Cynthia McKinney was born March 17, 1955, in Atlanta, Georgia. She was the daughter of Billy McKinney a former Georgia State Representative and one of Atlanta’s first Black law enforcement officers. She earned a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California, and a Masters of Art in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

She is a drafted nominee of the Green Party, which is probably best-known to Americans as the party of former Presidential candidate Ralph Nader, and indeed, she was slated for Vice President as Nader’s running mate in 2000.

Her career in politics had a very unique start, when in 1986, her father in the Georgia House of Representatives submitted her name as a write-in candidate for the Georgia State House. Despite the fact that she wasn’t even living in the United States at the time, but in Jamaica, she got 40% of the popular vote anyway. This inspired her to run for the Georgia State House again in 1988, where she was present in the United States this time, and she was elected, making it the first time a father and daughter had served in the State House of Georgia at the same time.

Her next move was to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992, and she was elected to represent the 11th District of Georgia, which covers the territory between Atlanta and Georgia. She was re-elected in 1994. In 1995, the districts were redrawn under her protest, citing racial motives, and she became the Representative of the 4th district instead. She was to be re-elected to this position in 1996, 1998 and 2000.

She lost the 2002 election to DeKalb County Judge Denise Majette. She protested the results of the election, claiming that vengeful Republicans had rigged the election as retaliation for her anti-Bush administration views, her allegations of possible voter fraud in Florida in the 2000 Presidential Election, her controversial statements regarding Bush’s involvement in 9/11, and her opposition to aid to Israel. Some voters lodged a formal suit on her behalf, supporting her claims, but the case was dismissed from lack of evidence.

During her “exile” from office, she because an outspoken protester against the Bush administration, and the “white, rich Democratic boys club wanted her to stay on the back of the bus.”

Surprisingly after these bizarre events in 2002, she regained the position as the 4th district Representative again in 2004, but would lose it for the final time in 2006. During her second stay in office, she was one of the thirty-one members of Congress to make a formal protest over the alleged vote-rigging that kept incumbent George Bush in the Oval Office. In 2005, also in office, she held the most prominent briefing on Capitol Hill for the investigation into the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks. She also submitted the “MLK Records Act”, which would release all records surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King into the public record. These records are currently sealed as of 1978 and are not due to be declassified until 2028. A Senate version of the bill has been sponsored since by Senator John Kerry and Senator Hillary Clinton.

Cynthia McKinney has spear-headed much of the protest against government corruption, incompetency, cover-up, and civil liberties violations. Her laundry list of injustices she wants to correct goes on and on, and extend to calling for Presidential impeachment. While there is some support for her claims, and indeed overwhelming evidence in many places, her manner of speaking out with much passion and anger has alienated those who would otherwise agree with her in some circles. She is highly confrontational.

In any case, Cynthia McKinney has responded to the draft movement by announcing her candidacy for the Presidency, under the Green party. She speaks for many Americans who have lost faith and hope in their government, and she is neither the first nor the loudest to have pointed out how out-of-control the United States government appears and how it seems to be sinking into corruption.

She can count on some support from both African-American and women voters, as well as the beleaguered Green party, and she just may unite the various groups which have never ceased to protest since the day Bush took office. Seeing as how Bush polls as one of the least popular Presidents ever, that could turn into a lot of votes.

One of the founding principles of our system of government is ?one man, one vote.? The implication is that every citizen gets one vote in each election and that each vote will have the same potential impact on the outcome of the election as any other person?s vote. The implication is also that, in a perfect world, no citizen will ever be denied his or her right to that vote and that all will be able to and will willingly engage in the privilege of voting for their elected officials freely, openly and eagerly.

Now, right away we can think of exceptions to how this principle works out in reality that might cause us to doubt the validity of the ?one man, one vote? system. But we should not let that happen. Because despite these kinks in the system, the democracy of the election system is still fundamentally intact.

When this thing that has often been called ?The Great American Experiment? got underway, our system of voting, elections and the rule of the people was virtually untried at a national scale such as it was envisioned by the founding fathers. Much of the language that is so poetic in our cornerstone documents such as the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence read like philosophical treatises rather than documents grounded in a hard fought awareness of reality.

But in a way, that?s a good thing. Yes, the authors of these documents were philosophers of their time. And yes, what they were describing in their vision of how this great new country would function was theoretical and based on political theory drawn from historical sources rather than immediate historical precedent. But we only have to look at the outcome to admire that it?s a good thing that the founding fathers were wiser than they were practical.

We as a people were not too small to live up to the high expectations of our founding fathers. Over the decades, amendments to the constitution were put in place, legal precedents were made and social attitudes changed so that more and more of the nation?s citizenry gained the same rights that all should have, to be able to vote in the elections of their country. Some of those landmark moments in history included?

* The fifteenth amendment which granted voting rights to African Americans.
* The fourteenth amendment which guaranteed equal protection of all citizens under the law.
* The nineteenth amendment which guaranteed voting rights for women.
* The civil rights act of 1964 which put further enforcement around these previous laws and amendments to assure equal treatment of all so access to the government is truly a right of all citizens.

Since these improvements to the original founding documents were put in place, phenomenal changes have taken place that provide concrete proof that the vision of the founding fathers was indeed something that could be a reality and not just the philosophical musings of an educated few.

One of the most noticeable social changes that has come along with the legal recognition of the rights of minorities and women to participate in the system is that the composition of the government has changed dramatically and that for the better. The three branches of government today would be virtually unrecognizable in the narrow world view that prevailed when the nation was born. But today it is common in any state in the union to see black mayors, women in congressional seats or in the governor?s mansions handling those responsibilities with the same wisdom and good judgment that male leaders tried to exhibit in previous decades.

These changes have had a positive effect not only on the fairness of how the government works but in the sense of enfranchisement all peoples feel for the affairs of the nation. Indeed, because we now see women, Hispanics, African Americans and people of all color and persuasion serving honorably in leadership, our policies are more equitable and we are much closer to having a government that really does represent the population of the nation.

Now we stand at a time when we could easily see a woman or an African American in the highest office in the land, the Presidency of the United States. And if that happens, we will see one more institution conform to the vision of the founding fathers where every citizen can participate at any level just as every citizen gets one vote.

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