Dismissing the Election Contest Relating to the Office of Representative from the 13th Congressional District of Florida

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCARTHY of California. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of this resolution to dismiss the election contest related to the results of the 13th Congressional District of Florida race in 2006.

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate the chairman of this task force, Mr. Gonzalez. It was a three-member task force with Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren and myself. Every bit of this contest, as we went through studying it and spent the hours on it, was a unanimous decision. This was a bipartisan movement, a bipartisan investigation; and I just want to thank the chairman for his professionalism, his respect and the ethics in which he carried this out.

In my former life, I was actually a staff member to a former chairman of House Administration, and I was an individual that investigated some contestant elections. I will tell you this is probably the most thorough investigation we have seen.

We knew after the last election that there were races in this body that were even closer, within 100 votes; and we did not contest those as they went. But we wanted to make sure, as Christine Jennings moved this debate and this argument, as we were going through, that we looked at every single one.

I want to thank the State of Florida. Before we even went to study it, they went through analyzing all the machines. We had the GAO look at every ability of the machines, even miscalculating the machines as they came forward to make sure they were still correct.

The American public can be very proud to know that every vote in the 13th District was counted. The outcome was correct, and Congressman Vern Buchanan was elected on that day and still elected today. I want to congratulate the work that was done by the task force.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source