DeForest Soaries Quotes
It's an embarrassment that we don't have a broad enough consensus among political leaders that true reform should take place. I could count the members of Congress on one hand that took these issues seriously.
Soaries, DeForest B. Interview. Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections. Directed by David Earnhardt, Earnhardt Media, 2007.
At the time Harrison, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was a Colonel serving under Washington. The war had been somewhat successful but the country was very weak and in great danger, and Washington and many others thought that Congress needed a better quality of leadership. Harrison’s son and great grandson would both become Presidents of the United States.
The freshman Congresswoman objected to the Congress playing a secondary role to the President.
This Nixon technique of politicians and major American leaders blaming all the other leaders for a national crisis was used by both political parties during the aftermath of the Great Recession and economic meltdown of 2008.
This is the reason that it is so hard to reform Congress.
The Congress at the time was one of the worst in American history, accomplishing little more than nothing, mired in gridlock and ideological hyperpartisanship, with little concern for the nation as a whole. Other critics observe that it is the voting public that elected and re-elected the Congress and therefore must share the responsibility.
Reverend DeForest Blake "Buster" Soaries, Jr. is an African-American Baptist minister, author and public advocate, from Montclair, New Jersey. He is the former Secretary of State of New Jersey and former chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission. Additionally, he is the senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, New Jersey, a position he has held since November 1990.
