november 8, 2006
Election 2006: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
It was an historic election as Democrats swept races across the country, taking control of the House of Representatives and the majority of governorships -- and possibly the United States Senate.
Democrats captured four of the six Republican-held seats they needed to take control of the Senate, winning critical contests in Ohio, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Missouri, and inched closer Wednesday to erasing the GOP's majority.
According to exit polls, anger over the war in Iraq motivated Americans to vote Democrat this year.
Seizing on voter discontent with President Bush and war, Democrats mounted challenges for two remaining Republican-held seats in Virginia and Montana -- and were ahead in both.
It was also a night of firsts: Nancy Pelosi became the first woman to become Speaker of the House; In Massachusetts, Democrat Deval Patrick was elected as the state's first black governor; and in Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, has become the first Muslim to be elected to the US Congress by winning a seat in the House of Representatives
As election results continue to be reported, Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council declared, "While pro-life, pro-family and pro-acknowledgement of God Americans are disappointed this morning in election outcomes, there is a silver lining in this otherwise dark election cloud. Democrats, who historically have opposed the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage and the public acknowledgement of God, none-the-less chose some moral conservatives among their ranks."
"This lean toward a more conservative Democrat Party is a good thing. There has been need for a moral reformation within the party. While last night's elections don't cure the moral problem in the core of the Democrat Party, it may moderate their previously and ardently pro-abortion, anti-marriage and radically secularist agenda."
Another positive sign came as across America, seven states passed constitutional amendments defining marriage as between one man and one woman. Only Arizona voted against its marriage amendment, but many analysts don't believe that this was a vote in favor gay marriage.
"They were voting against a measure in the amendment that would have denied benefits to domestic partners," said Arizona State University analyst Bruce Merrill.
Schenck pointed to some of the negative outcomes from this election to the pro-life, pro-family agenda. "On the gloomy side, having a speaker of the house -- the third person in constitutional succession to the president -- who is a radical pro-abortion, pro- homosexual agenda, European-like secularist does make our mission of cultural moral reform difficult."
As the House moves toward a more pro-abortion agenda, today the Supreme Court will hear the first challenge to the ban on partial-birth abortion in six years.
Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice will be attending the oral arguments at the Supreme Court today. “There simply is no reason to keep this barbaric practice legal,” said Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. “This so-called medical procedure amounts to nothing more than infanticide and now the high court is in position to end this gruesome practice once and for all."
"Congress spent years deliberating this issue," he explained, "and reached substantial factual findings – including the fact there is never a medical need for this procedure. We’re hopeful the Supreme Court will act to prevent the spread of abortion into infanticide.”
The ACLJ has filed amicus briefs in both cases before the Supreme Court – including one on behalf of some 80 members of Congress and more than 320,000 Americans.
In 2000, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to reject the state ban on partial-birth abortion by Nebraska. Now, the high court – with two new Justices – will hear oral arguments tomorrow in two cases challenging the federal ban on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.
Schenck summed up his take on the election. "In the end, our confidence is not in parties, politicians or judges and justices, but in a God who 'changes not.'"
Watch for Democrats to move to a more centrist agenda to set them selves up as a political party that can deliver in the next two years -- a strategy intended to prepare the public for 2008. At the same time, President Bush, who governed effectively in Texas with a Democratic legislature, may also move to the center to pass compromise legislation in the last two years of his term.
Then again, we may see two years of gridlock and political infighting in Washington.
Now it's on to the presidential race of 2008.
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