Howard Phillips
Presidential Nominee
Constitution Party
Post Election Press Conference
November 9, 2000
National Press Club
Washington, D.C.

Source: Reprinted, with permission, from the Phillips 2000 website

There are certain things that I would like to review today with the representatives of the American media and all the ships at sea.

First of all, concerning the election in Missouri, we are, indeed, the Constitution Party and the Constitution of the United States makes clear that, in order to win election to the United States Senate a person has to meet certain qualifications. He must be at least 30 years of age, among other things, and must be an inhabitant of the state from which he is elected.

In Missouri, in violation of the Federal Constitution, it appears that the state officials are going to certify the election of an individual who is not an inhabitant of the State of Missouri. His physical remains may well be in Missouri, but his soul has long since departed --- perhaps to the nether regions --- and it is completely unconstitutional to declare this man to have been elected.

Accordingly, I have been in touch with leaders of the Constitution Party of Missouri and it is their intention to take legal action challenging the certification of the former Mel Carnahan to be a member of the United States Senate.

We know that the Senate is an ancient body which honors the hoary head, but there are limits and there are senators of

advanced years still walking in those hallowed halls, but, at last word, they were breathing and there is no evidence that that can be said of Governor Carnahan.

Point two, this is to give early warning or notice of the fact that Harry Browne and I are filing a lawsuit later this month challenging the Federal Election Law Amendments of 1974 in all respects, and the brief on that lawsuit has been prepared by William Olson who is counsel to PHILLIPS 2000, Larry Straw, Treasurer of The Conservative Caucus, and Herb Titus who was my running mate in 1996. It is a brilliant brief. We are still in the process of trying to raise the funds to make sure that the lawsuit can be carried to a successful conclusion and we are optimistic that the fundraising aspects will be completed before Thanksgiving and that we will be able to move forward with the suit.

Third, and the basic question being considered by people today, is, where do we go from here?

Unless a new election is called or the recount goes against Governor Bush or the absentee ballots break against Bush, Governor Bush will win.

Of course, as we begin this news conference, we know that representatives of the Gore campaign have already initiated judicial action to require a hand count of the vote in at least some parts of the State of Florida.

It is very unlikely that Gore and his people would want a judge to declare the Florida election invalid because, were that to happen and no votes to be cast in the electoral college by Florida, then no one would have the requisite 270 votes to gain election.

Accordingly, under the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, the election would then be thrown to the House of Representatives, with each state having a single vote, regardless of the number of representatives in Congress assigned to that state.

By that standard, the Republicans control 29 states, the Democrats control 17, and four states are tied.

So, were it to go to the House of Representatives, then Governor Bush would be chosen as President. So the Gore people clearly do not want that to happen.

If, on the other hand, there is no judicial determination requiring a re-vote, which could very well result in the election of Mr. Gore, then the best that the Gore people could hope for, absent a change in the outcome on a recount or hand count or absentee ballots, would be a deadlock, in which case the Speaker of the House of Representatives would, on January 20, become the acting President of the United States, and it is a very close thing in the House of Representatives and it is conceivable that in a close race people in various ways could be persuaded to choose a Speaker amenable to Mr. Gore, or, in order to prevent an illegitimate government, to work out what might in effect be a co-presidency.

Under the rules of the House and the Constitution of the United States, anyone can be Speaker of the House. One need not be an elected member of the House of Representatives to be chosen as Speaker. So the House could choose anyone it wished as Speaker. It could re-elect Bill Clinton. It could elect Mr. Gore. It could elect Mr. Bush. It could elect anyone who is 35 years old and a natural born citizen of the United States who meets the other qualifications for the Presidency. So that is another possibility.

We are moving into new Constitutional terrain here and it is encouraging that God was with the Framers of our Constitutional system when they created the electoral college. The electoral college has many critics, but the electoral college is one of the factors in preserving the legitimacy of our political system.

If there is fraud in one state, the fraud can be limited to that state, whereas, if the election were not, in fact, 51 separate elections --- if it were a single election --- then fraud or inaccuracy or unfairness in a particular jurisdiction could require a nationwide recount, which could result in the kind of chaos that would potentially permanently disrupt the legitimacy of our political system.

The electoral college, of course, also requires candidates to take into account the diversity and the different concerns of people in the 50 states.

Were there not an electoral college, the power of Big Media and Big Money would be magnified in choosing a President, and the power of the Federal government in setting the rules for electoral participation and candidacy would be magnified. It would be as if King George were setting the rules for the manner in which the War for Independence were to be waged. It would be extremely dangerous to have a monolithic single national election.

Another factor is that it, of course, preserves the role of the states in our Federal system.

Contrary to what Jim Baker said earlier today and what Clinton and Gore and Bush and the media often say, we do not live in a democracy. We live in a democratic republic.

Indeed, the name of Thomas Jefferson's political party in 1800 was the Democratic Republican Party.

We are a republic with democratic procedures, and the Constitution guarantees a republican form of government in each of the states which are part of the Union, and, if the electoral college were to be abolished, the next step would be to abolish the equal role of the states in the United States Senate and there would be other considerations as well.

So the electoral college is a bulwark of liberty. It gives us a President who is independent of the Judiciary, independent of the Congress, and, indeed, independent of the states.

I would further point out that, if people are concerned by the "winner take all" system, there are remedies available, because, under the Constitution, each state, not the Congress, determines the manner in which the electors from that state are to be designated, and, if the people in a state think "winner take all" is not a good system, they can move to another system. They can assign, for example as they have in Maine and Nebraska, two votes At Large and one for each Congressional district. There are other systems which could be used.

Another advantage of the electoral college is that, if something happens to the winner or the President-apparent following the November election, then instead of having to call a new election, then electors who are pledged to the President-apparent, or the President-presumptive, however you wish to call him, would be in a position to designate his successor, whereas, without the electoral college system, there would be great pressure to assign the Presidency to the runner-up, rather than to someone who walks in the policy footsteps of the person who was in fact designated by the voters of the several states in the November election. That is a very important factor in the electoral college. It gives flexibility which preserves the integrity of the electoral process even if something were to happen to the presumed winner following election day.

So those who wish to tinker with the Constitutional provisions regarding the electoral college should think again and take a closer look at it.

The electoral college is one of the reasons we are still a free country.

Let me talk a little bit about the election just ended.

This was an election in which Ralph Nader did extremely well. He did not come close to getting the 5 percent of the votes that he needed in order to qualify to stick his hand into the Federal cookie jar and fund his campaign in 2004, and that is a good thing.

It is clear that Mr. Nader did as well as he did because of the extraordinary amount of free publicity he was accorded by the major media. They call it "earned media", but I am not sure that Mr. Nader earned it any more than the rest of us did. He was given it, rather than having earned it.

With respect to the other candidates, as is widely known, for years I have encouraged Pat Buchanan to leave the Republican Party, and I think, had he done so in 1996, he would have had an excellent chance of doing quite well in the 1996 election.

Indeed, I believed at the time, and still do, that had he been a candidate then he would have, in all likelihood, run ahead of Bob Dole and would have been in a strong position to become the major contender for the Presidency in the year 2000.

Shakespeare said that "The tide taken at the flood leads on to fortune, but when the tide is ignored it is soon gone", and the tide for Mr. Buchanan was gone.

In 1999, I inquired of Pat whether he would consider seeking the nomination of the Constitution Party, and his reaction was that he would not and the specific reason he gave was that we did not have $12.6 million.

I do not mean to minimize the importance of money in a political campaign, but I think this last campaign made clear that money is not enough. Between matching funds and the Federal subsidy accorded the Reform Party on the basis of Ross Perot's strong showing in 1996, Mr. Buchanan secured some $17 million from the Federal treasury for his campaign, but was only able to garner four-tenths of one percent of the vote.

In fact, it cost him or it cost us --- the American taxpayer --- about $38 for every vote which Pat Buchanan received.

By contrast, during this campaign, as the candidate of the Constitution Party in the post ballot access period, less than $100,000 was spent in support of my candidacy, and most of that was expended in connection with plane tickets, office support, and related matters.

So, accordingly, I earned my votes at a cost of less than $1 apiece, which is a significantly lower amount than the cost per vote registered by the Buchanan candidacy.

Let me say I have great respect for Pat. He has been my friend for many years, but I have to point out that he probably had 100 percent name recognition or close to it while garnering four-tenths of one percent of the vote.

I had perhaps one percent name recognition, and did pretty well by comparison within that one percent.

This was a difficult year for Harry Browne, Pat Buchanan, and Howard Phillips in terms of what we were up against.

I, at least, received less media coverage this year than I did in 1996. The Fox News Network says "we report, you decide", but, unless they report, it is hard to decide and in the course of a campaign which began on Labor Day Weekend, 1999, I had a grand total of less than two minutes on Fox, which is more than I had on CBS, more than I had on CNN, and about the equivalent of what I had on CNN Financial Network and on ABC "Nightline".

I want to thank Tim Russert (of "Meet the Press"). He did have a segment with three third party candidates, including me, on, which lasted a little bit less than 20 minutes.

We received less coverage from C-SPAN than in previous years. We were not on "Larry King Live" and there was virtually no coverage in the major media, despite the fact that, without a single penny of Federal funds, our volunteers managed to get us on the ballot in some 41 states.

We succeeded in getting on the ballot on every state where we attempted to get on, with the exception of Massachusetts, where we should have been on. We collected nearly 30,000 signatures, of which 14,000 were certified, but the Secretary of State arbitrarily removed us from the ballot because a couple of our electors had voted in a Republican primary and he would not even put those electors who were fully qualified on the ballot, saying that none of our signatures were properly collected because of the fact that two of our electors had voted in a Republican primary, perhaps three.

In all the other states, save two, we qualified as a "write-in" candidate, and all of this was done without any Federal money, so it was an extraordinary accomplishment.

I believe sincerely that the Constitution Party is the new home for Christians and conservatives. We do not yet know whether Bush or Gore or some other will be installed as President on January 20 or some other date, but we do know that, in deciding to support George Bush, Christian and conservative leaders were voting their fears instead of their hopes. They were essentially buying a continuation of Clinton-Gore policies with a Republican label.

Bush and Gore both favor some kind of gun control. Bush says he favors trigger locks. He says you should not be able to carry a weapon until you are 21. I do not know if he intended to disarm all of those members of the U.S. armed forces under the age of 21. He did not make that clear, but he, nonetheless, regards the Second Amendment as having exceptions.

Bush and Gore called each other liars about tax policy. This is one case where I can agree with both of them because neither one was, in fact, advocating a reduction in taxes. Each of them was advocating ways of rearranging higher taxes for the American people. When they talk about spending cuts, they are talking about reducing the increase in spending. On taxes, they are talking about reducing the increase in taxes.

In fact, since the Republicans gained control of Congress in 1994, our taxes have gone up from $1.3 trillion per year to $2 trillion per year, and our spending at the Federal level has gone up from $1.4 trillion annually to $2 trillion annually.

Both Gore and Bush supported MFN for Red China, both supported NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, both of them have supported the use of tax dollars to fund Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion organizations. Indeed, last week the Republican Congress voted to increase money for international population control to more than $400 million per year, even as they agreed to rescind Ronald Reagan's Mexico City policy.

The Republicans agree with the Democrats on an expanded Federal role in education. Indeed, the Republicans in Congress have doubled Federal spending for the Department of Education since gaining control of Congress in 1994.

Both support socialized medicine. The Republicans rejected it when it was called "Hillary Care", but they voted for it when it was called the "Dole-Kennedy-Kassenbaum" bill and in other incremental ways.

On the question of abortion, Mr. Bush, like Mr. Gore, said he did not think there was anything he could do about the distribution of RU-486 and this, of course, manifests an extraordinary ignorance of his duties as President and, as to the fact that under the Constitution, regulatory agencies cannot legislate.

He said he would have no litmus test for judges. In Texas if there was a litmus test, it was pro-abortion given the decisions of his appointees against parental notification.

He supports, like Gore, Planned Parenthood funding.

He told Tim Russert that he would not support the overturn of Roe vs. Wade until there was a change in public sentiment.

He said that he supports abortion in the case of exceptions. He supports funding of the United Nations and its population control activities.

He refuses to assert the personhood of the unborn child, and he apparently intends to name as Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is 100 percent pro-abortion.

So I would say that those Christian and conservative leaders who voted their fears instead of what this country requires, or who voted in hopes that they would somehow have more influence with the Republicans than with the Democrats, betrayed the confidence of those who support them financially and otherwise and they have forfeited our respect and our followership in future years.

There is no reason why any person who is serious about the future of this country, who wants to restore the Federal government to its limited, enumerated, Constitutional functions, and American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations --- any of us that have that view, all of us who have that view --- have no reason whatsoever to place any confidence or give any support to those supposedly pro-life, those supposedly Christian, those supposedly conservative organizations which lowered the bar and said that it was acceptable for them to have a candidate like George Bush whose policies were parallel to those of Mr. Gore simply because he carried a Republican label.

In the future, we need leaders who will have higher standards and who will not surrender the standards which give us hope of putting this country back on the right track in the future.

Nowhere was there more evidence of the corruption of the Christian and conservative leadership in this country than with respect to the candidate scorecards that were issued.

One notable exception was Dr. D. James Kennedy whom I applaud for having included all of the candidates for President who were on the ballot in states with a potential for securing more than 270 electoral votes on his scorecard.

I applaud him for that, but other leaders associated with the ministries of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and Jim Dobson, whether under pressure from their major donors who were committed to the Bush candidacy or for some other reason, did not play it straight with their followers, with their supporters, with those who look to them for leadership.

On scores of millions of candidate comparison cards that were distributed around the country, my name was omitted, my stands on the issues were omitted, even though, if we are to believe what they say, I was the only candidate in the race who comprehensively agreed with their positions, and I think it is time for those leaders to step aside, and to get out of the way, and to forfeit any claim on our attention in the future. They have no right any longer to give us advice as to how we should operate in the political process. As the Bible tells us, "Where there is no vision, my people perish", and the so-called leaders of organized Christianity and conservatism in America have obscured their vision by fear of Gore and an inordinate desire to have access to power.

For all of these reasons, because the Libertarian Party has hit its high water mark and it has been clearly established that there is not a significant proportion of the American electorate which believes that communities should be denied the right to prohibit access to dangerous drugs, because the Reform Party is based on personality and government money and the government money will no longer be there and the personalities fell short, because the only party committed to Biblical and Constitutional principle is the Constitution Party, I believe that, as more and more people come to see that their failure to assert what they believe to be right and knew to be necessary in the year 2000, was an error from which much must be learned in the near future.

For all of those reasons, I believe that the Constitution Party will, increasingly, with each passing week attract more support, and I am very grateful to all of the people in the party who served as electors, who served as candidates, who contributed to our efforts, and I believe that, while most people have not really thought about it or may have concluded otherwise, the party which won this election, in terms of the long run, was the Constitution Party.

QUESTION AND ANSWER PERIOD:

Question:  Actually your last remarks tie into a theory that I have had. The old saying is be careful what you ask for you may get it, and for the last eight years, as you know, the Republicans excuse to conservatives has been --- hey, there is this liberal Democrat in the White House --- what do you want us to do? Now you got it all.

Phillips:  Well, what we wanted them to do, of course, was stand for what they said they believed, but they did not do that. And, as the only person running for President in the last cycle who ever headed a major agency or department of the Federal department, I am probably more aware than any of the others about the importance of the budget process, and of the fact that, if it is not in the budget, the government cannot do it, if it is in the budget, the government will do it.

The fact that the Republican Party, year after year, appropriated more money for the Legal Services Corporation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Department of Education, Planned Parenthood, AIDS education subsidies, the U.N., the IMF, is an indication that they stand for nothing except holding office. It is a party which is morally bankrupt and philosophically corrupt. It is the party of pre-emptive concession. It is a party which has no serious claim on the support of serious people. It is the Benedict Arnold of political parties. It flies a false flag, claiming to carry the conservative, Christian, Constitutional banner, but, in fact, throwing the game before the referee fires the starting gun.

Question:  I didn't get all of that list of agencies they have funded.

Phillips:  Legal Services Corporation, National Endowment for the Arts, $17.9 billion bailout of the International Monetary Fund, $1 billion payment of the phony U.N. debt, an extra $18 billion per year for the Department of Education, more money for Planned Parenthood subsidies, more money for AIDS education subsidies, and up and down the line, they have done the dirty work of the Democrats.

They believe in nothing --- more money for Bill Clinton's land grabs, a limited version of the CARA proposal, but a version involving some billions of dollars nonetheless. I mean, just an outrage. We, the conservatives, have no representation in the leadership of either party in Congress, and the sooner they get off the stage, the sooner we can take our country back.