that runoff, alleging a number of “voter irregularities” and a concerted Republican crossover voting effort.

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Brown’s attorneys had subpoenaed the 150 Selma residents just days earlier. Some of those residents received notice of the subpoena Friday, others Saturday and a few as late as Sunday afternoon. Most had been delivered in person or left with family members. At least one was stuffed in a mailbox.

Now, perhaps 50 of those residents had taken time off from work or canceled doctors appointments or arranged for childcare to show up at the appointed time Monday morning to try and find out exactly what was going on.

But at 10 a.m. the only person in the crowded room with them who appeared to have the slightest idea about what was going on was Yusuf Salaam.

As the minutes ticked by, a voice in the back finally called out, “Mister Salaam, we were told to be here at 10 o’clock and now it’s after 10 o’clock. Is there any reason we should have to wait? I was late for court once and the judge read me the riot act. Is there even going to be a judge? Just who’s in charge here?”

Salaam shuffled slightly in his seat and gave what for him is a broad smile. “You don’t want me to answer that,” he said to ripples of laughter. “I think I’d better just leave that one alone.”

Shortly after that the attorneys for both sides shuffled in. At 10:37 a.m. the five members of the Democratic Party panel were seated and the hearing began.

Potential witnesses, including those Selma residents who had been subpoenaed, were asked to go to Circuit Court Room No. 1 on the second floor to wait.

They did not go gently.

An obviously angry Angela Young said a subpoena was stuffed in her mailbox Saturday with no explanation. “I’m ticked off,” Young fumed. “I’ve called the sheriff, the D.A.’s office and the Post Office, and nobody seems to know anything about it. The Post Office said they’re going to investigate.

“I had a doctor’s appointment that I have to go to.”

Jane Arban said she did not receive her subpoena until Sunday afternoon, but that’s not why she was upset. “Personally,” she said, “I don’t think they have any right to ask me how I voted. I don’t ask them how they voted.”

Selma resident and former Republican National Committeewoman Jean Sullivan said she had fielded at least “six to eight” phone calls from friends who had received subpoenas. She said several confessed they had, indeed, voted Republican in the June 4 primary and then “crossed over” and voted Democrat in the June 25 runoff.

“They were pretty shaken up about the whole thing,” Sullivan said. “I told them, ‘Don’t worry, you have not broken any law. You have just broken a Democratic Party rule.'”

State Democratic Party bylaws prohibit crossover voting; Republican Party bylaws do not.

Sullivan suggested that if Democrats are serious about ending the crossover voting issue, the Democratic-controlled Legislature could simply pass a law requiring voters to register as either Democrat or Republican. The present system allows primary voters to declare whether they want a Democratic ballot or a Republican ballot at the time they vote.

“They make the laws,” Sullivan said. “The Republicans are not in control. So they can just blame this whole mess on themselves. I don’t know every little detail about the law, but I know right from wrong.”

Those who had been subpoenaed could at least take comfort in knowing that they were not alone. Ora Rose Toure, an attorney for Brown, indicated that they had subpoenaed 150 people already and were considering issuing subpoenas for another 150.

Attorney Jeffrey Robinson, one of several persons taking roll call of the people who had been subpoenaed, did offer an olive branch of sorts. Those who promised to make themselves available to the committee within 15 minutes of receiving a phone call were allowed to leave. Otherwise, they were required to stay and wait to be called — or face the committee’s displeasure.

Montgomery lawyer Terry Davis, one of the five Democratic Party committee members hearing the contest, explained exactly what that could mean for those who chose to ignore a subpoena.

“This is a quasi-judicial proceeding with the same authority as a circuit court,” Davis told the standing room only crowd of 75 or so people in the hearing room. “We have the same authority under the law to order whatever remedy is appropriate.”

As the hearing got under way, Dallas County sheriff’s deputies guarded the door to the crowded hearing room, barring access except during breaks.

During opening arguments, April England-Albright, another of Brown’s attorneys, declared that the election had been “tainted with fraud and conspiracy and cover-up.”

She stated that they intended to show, among other things, that the tape sealing at least one election box had been broken, that a number of dead people’s names were found on the rolls of those who voted, and that at least 150 people had crossed over from the primary to the runoff.

Apparently referring to the unrest one floor above, Toure added, “We’re not here to harass, but to prove our case.”

In his opening remarks, Henry Pitts, an attorney for Salaam, countered by acknowledging that “this is a highly emotional dispute.”

“But,” Pitts added, “you cannot decide this election based on emotionalism and innuendo and allegations and outrageous statements.”

Getting to the bottom of who’s right and who’s wrong may take some time. Brown’s attorneys had brought what they considered to be the pertinent documents in the case to the hearing room in two large storage boxes, of a size that would be ideal to move heavy objects come moving day. By noon, the two sides were still on their first witness.

Meanwhile, the Selma residents who had received one of those 150 subpoenas waited not so patiently in a crowded room one floor above.