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Comment October 10, 2003
American Muslim organizations
and the CA recall election
American Muslim organizations made history when they delivered a bloc Muslim vote in 2000 elections in favor of President George Bush. The American Muslim Political Coordination Council - an umbrella organization representing major American Muslim groups: Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Muslim American Congress (which includes both AMA and AMC), and Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) - was instrumental in achieving the bloc Muslim vote.
However in the Oct. 7 election, to recall California’s Governor Gray Davis, the role of the AMPCC at best may be described as confusing and at worst, irresponsible and misleading. The AMPCC advisory was clear on endorsements on the side issues of the election, i.e. propositions 53 and 54. However, it failed to guide the community on the major issue: who should be the next governor if the Californians vote YES to recall. And this actually happened as Governor Davis has been recalled and Arnold Schwarzenegger has been voted to replace him.
On September 29, the AMPCC-PAC issued an election advisory that advised the Muslim voters to say No to Proposition 54 and Yes to Proposition 53. However, on the recall, that was the basic and most significant issue of the election, the AMPCC advisory was naive. While rejecting the recall, it failed to advise to name any gubernatorial candidate if the recall is voted Yes. The AMPCC-PAC gave the following justification for its decision: “We have determined that Peter Camejo (Green Party) and Cruz Bustamante (Democrat) have met with community leaders and have articulated positions that are seen as beneficial to California, we feel that it is better not to issue a recommendation at this stage and ask the community members to vote their own preference.”
Now let us see how seriously the AMPCC statement was taken by its component organizations. The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) in its press release of Oct 2nd, briefly mentioned the AMPCC statement and gave a long justification for NO to the recall. The Council of American-Islamic Relations CA issued the AMPCC election advisory on October 7, the election day. In short, the AMPCC member organizations failed to provide appropriate and in time guidance to the California Muslim community .
It is not clear why the attitude of these major American Muslim organizations was half hearted and cool towards such an important issue. However, the most probable reason for not endorsing a candidate may be a disagreement among the AMPCC leaders over a candidate to replace Governor Davis. One group backed Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger while another group wanted to support Democrat Cruz Bustamante. Yet another organization may be in favor of the Green Party candidate Peter Camejo. The lackadaisical attitude gives credence to this theory.
In my opinion, the Muslim organizations should have played an effective and leading role in mobilizing the CA Muslim community (one of the largest in the nation) in the Oct. 7 election that came only one year before the presidential and congressional elections for which the AMPCC has an ambitious plan. Last August, at the sidelines of the ISNA convention, the AMPCC decided to launch an intensive drive to register one million Muslim voters and make civil rights a top issue in any endorsement of a presidential candidate in next year’s elections. The California recall election was an appropriate opportunity to begin implementation of their strategy. It is now more than two months when the AMPCC took the decision but we see no firm and significant step to execute its election 2004 plan.
In the final analysis, it will not be too much to say that the American Muslim organizations in particular and the seven-million strong American Muslim community in general, lack grassroots work that is a pre-requisite for any measure of political success.
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