they can't even do the honorable thing and show up
No-shows rankle panel reviewing '04 election
By Associated Press | February 10, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Starting on a sour note, lawmakers holding the first congressional review of the 2004 vote were upset by the absence of top election officials from Ohio and Florida, states with many balloting complaints.
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Representative Bob Ney, chairman of the House Administration Committee, said he would hold hearings away from Washington and continue to seek testimony from Ohio's secretary of state, Kenneth Blackwell, and Florida's Glenda Hood.
''I am disappointed that they are not here," said Ney, Republican of Ohio. ''We can have disagreements, but you can't run and you can't hide."
Representative Juanita Millender-McDonald of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said ''the arrogance of these secretaries of state to not be here today is an affront."
Blackwell was in the capital, where he led a meeting of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute. He said he had agreed to attend that meeting before the House committee asked him to appear.
''I don't know why there would be any hand-wringing or foot-stomping. The Ohio story is probably the most widely told story in the country," Blackwell said. He said a representative from Ohio would go before the committee, which oversees election issues.
Hood had a previously scheduled speech before the British-American Chamber of Commerce of Central Florida yesterday, which the committee was told about, spokeswoman Jenny Nash said. Hood ''welcomes any opportunity to discuss Florida's success," Nash said.
The hearing was intended to examine the successes and failures of a law passed after Florida's disputed voting in the 2000 presidential election.