Politics and the EEOC

When Vice President Albert Gore announced that Senator Joseph Lieberman would be his running-mate for the Democratic presidential ticket, a big fuss was made over the fact that Lieberman was a Jew. In fact, some media pundits openly worried that Lieberman’s Jew status might compromise the Democratic ticket, as “more traditional Americans” (i.e., Christians) might reject a perceived “outsider.” In other words, the fear was that Joseph Lieberman would suffer some sort of religious or Hebrew discrimination.

Of course, since the Democratic National Convention was held in Los Angeles the other week, the Gore-Lieberman ticket appears to be ahead of Bush and Cheney in the polls. The religious (or racial) discrimination fear appears to have subsided. Evidently, Lieberman’s Jew factor now appears to be a complete non-issue.

But suppose for a moment that the Jew factor were indeed an issue. Suppose the polls indicated that Lieberman would lose the election because of his religious beliefs.
Suppose there were open, undeniable, and well-documented religious discrimination perpetrated against Mr. Lieberman. Suppose the Gore-Lieberman ticket lost the presidential election. What then?

An aggrieved and “victimized” Lieberman would have absolutely no legal recourse. After all, as I understand the law, he could not exactly contact the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and file a civil rights discrimination lawsuit against the American people, now could he?

As far as I know, racial, religious, gender, sexual and many other forms of bigoted discrimination is all right in the political field–in the arena of public office. The EEOC is not empowered to overturn the results of a democratic election on the basis of some discrimination. They will not reinstate the losing candidate and force the voting public to pay damages. I think we can all agree that to do so would be absolutely unconscionable.

Now my question is: why exempt the entire field of public office and single out the private business sector for EEOC anti-discrimination prosecution? Why can’t my friend Bruce Lloyd run for CNMI Governor, lose, and then sue the CNMI electorate for racial discrimination?

If you ask me, I would say that is profoundly unfair–a veritable injustice just crying out to be remedied. The solution, however, is not to apply the EEOC police to elections. The solution is to abolish the EEOC and repeal these absurd anti-discrimination laws that deprive people of their legitimate rights to free association.

Let people decide who they want to work with using whatever criteria they may wish to employ, because whether they are rational or irrational, rest assured, they will face the market consequences. And that should be enough to ensure merit and justice (short of Utopia, of course).