Jennings herself wants the house to investigate, and Dean thinks that Buchanan should not be seated.
This could take a while:
Republican Vern Buchanan might be the official winner in a messy Sarasota-area congressional race, but Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean says the Democratic-controlled Congress should not seat Buchanan without another election.
"Absolutely not," Dean said in a taped Political Connections interview scheduled to air Sunday on Bay News 9. "You cannot seat someone if you don't have an election that's valid.
"This election is not valid. There are 18,000 people who may have voted, and we don't know what happened to their votes," Dean said. "You can bet that if the Republicans were 500 votes short they'd be calling for a new election, and they'd be right."
On Wednesday, Democrat Christine Jennings said she will ask the U.S. House to take the extreme measure of conducting its own investigation into the election.
OK, all of these grand statements are good and important--but what is the actual timeline on this one? Jennings has filed a lawsuit. The House probably won't take any action until that is resolved:
Traditionally, the committee waits until all pending lawsuits are resolved before it launches its own inquiry.(...)
The House plans to swear in Buchanan, along with other new members, on Jan. 4, according to House Administration Committee spokeswoman Salley Collins. The House could unseat him later, if it chose.
So, the first step seems to be to make a convincing lawsuit. It also appears that Democrats will take the unpalatable step of allowing Buchanan to serve until the issue is resolved. Ugh. Once the lawsuit is resolved, which will probably take a few weeks or more, it will be taken up by the House Administration committee. Accordingly, Now, Jenning sis currently trying to consolidate their support to take up the investigation:
Jennings has been in Washington drumming up support since Monday. She has met with House members and staffers for the House Administration Committee, which would be responsible for the investigation(...)
Since 1993, about 105 such cases have been sent to committee, but only a handful have made it to a full House vote.
And so we reach the next step. After the lawsuit, and after the house Administration committee takes up the investigation (which will probably take at lest another couple of weeks after the end of the lawsuit), if all goes well then the matter goes to a full House vote. This will probably be tricky, and I imagine there will be quite a few Democrats who will need shoring up by that point. I twill certainly take a lot of work by the netroots to help out on the vote that would force a special election.
There are other concerns, as well. Considering this timeline, Democrats need to pass election reform legislation that addresses bad voting machines before the issue comes up to the House. They probably will have t least one month to do this, and while it won't be easy, it can be done. This sort of reform needs to be done anyway. Further, Jennings is going to need to continue campaigning on issues other than simply trying to force a new election. If she becomes all about trying to force a new election, she will lose that election if and when it happens.
Our best chance in this district may have already taken place on November 7th, but was thwarted because of bad machines and / or bad ballots. However, that does not mean we are out of options or out of chances. It will take quite a bit not only to force a new election, but to actually win that election if it happens. We do have the advantage of already fighting one of these battles in Florida, and knowing that everything will not just right itself two years later if we stop that fight. It is a worthy cause to spend out political capital on, however, if it means that real election reform legislation will pas Congress, and if it means that a legitimate election result will give the residents of the district an agreed upon winner. But it won't be resolved by a single dramatic gesture or statement. This fight looks like it will take place over the long term, and that is where we must be ready to wage it.
