AMY GOODMAN: But right now we’re going down to Washington and out to Chicago. We’re going to talk to the first African American woman, who is African American, from Georgia, and she is Cynthia McKinney.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Well, thank you for inviting me to come on the show this morning.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, it’s a pleasure to have you. I also want to let you know that we’re joined by Salim Muwakkil, my co-host out in Chicago, Salim Muwakkil, senior editor at In These Times and a columnist with the Chicago Sun-Times.

Welcome, Salim.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: Oh, good morning, Amy. It was good seeing you in California. And good morning, Congressman.

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Good morning.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: How are you?

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: I’m doing fine this morning.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Congressmember Cynthia McKinney, you’re back in Washington, because Congress has just reconvened. And also, the Georgia primary took place yesterday. Maybe you can give us your own picture of politics in your home state of Georgia.

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Well, I’ll tell you, I think the Republicans in Georgia were left in quite a quandary, because at the very last moment they were left without a candidate. The entire Georgia Republican delegation had been pledged to Phil Gramm, because, of course, you know, that’s the kind of politics we have down South. And then, all of a sudden, they didn’t have anywhere to go, when Gramm pulled out. I know that a lot of them would like to have gone to Buchanan, but because of the baggage that Buchanan carries with him now, that was just something that was unpalatable. We have the Republicans in Georgia putting forward a tremendous effort to attract African American voters. They understand down there the redistricting problem and the role that the state Democratic Party played in the dismantling of Black districts down in Georgia, so they see this as an opportunity to rebuke their previous policies and to also rebuke their child, who is Patrick Buchanan, and to try and go a little bit more mainstream. And that’s what happened. But Buchanan did come up with better than 30% of the vote in Georgia, and I think that’s quite significant.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you something, Cynthia McKinney, with your own district challenge. What is this group that is challenging you, called something like a Campaign for a Color Blind America? We’re seeing it here in New York, as well, where our own Congressmember Nydia Velázquez has been challenged by the same group.

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: You know, I had the good fortune of participating in the New York African American and Puerto Rican Legislative Conference weekend just a couple of weekends ago. And there, I was able to explain to them exactly what happened in Georgia, because we don’t want what happened in Georgia to be replicated across the country. Unfortunately, that is what is happening. And it’s happening because there’s a learning curve. The judges are acquiring a learning curve. The plaintiffs and their attorneys and the states who don’t necessarily want these minorities in power are also learning how to turn back the clock. And what we’ve learned is that they’re cooperating. And so, you will find one set of attorneys, one set of so-called expert witnesses, appearing in Louisiana, in Texas, in Georgia, and it’s all the same people.

And unfortunately, we were behind the curve in Georgia, so that we couldn’t pick up on the fact that this was not just a local movement, but part of something much more — much bigger and much more insidious. But thank goodness now that we’re seeing this and we’re learning about it. We can alert people that this is a national movement. These are not people whose interest is in bringing people together. These are people whose interests reside in the continued division in this country of people along racial, ethnic, gender and orientation lines —

AMY GOODMAN: But what does it —

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: — just so that they can continue their grab for power.

AMY GOODMAN: What does it specifically mean for you in the next race? What will you be — what district will be there?

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: What it means specifically for me is that I’ve got one of the toughest races in my life in front of me. And that is because we’ve got to defy political history. Never before in the South has an African American candidate been able to win in a district that was 70% white. My challenge is to win in a district that is 70% white. Now, I believe we can put together the kind of coalition that can do that, and we can prove that the old South is dead, and the new South is alive and well in Georgia. But that is our challenge. The 11th District, that I represent, went from 60% Black down to 10% Black, which left me without a home, and I had to go find a district to run. The other majority-minority district went from 52% Black to 30-something percent Black. And now we’ve got in Florida, that will be decided probably as early as next week, a district that is 50/50. It’s 50% Black, 50% white, no unevenness there. And even that district might be ruled unconstitutional next week.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: Well, Representative, as you say, we seem to be on the other side of the learning curve. What have we learned? I mean, what are the arguments that are offered in response to this widespread attack?

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Well, the arguments that are offered is that the time for racial preferences is over, that America has overcome its racial challenge, that the problems that stymie people of color, and African Americans in particular, are caused by African Americans, and now we need to come together as a nation. After all, as Justice Kennedy wrote, “There is no such thing as a Black American or a white American. We’re all Americans.” And so, that’s the language. Now, you’re in Chicago, correct? And in Chicago, you have got the district of Luis Gutiérrez, the Latino representative, in court right now.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: The only one ever elected in Chicago.

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: OK, the only one ever elected. There is a movement afoot. And we’ve got to get in front of this revolution, because there is definitely a counterrevolution going on.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: Well, how do we do that, Representative? Do we use the argument of proportional representation? Or what tactics do we use to argue against that assault?

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Well, now, you know that I am very much interested in coming up with some solutions that retain our country’s commitment to inclusiveness and to diversity. And I believe that proportional representation, proportional voting — that’s what we call it, because down South, if you start saying “proportional representation,” folks get scared, so we call it proportional voting, but it’s the same idea. We believe that that is a solution that is inclusive, that we ought to begin a discussion about it. In fact, that’s what Lani Guinier was trying to put on the table for national discussion, when she was yanked away from us, and that discussion was yanked away from us.

But in addition — in addition to that, the most important thing we can do right now is share information, because what happened with the Georgia case was that the lawsuit was filed against the congressional — one congressional district in Georgia. We ended up losing two congressional districts that were majority minority and 11 state House and state Senate districts. How in the world did that happen? That is what the Chicago Legislature needs to know about, the New York Legislature needs to know about. The interested caucuses need to understand the political pressures that were there. And I can say things in private that I can’t say in public about, quite frankly, how —

SALIM MUWAKKIL: You could tell us.

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: — the weaknesses of our people are known by our oppressors, and then they use our weaknesses and turn us against each other. And before you know it, we’ve lost just about everything that folks 30 years ago died for.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Cynthia McKinney, we’re going to come back to you in just a minute — 

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: OK.

AMY GOODMAN: — as well as our co-host in Chicago, Salim Muwakkil, but we do have to break for our stations. And we want to let you know that in just a few minutes we’re going to be talking about a kingmaker here in New York. He made the governor of New York, George Pataki, and now he’s going for the president of the United States, at least to make him. We’re talking about Senator Alfonse D’Amato. We’ll talk about his history. We’ll talk about his money. That’s all coming up, but we’re going to continue this conversation with Cynthia McKinney after this.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: And you’re listening to Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. Democracy Now! is Pacifica’s national daily grassroots election show. And joining us on the line is Georgia Democratic Congressmember Cynthia McKinney, again, the first African American woman to come out of Georgia representing her state in the U.S. Congress. We’re also joined by Chicago’s Salim Muwakkil, He is senior editor at In These Times, and he is a columnist with the Chicago Sun-Times. Cynthia McKinney. I wanted to follow up with what you were saying on districting around Lani Guinier, before she was so summarily pulled. What do you think of President Clinton’s politics? I mean, here you are a Democrat in Congress. There have been a lot of issues that President Clinton has fallen on a different side, you might even say, of the aisle from the Congressional Black Caucus and also the Progressive Caucus. How do you fall in line behind him?

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: I am a member of the Progressive Caucus. And I believe that we need to reinvigorate progressive grassroots organizations in this country. President Clinton, while I know that I have to disagree with some of the things that he’s done, some of the positions he’s taken, and some of the treatment, quite frankly, of some of the women in his Cabinet, I understand where he’s coming from, because I also understand the limitations of the progressive movement. And we have not done what we need to do to provide that counterbalance that would allow President Clinton to be free to do what I know is in his heart. And that is my responsibility, Salim’s responsibility. I mean, those of us who have a different point of view and who, quite frankly, don’t want the Pat Buchanans and the Christian Coalitions dictating U.S. policy, we’ve got to step up to the plate.

But in 1994, in the election in November, albeit I understand that there was wholesale dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party, and there should have been, because there was a whole lot of dead weight in the Democratic Party, and we got rid of some of it — there’s still some that needs to be gotten rid of. But in November of 1994, people didn’t go vote at all. Even in the historic district that I represent, we had 80,000 fewer people sit home. They thought that they had done their job when they got me elected. But, by golly, look what happened in Georgia as a result of 80,000 people just in one congressional district sitting at home. We got Newt Gingrich as speaker of the House. And that happened not just in my congressional district, but in hundreds of congressional districts across the country. Our people did not vote.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: And, Representative there is this apathy at large in the community, and it’s even apparent in Jesse Jackson Jr.’s election here. There were only eight — he had an 18% voter turnout.

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: My goodness.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: It was incredibly low. And this was post-Million Man March, in the city in which the Million Man March was birthed and in which people talked about there being some policy resulting from that. How can we provoke interest in the political process at this time?

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Well, you know —

SALIM MUWAKKIL: What do you think we need to do?

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: One thing, for sure, is that the Republicans, with their extremist agenda and shut down government and cause default and doing all the kinds of things, rolling back the progress that women have made, have opened a lot of eyes. But that still just isn’t enough.

And the next step of that is that we have got to have electoral reform and campaign finance reform. Now, I’m a victim of all of this, because I’m running now, and I’ve got to try to raise $700,000 in order to stay even, because they yanked the playing field that was fair away from me. But electoral reform, what’s wrong? Why do we have to have this winner-take-all system, so that whoever it is that gets the 49% gets zero representation? We’ve got to have the proportional voting, so that people who have 49% of the vote also have 49% of the stake in the outcome of the policies that are being debated in Washington, and then they pay attention. We’ve got to have those two reforms.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: So, you think we should push more aggressively for proportional voting, as you say?

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Absolutely. Absolutely. And the way I — you know, when you get into the limited voting and the cumulative voting, and it’s so difficult to explain, I like to put it this way, and I prefer preference voting. And I say it’s as easy as one, two, three. If you’ve got three candidates, and you’ve got — you’ve got the opportunity to elect three people to one, to the multimember district, and you’ve got three candidates, and you like them, and you’ve cast your vote, vote number one, vote number two and vote number three, all three of them can win. And there you’ve got the best of all possible situations. It’s as easy as voting one, two, three. And that’s what we need to have.

The lawsuit that was brought against against the 11th District, that I represent currently, was brought by white representatives in the rural area of the district who did not want to be represented by a Black person. Under proportional voting, they would have the opportunity — maybe their wives might want to vote for a woman, so their wives could vote for me, and they could vote for the white male that they prefer. And because we’re not tied to a single-member district with one representative, I could win, and the white male could win. So, their wives feel like they’ve got some representation. The white males who don’t like the Black woman, they’ve got some representation. And everybody is happy. I can’t see anything wrong with that system, except it’s just a little bit too fair. In fact, that is the system that we had after Reconstruction, when we got 22 Blacks elected to Congress. And when we had those elections take place and the Blacks won, we had rioting across the South. That’s when you started getting rid of the preference voting. They called it plural voting back then. And that’s when you started getting rid of it, because it actually works. And it helps to elect women. It helps to elect minorities. And it helps to be fair.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember McKinney, we just have a couple minutes, and I wanted to ask you a few quick questions. You talk about the Christian Coalition. We hear a lot about this extremism of Pat Buchanan. Is Robert Dole that different? After all, you experience him as a legislator in Washington. While Pat Buchanan may have very strong words, Robert Dole has the power of law in this country, and they have been making them rapidly, or undoing them, as many people would say. He’s been at a number of rallies in the South, the “God and Country” rallies of the Christian Coalition, waving his 100% report card from the Christian Coalition. What is your assessment of him?

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Well, as far as I’m concerned, I mean, you know, the Republicans — the Republicans march in lockstep, and they don’t deviate from their agenda. Their agenda — and they will do whatever it takes to achieve it. Their agenda is to have the House, the Senate, the White House and the Supreme Court. Now, because of my personal relationship with the justices on the Supreme Court now, I’ve had just about my fill of Republicans in the Supreme Court. Because of what I have to endure every day in the House and the Senate, I have had my fill of Republicans in the House and the Senate. And as far as I’m concerned, any Republican, including Bob Dole, Colin Powell, anybody who cares to call themselves Republican, is dangerous if they’re in the White House, too.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, let me ask you one other question. We are going to have you back to talk more extensively about this, but you’ve been one of the most aggressive freshman congressmembers that we’ve ever seen, whatever color, whatever gender. And one of the things that you’ve had the most success at is this code of conduct around connecting human rights violators — or, disconnecting them from getting weapons. Now, in this country, our president, Clinton, has been more beholden to corporations than perhaps anyone else in history, and with the commerce secretary, Ron Brown, has managed to sell more arms, and larger deals at that, in terms of the amount of money that has been spent and made for arms manufacturers in this country. How do you connect what you’re doing, trying to push through this code of conduct, with what President Clinton is doing?

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Well, you know, we’re going to continue to try and help the president see the light. I hope he’s reelected and has the opportunity to serve another four years and maybe not be so beholden to those merchants of death and destruction, particularly in Third World countries, where they ought to be trying to provide them food and clothing and shelter.

But I had a very good meeting yesterday with Óscar Arias, the former president of Costa Rica, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and he is putting together Peace Prize laureates who will present the code legislation that we presented to the House to the United Nations. And now we’re going to try and get the United Nations to pass such legislation. That way, we can truly say that this is an international effort.

I think it’s morally bankrupt for the United States to be the world’s leading arms dealer. And I think we speak with forked tongue when we try and preach democracy on one hand, and we sell weapons of death to dictators on the other hand. It’s something that the average American, when you explain it to them, they understand it immediately. And we already know that the vast majority of the American people agree with us. We’ve just got to organize in that grassroots fashion, that is sometimes very difficult to do. But we’re going to get the point across that we’re not — that America stands for more than just Lockheed, Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and those weapons of destruction that they sell.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Cynthia McKinney, we want to thank you very much for joining us. We’ll certainly have you back on every Wednesday. It is a congressional roundtable that we’ve got someone from the Progressive Caucus, one of the 50 members, or elsewhere in Congress. So, thank you very much for joining us.

REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Cynthia Ann McKinney, U.S. representative from Georgia’s 11th District, we thank you for joining us. And also, Salim Muwakkil of In These Times in Chicago and co-host here on Democracy Now!, thanks for being with us this morning.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re listening to Democracy Now!, Pacifica’s national daily grassroots election show. And if you have friends in other parts of the country that aren’t able to hear this, tell them to call their public radio station or community radio station and ask them to run Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! That’s how it will get around.