The dutiful kids now are in office on their own: Mary, 41, is the new junior U.S. senator from Louisiana; Marc, 39, is mayor. The warehouse has long since been moved to the outskirts of the city. But the joint family enterprise–the Democratic power base in New Orleans– is under Republican attack, and voting machines (now computerized) are at the center of a high-stakes war over accusations that Landrieu won her razor-thin victory last November with fraudulent votes delivered by the Morial organization. Prodded by the loser, state-Rep. Louis (Woody) Jenkins, the U.S. Senate has launched an investigation. Democrats insist there’s no evidence of irregularities, but the gumshoes are moving ahead. Scores of subpoenas for statewide voting records, NEWSWEEK has learned, were issued last week.
This is not just another Louisiana gumbo with too much local intrigue and Tabasco to be of national interest. The investigation itself is a rarity, the first of its kind in 44 years. The balance of power in the Senate and in many cities is at stake. The Republicans yearn to gain five seats next year, reaching a “filibuster-proof” 60-seat majority, and a new election in Louisiana could help. They’re also using New Orleans to attack liberalized voter-registration laws they claim unfairly benefit Democrats. Defending their last bastion–the urban machines–Democrats insist the GOP’s real aim is to hold down rising minority-voter turnout. “This is voter suppression, pure and simple,” an angry Morial told NEWSWEEK. And in Landrieu–a demure blonde with a firm handshake-women’s groups have a heroine. Men just can’t stand being “knocked out by a woman,” said Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky of the Women’s Campaign Fund.
Still, this wouldn’t be an issue at all without its spicy Louisiana characters. Chief among them is Jenkins, a refugee from the Reagan ’80s who refuses to go away. He gained fame in 1990 when, appearing as a pro-life activist on “Nightline,” he waved a fetus doll on camera. He loathes the IRS–which has filed tax liens against his company. A Baton Rouge broadcaster, devout Christian and senior Amway distributor, he bears a vague resemblance to two of his friends, Pat Robertson and Ollie North. Like them, he is a cheery man with the unnerving, intent gaze of a hunting dog in the field. Riding in the front passenger seat of a reporter’s car, he’ll reach across to take the wheel–without warning–so that his interviewer can write down notes.
Yet for all his seriocomic zeal, Jerkins assembled a theory of vote fraud plausible enough to persuade Republican senators to take the rare- and risky- step of reexamining a colleague’s election. His theory is this: Landrieu needed a fat vote in New Orleans to balance GOP growth elsewhere. She was especially worried about black turnout, since she’d been feuding with some leading African-American pols. Luckily, there were other forces worried about urban turnout, too: the Clinton-Gore campaign and gaming interests who wanted to preserve casino gambling in the city. Enter the Morial machine, a powerful get-out-the-vote organization called LIFE.
Among Democrats on Election Day, the GOP theory goes, panic set in when exit polls indicated a Jenkins win. Vans hired by LIFE and Landrieu’s own lieutenants, Jenkins charges, hauled crowds to the polls. Voters were paid, he alleges, to cast ballots in the name of one or many other persons. This was made easier, Jenkins says, by sloppy administration of the “Motor Voter” law, which requires only minimal, mailed-in identification to register. Written records were left unsealed when placed in voting machines at the close of voting-a casual Orleans Parish custom. In the warehouse, Jenkins says, those records could have been tampered with to match the totals from precincts that had been flooded to secure her victory. She won by only 5,788 votes out of 1.7 million cast statewide, but carried New Orleans by a whopping 100,000.
Landrieu, Morial & Co. can point to any number of holes in the scenario in what they call “Woody’s fantasy.” On Election Day, there were no independent allegations of irregularities. Not a single voter in New Orleans–then or now–has complained that someone voted in his or her name. Most of Jenkins’s specific cases have yet to pan out. Gaming interests did spend massively, but no one has shown coordination with Landrieu’s campaign. “Multiple voting” would require the connivance of all five poll commissioners in a precinct. None has spoken out, though that’s not surprising: they’d be talking about a felony.
The Democrats sound confident. “Where’s Woody’s evidence?” demands Morial, an intense lawyer with a Georgetown degree. Landrieu seemed equally serene. “I have no knowledge of any improper activities,” she says coolly. “We’re an easy target for reckless allegations.”
It’s up to the Senate to decide what’s reckless and what’s real. So far, there are a few nagging details. When the parish’s 877 voting machines were opened three days after the election, officials concede strict procedures weren’t followed: campaign representatives weren’t there to watch, the registration lists weren’t sealed, poll lists were sent to the clerk of the court–a Landrieu ally–not straight to the secretary of state. The question is: why? As the investigation gathers speed, Landrieu says she isn’t bitter. But she might have been a Washington star by now, a fast-rising member of the Senate club. Instead she has to beat Woody Jenkins one more time, and LIFE can’t be of any help.
