The Confitent, Page 3

  ROBERT COMPLETED HIS GRADUATE program, married Bianca and as per the family plan, stood for election and handily won his seat to the US Congress. He was part of the Texas Six Pack, a group of six freshmen Republican congressmen from Texas who were elected during the nineteen eighty-four Ronald Reagan landslide victory over Walter Mondale. With their victories, the Texas congressional delegation shifted from a twenty-two to five Democratic advantage to only seventeen to ten. Several of the six new congressmen would go on to have long and powerful careers in Washington, DC.

  It didn’t really matter who the candidates were, as long as they were republican at the time. The United States presidential election was a contest between the incumbent president Ronald Reagan, and former Vice President Walter Mondale, the democratic candidate. Reagan was widely expected to win and his victory was a landslide!

  Reagan was helped by a strong economic recovery from the deep recession of the Carter years at the Whitehouse. Reagan carried forty-nine of the fifty states, becoming only the second presidential candidate to do so after Richard Nixon's victory in the 1972 presidential election. The American public bestowed a party-line vote, resulting in a joyous victory for most republican candidates that ran alongside Reagan. It was one of those elections where any fool could be elected based on their party affiliation!

  The exact same thing happened again in two-thousand-eight, when several established republicans lost seats—they had held onto forever—when the American public voted party-line to put Barack Obama in the Whitehouse, when it became obvious that the eight-year-rule by the republicans had thrashed the US economy beyond repair, with mounting debts and unprecedented unemployment rates!

  ******

  Chapter Five

  “Robert, I really need your help,” it was an E-mail from his long lost girlfriend Petra. She was stuck in Moscow unable to get an entry permit for her return trip back to the United States. She was still holding her student visa as a bona fide university upper-class-woman.

  Robert replied right away reassuring her that he would put his assistant on it right away to contact the Immigration and Naturalization Services to look into what was going on with the American Embassy in Moscow. He had a feeling that the embassy personnel might have red-flagged Petra for some reason.

  “There is a problem with Petra’s visa,” After a few days, Robert’s assistant Collin informed him without any preamble. “It seems the embassy has discretionary powers to deny visa to anyone they suspect might decide to settle down here. So according to them, Petra is a potential flight risk, likely to leave her native country for good!

  “But they have nothing to substantiate their claim, right?” Robert was curious.

  “They don’t have to; that’s what the guidelines from the justice department say. So there is no point in discussing this matter with them anymore,” concluded Collin.

  Robert was furious, “So what you’re saying is that she needs to ask someone to break into her apartment here in the US, sell all her stuff, and send her a check from the proceeds?”

  “Pretty much; she’s not the first one, though. While doing research on the subject, I came across several cases. Some students from China and quite a few from India as well!”

  “So, Collin, what you’re saying is that all these students who went back to their native country either on vacation or because a family member got sick or died might not get to comeback to complete their studies, they worked so hard for!”

  “MR. SPEAKER, MEMBERS OF the Congress: the problem here is denying reentry permit to students after they return to their native country for a valid reason, such as the death of a loved one. The bill I’m proposing would ban this kind of behavior by the American Embassy personnel as long as the student in question is currently enrolled in an institution of higher learning.” Robert presented his bill and sat down to thunderous applause from the members of congress and quite a few members of the public who had come to witness such a historic bill.

  The bill was passed with a voice vote with no one opposing. Several members who supported the bill pointed out that the foreign students brought in funds to pay for their tuition which was as much as six times that of what the local students paid for the same courses. Theses extra funds were a boon for the cash starved universities raising tuition every few years to rejuvenate their depleting funds!

  After the bill was passed, Robert had Collin call the justice department to enquire about the time-frame for the bill to come into effect. Later, after the directive had been issued to the American Embassy in Moscow, Robert called Petra with the good news, “Petra, it’s Robert.”

  “Hi, Robert, any good news for me?”

  “Matter of fact, yes. You should contact the American embassy right away. The directives from the Justice Department have already been sent to the embassy personnel.”

  “Thank you Robert; I owe you one.”

  “Welcome home Petra; you deserve to come back and complete your graduate degree. This is what America is all about; we are waiting here for you with open arms!”

  ******

  Chapter Six

  The highlight of Robert’s reign in the US Congress was his ‘Contract with America’ that was engineered to capture control of congress from the democrats who ruled Washington since 1972. The gains in seats in the mid-term election resulted in the Republicans gaining control of both the House and the Senate in January of 1995. Republicans had not held the majority in the House for forty years, since the 83rd Congress.

  The outcome of the election was widely called ‘The Republican Revolution of nineteen ninety-four’ which resulted in a net republican gain of fifty-four seats in the House of Representatives, and a pickup of eight seats in the Senate. Closely following the election, democratic senator Richard Shelby of Alabama changed parties, becoming a Republican with the change of the political climate in Washington, DC.

  “I DIDN’T STEAL YOUR wife,” Robert was not himself trying to defend the actions of his new wife to his fuming, old best friend. It all happened after the couple had invited Robert for dinner and the wife had taken a liking for the flamboyant Robert, who was reportedly separated from Bianca at the time.

  “But she left me for you; don’t you think that’s theft? We had no marital rifts to talk of, until I invited you into my home that fateful night!”

  “It’s not my fault, if you couldn’t keep your wife happy!” With that Robert had left his ‘friend-no-more’, standing there glaring at his behind. It was something that had just happened, as Robert was happily married to Bianca at the time and the two had just clicked. It was Robert’s second marriage, while his friend had lost his first wife to Robert!

  Robert’s friend knew that inviting guys home was a recipe for disaster, but Robert was happily married with Bianca and the couple was even very cozy in political circles. They were even on first name basis with the Reagan’s! The friend had left his guard down, inviting Robert alone to his house and now he was regretting his decision. Robert’s friend had finally learned his lesson and he had decided not to fuel any more temptations at his expense. “If you can’t show up with your wife, then you’re not invited, period!”

  “YOU’RE GOING TO BE handsomely rewarded for this small favor; it’s Tiffany’s!” Robert had heard about this arrangement before, but he was not sure how it worked.

  “So you’re going to set me up with Tiffany’s?” Robert wanted to make sure how the cash was going to be transferred without anyone finding out about it.

  “Just use the five hundred thousand dollars as a revolving credit line and keep making the minimum payments to avoid anyone from getting overly suspicious about our little arrangement here. Hold on; I can do better than that. Let me arrange with a third party to take care of that too. So you don’t have to worry about a thing linking the two of us to the dough!”

  Robert had finally started cashing in. There were lots of favors to be handed out, and time was of the essence. It was not really bribery, except in a tec
hnical sense. If Robert knew it was going to rain the next day, then he would call his contacts to find out if anyone is interested in some rain. Once the offers start rolling in, he would collect them and wait for the rain to finally happen. It was a win-win situation for all, and no laws were actually broken, as far as Robert and his well-heeled friends were concerned. “The rain was bound to happen and so no favors were actually handed out!”

  “I WANT THAT FUCKER out of the Whitehouse for good!” Robert didn’t mince any words when he announced his intentions to the group. He was referring to the forty-second president of the United States, Bill Clinton who won thirty-two states and the district of Columbia to beat George H.W. Bush and won the Whitehouse in the nineteen-ninety-two general election.

  The election was a bitter sweet one for both Clinton and his running mate Al Gore. The two had toured the nation in a bus and visited with voters all throughout the months preceding the election. They managed to win a total of three-hundred and seventy electoral votes, one hundred more than what they needed to clinch the election from a total of five-hundred and thirty-eight electoral votes!

  The election was hard-fought owing to the fact that president Reagan who preceded Bush was considered by many of the conservatives as one of the greatest presidents ever lived, the loss at the polls was hard to comprehend. The pundits had predicted a long electoral drought for the democrats, but the ten year boom-bust cycle had caught up with the republicans offhand. Not to talk about the quadrupling of the national debt during the twelve-year rule by the republicans!

  According to Robert J. Barro an economics professor at the Harvard University, Clinton’s first term in office was better than Reagan’s second term, probably explaining why the voters had cooled and switched parties to elect Clinton to office instead of giving the elder Bush a second term. After Clinton won a second term to office, the democrats were confident that his running mate Al Gore would certainly carry on the economic boom created by the Clinton regime to another prosperous eight years of democratic rule. But the two-thousand presidential general election was hard fought, ending up in a cliffhanger, which was purported to be decided by the then Supreme court!

  “I NEED A PLANE right now, the biggest you’ve got,” Robert was yelling into the phone. He wanted to fly as many people as possible to Florida to mobilize a mass protests to stop the recounting of votes in the two-thousand presidential election. Florida was the swing state and Robert knew very well that losing Florida would give the presidency to Al Gore on a platter. Robert wanted the younger Bush in the white house at any cost!

  “Over my dead body,” that’s how Robert had expressed his displeasure at the way things were going down there. They had big plans for the second Bush and losing the hard-fought election was not an option. The republicans had a friend in the Florida capital in the name of Jeb Bush, who was none other than the presidential candidate’s younger brother. “How convenient!”

  The protests orchestrated by Robert had finally bore fruit, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the George W. Bush. This was the first time, an election was handed to one party by the highest court in the nation. A majority of the judges were republican and without a question, Robert knew that once the election results were at the mercy of the courts, the Republican Party would come out on top.

  On December nine, thirty-one days after the general election was held on November seven, the US Supreme Court voted five-four to stay the Florida recount giving the election to George W. Bush, who became the forty-third president of the United States. George won 47.9% of the votes while Al Gore won 48.4% of the popular votes. On the Supreme Court side, it was a 55.6% margin for George, sealing the election for the republican candidate!

  Because the election was so close, recounting the ballots could go either way and the republicans were not willing to take that chance. Later, when the votes were recounted—paid for by the news media—Al Gore had handily won the Florida state, and the Supreme Court had given the presidency to the losing candidate, declaring that uncertainty is not acceptable as recounting the Florida votes would throw the country into a tailspin and chaos. The judges had compared the US to a third world country, in its hurry to declare a loser as the real winner!

  The nation’s highest court is supposed to be non-partisan. But from time to time, the judges exercise party-line votes much like the US Congress or the Senate for that matter. Even the American military takes sides during the election, although their job is to stand firmly behind the commander-in-chief, who happens to be the president of the United States.

  “I didn’t vote for that idiot, but I’ve to fight for him—that’s how conventional wisdom went, when it came down to the military. In an ideal world, members of the federal government shouldn’t be allowed to take sides during election times, including the judges of the Supreme court.

  They are supposed to be impartial, but they always cast their party-line votes, except when chief justice Roberts broke ranks and voted to uphold Obamacare, when it became obvious that the healthcare law was going to be tossed out for good. Justice Roberts didn’t want that on his conscience—maybe god spoke to him, like he speaks to George W. in times of tribulations!

  ******

  Chapter Seven

  “We need this war to survive; not to talk about the upcoming general elections. The people are angry with us for not defending the country against Al Qaeda!” Robert was adamant in proposing that the United States start invading Iraq as soon as possible. It was a known fact that when the country is in the midst of war, the election was a done deal for the party holding the Whitehouse. The public didn’t want to rock the boat and damage the outcome of the election by throwing the president off his office, although the nation was awash in debt, and rising unemployment rates.

  Following is a comment posted online in response to the allegation that it was the media that portrayed second Bush as worse than the first. “Yeah.........the media left the country open to attack on ‘nine-eleven’ and they staged that whole Hurricane Katrina-thing-a-ma-bobby and expanded those wars to the tune of almost five trillion dollars and tried to steal social security by investing in the stock market two years before it crashed!”

  Another comment posted online by Paul Kienitz, hailing the Clinton years is quoted below. “In short, everybody is better off. Rich or poor, educated white male or disenfranchised minority, working stiff or technocrat or million-share stockholder or schizophrenic street bum, all classes and sectors of society are better off than they were in the eighties.”

  Paul continued, “As the sense of desperation felt by many voters lessens, we are freed to deal with issues that were ignored and deferred in the eighties, like taking better care of the environment and public health. In international relations, we are replacing peace through threats with peace through peace. This is why, for all you republicans who are baffled by this, folks hardly care if Clinton can't keep his zipper zipped.”

  “REDISTRICTING IN TEXAS, THAT’S the only way we can throw those democratic bums out of office,” Robert was unwavering about the means to get the remaining Texas seats for the republican candidates. He knew that there were several democratic pockets of voters that could be easily split up to boost the chances of republican candidates to win the seats. This argument was clearly unconstitutional, taking away the rights of voters to have representation in congress, but no one gave a rat’s ass about the whole deal — it was politics as usual and there was nothing strange about it. When push comes to shove, the matter would be ultimately decided by the Supreme Court; but guess, whose side the nation’s highest court is on!

  Was Robert the first one to do such a redistricting maneuver and get away with it? When was the last time such a scenario played out in Texas and who benefitted from it? The 2003—redistricting effort was extremely controversial, particularly because of the role played by Congressman Robert. Texas had never undertaken a mid-decade redistricting that was not ordered by a court. The reason for undertaking
such an effort was due mainly to the fact that in 2002, for the first time in one hundred thirty years, the republicans had won control of the Texas State legislature. They couldn’t take any chances with the next election cycle and wanted to get the redistricting over with, before they lost control of the state legislature!

  The redistricting effort was fought tooth and nail by the democratic members of the legislature, who absconded out of state to avoid a quorum and thereby delay the process as long as they could. Governor Perry even threatened to send the State Troopers after the state senators when the snafu continued without any recourse!

  The democratic representatives held over one-third of the seats in the State Senate and prevented the redistricting legislature from being voted on due to the two-thirds majority rule. After finding a way around the two-thirds rule, Governor Perry called for a second special session of the Senate. This prompted eleven out of the twelve democratic senators to flee the State to New Mexico to prevent a quorum.

  After a month-long standoff which was played out in the news media as well as on television, a lone senator returned to the Texas Senate and the redistricting legislature was passed at a special legislative session. As a result of redistricting — after the 2004 elections — Texas's US House delegation had a Republican majority for the first time.

  Legal challenges to the redistricting plan were mounted on several fronts. On June 28, 2006, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion that threw out one of the districts in the plan as a violation of the Voting Rights Act and ordered the lower court to produce a remedial plan, which it did in Plan 1440C. The Supreme Court ruling was not seen as seriously threatening Republican gains from the 2004 elections.