Talk:William J. Jefferson

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This page is about an active politician who is running for office, is in office and campaigning for re-election, or is involved in some current political conflict or controversy.

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[edit] Corruption Investigation

Looks like the guy got caught up in a Nigerian letter scam. Bringing broadband services to Nigeria? Mountains of cash stored in fridges? Weird. See [1]

I took out the comment about 'dollar bill', its a cheap insult that diminishes the following paragraph on the criminal investigation. This guy is going down, there is no need to make a cheap insult, facts and indictments speak much louder. --Gorgonzilla 01:34, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Political History

So, I put in an edit in which I said Bill was the first African American elected to a state office since Reconstruction. Which was how, as I recall, during his campaign we worked on things. Not to dismiss Sidney Bartholemew, but he's Creole, which in New Orleans and Louisiana politics is an entirely different thing. Also, in my edit, I mentioned that Bill was a Republican, which was also edited out. So ... discuss?Tall Girl 07:06, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  • While he is definitely a Creole, as near as I can figure, Barthelemy considered himself black and was generally considered to be black during his political career. Every published account I can find that mentioned Barthelemy's race referred to him as African-American. While there might be cultural and political differences between the Creole and 'Anglo' or 'Protestant' segments of New Orleans's African-American populations, politicians like the Morials, Barthelemy, Lambert Boissiere, and Nagin would all be considered both Creole and black. Of course, the fact that there are also white Creoles might complicate things a bit. Also, Dutch Morial was first elected as a state representative in 1967, predating both Barthelemy and Jefferson. It might be more accurate to call Jefferson the first non-Creole African American elected to a state office since Reconstruction. --Praxedis G 18:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I'll consider that as an edit if I can figure out a way to word-smith that so it makes sense to people who are less familiar with Louisiana politics. Pardon the pun, but distinctions between Creole and non-Creole blacks are part of what makes Louisiana politics so colorful. Oh, and thanks for the tidbit about Dutch. Learn something new every day!Tall Girl 07:16, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
  • As for the party affiliation, I only took it out because I assumed it was a mistake. Before being elected, Jefferson had worked for J. Bennett Johnston, a Democrat. He was also later a prominent local Democratic leader (his political organization in the 80s and 90s is/was called the Progressive Democrats). The campaign literature from his first state senate race (available in the UNO library's vertical file collection) doesn't mention either a Democratic or Republican party affiliation, but mentioned his endorsement by several Democratic political groups. Of course, if you worked on his campaign and say he was originally a Republican then I'll comfortably take your word for it; I just haven't been able to find any printed sources to back that up as of yet. You can change it back if you want.--Praxedis G 18:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Admittedly it's been 26 years, so my memory could be faulty. My recollection is that he ran at the same time as David Treen, who was definitely a Republican. Additionally, David Duke (remember him?) was a Democrat at the time and later switched to the Republican Party. At this point I think the best thing to do is write Bill's office a note. If it turns out that my recollection is correct I'll be sure to be crisp about his change in party affiliation and add whatever historical perspective is needed for it to all make sense.

Tall Girl 07:16, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I have a call out to Bill's office and hopefully they'll actually return it ...

Tall Girl 23:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not resigning is news

Actually the fact that a pol calls a press conference to announce that they are not going to resign is pretty much the most significant thing they can do career wise short of actually resigning.

It is usually followed by another press conference...--Gorgonzilla 20:31, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

The text of the speech is available on TPM http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000656.php. Even though this is a partisan source it is partisan left and Jefferson is a Democrat. --Gorgonzilla 22:05, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed external link

I've removed the following from the "External links" section because it's not linked to anything external to Wikipedia (and even then, only the date).

  • Grady, Bill. "Mayor's runoff: one goal, two contenders." The New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 23, 1986.

Perhaps whoever added it meant it to be a "Reference"? If so, add it back in an appropriate section. - dcljr (talk) 01:26, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Total removal?

Why did we just eliminate all the information about the current investigation? Chadlupkes 19:36, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

That was User:Nolagrl with a total of three edits, using all three to delete negative data and add "positive" (pity poor me type) unsourced data. WAS 4.250 22:30, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why was {{Project Congress}} deleted?

Why was {{Project Congress}} deleted? It's being added to all the folks who have served in Congress. -- Sholom 03:11, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Well . . . nobody answered, so I put it back in. -- Sholom 20:41, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Please, nothing is so urgent that you can't wait more than a day. As someone else said, this is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. We have to get it right, not get it first. Let's all try to slow things down a bit.

You're right. We do have to get it right, rather than first. OTOH, as it's already in some 500 other Talk pages, (and it wasn't even part of the article, just the Talk page) I felt a high degree of certainty that it was, indeed, right. Apologies if I came off as rash. -- Sholom 21:36, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Early life and career

The off-line source is definitely authentic; I looked it up via microfilm at the library I work at and read it myself. It's a biographical profile of Jefferson written by the Times Picayune - the New Orleans daily newspaper - during his campaign for mayor in 1986. Aside from campaign material put out by Jefferson himself (which likely to be biased), it's the best source for his early life that I've been able to find. --Praxedis G 11:30, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Objectivity

I'm not pro-Republican, although I've been balancing the anti-Dennis Hastert reports with the DOJ denials. And I'm not pro-Democratic, although I changed "caught ... taking a bribe" to "filmed ... receiving" the money.

I just think we should avoid taking sides. Let the facts speak for themselves.

The FBI says they have Jefferson on film taking money. Fine, maybe that will be evidence in a case, or maybe he'll cop a plea. We are in no hurry, we do not need to prejudge him. Any more than we have to prejudge Hastert. Take it easy, slow down, and be accurate. Only newspapers have to "get it first". We are an encyclopedia, we have to "get it right". --Uncle Ed 20:03, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Let's also remember NPOV -- "bribe" isn't neutral, it's negative. If the film shows him getting a bag full of money, that's what should be written. As others have said on countless other pages, if we report the facts, the facts will eventually speak for themselves. Okay? -- Tall Girl 20:01, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm new here, but on the subject of objectivity ... I'm curious as to the necessity of nicknames such as "cold cash" being added into the person's given name as they were in this case. It gives the appearance of bias, IMO. ~~WendyMG~~

Thanks; that was a bit of editorializing by someone that has since been reverted. Yes, we need to try to stick to the facts here and leave editorializing for non-encyclopedic contexts. -- Infrogmation 02:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Needs cleanup

Not all cited links are properly cited via the {{cite}} template, and others aren't even referenced via <ref>. These should be updated, but it's tedious and takes a bit of time if only one person tries to do it. -Matt 03:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Democrat LA

The insertion of (Democrat Louisiana) after every single occurrence of his name is clearly unnecessary. The motives of this decoration are pretty clear from the fact the person felt the need to insert it into the sentence 'Jefferson (Democrat Louisiana) is a Democratic Party member of Congress for Louisiana'.

Standard style is to refer to the full title of a person the first time their name appears in the article and thereafter use the principle name in the rest of the article. We do not mention that Tom DeLay is a former republican for texas at every point in his article. Moreover given the fact that Jefferson is about to be expelled from the Democratic Party, notwithstanding the idiots in the Black Caucus trying to defend him it is pretty pointless POV insertion. --Gorgonzilla 22:17, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] House Removal, not Democratic Caucus

To clarify a point seemingly under contention: only the full House ultimately has the authority to strip a committee member of his seat. The Democratic Caucus voted on Thursday, the full floor vote was taken on Friday. This should be clear from the provided sources, but in case anyone feels they are ambiguous, I found this in the Indianapolis Recorder[2]: "The entire 201-member caucus was set to vote on the issue June 15. If the Caucus passes the motion for the removal of Jefferson, the action will be taken to the floor for a full House vote."--MikeJ9919 23:21, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I made the first set of edits after the Caucus vote but before the vote by the whole house. In practice the whole house vote is a procedural formality since each party is left to decide who to put on committees themselves. In theory the majority party could award no committee seats to the minority. The story should make it clear that the decision was made by the caucus and ratified by the whole house. One other point that should probably go in there but I have not found a decent quote for was the alleged complaint from the 'black caucus' (looks more like just the chair) that Jefferson was being treated differently from Mollohan. This claim simply does not hold water since Mollohan was also asked to resign as ranking member on ethics and did so. There is in any case something impossible to explain about $90,000 in cash hidden in the freezer. --Gorgonzilla 15:04, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I think the new wording by Neutrality (cleanup by me) addresses this appropriately.--MikeJ9919 17:42, 19 June 2006 (UTC) Followup: I mean with regards to the made / ratified language.--MikeJ9919 19:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Katrina?

No mention of the Katrina aftermath scandal? Dubc0724 20:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Added it. Herr Lip 08:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Significance of Pelosi speech paragraph?

The paragraph referring to Rep. Pelosi's speech on the radio conveys no significant information and is not connected to the subject of this article. Her speech makes no reference to Jefferson, or to any other individual. Listing topics that she did not refer to in the course of a 2 minute radio speech tells us nothing about what was included in the speech, and gives us no information on which to infer her motive in not including the topic. Matt605's comment on the History page reinserting the paragraph are clearly from his own POV: "don't exclude pertinent facts. ethics was said to be a Pelosi priority, but 24 hours later was not. that's balance and npov." But that ethics was not a Pelosi priority is not implied because she went 120 seconds in a scripted radio address without mentioning it, just as we cannot imply that Bush was unconcerned with ethics because he gave a similar address the same day and made no mention of ethical conduct either(http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060617.html). If the paragraph had simply stated as a fact that Pelosi stopped caring about ethics in the course of 24 hours (which Matt605 intends the language to imply), and cited the radio address as proof, it would clearly be struck as POV. For these reasons, I've deleted this paragraph.

[edit] Democrat or Democratic?

I've noticed one of the recent revisions involved changing Democratic to Democrat, and then back again. Is there a written Wikipedia policy concerning the prefered form of the party or does it just depend on the whim of the editor? Rockules318 17:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The correct name of the party is "the Democratic Party". The colloquial term for an individual who is a member of that party is "a Democrat". -- Infrogmation 23:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible São Tomé/ Nigerian oil ties

I recently read an article, and I'm wondering whether it should be referenced or not, I'll leave it to one of you guy's since you're probably more intelligent in the matter. Basically, according to a publically filed U.S. subpeona, FBI raids of the ERNC's (A São Tomé based oil company plagued with corruption charges) Houston offices, turned up with a folder labeled "William Jefferson". It's pretty interesting stuff, here's the link http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/02/business/oil.php?page=2 It's only a mention in the article, so if someone can find the actual subpeona online, I guess that would be favorable/awesome. -vince

[edit] Unbalanced

Surely someone somewhere defends Jefferson, or likes the congressional work he's done; he keeps getting elected. I don't like the man, and think he should go to jail, but the article as it currently stands is unencyclopedic by failing to have any record of his congressional career, and thus violates NPOV. THF 12:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

This is atough one. There are a few good works of his mentioned but not much. I can definetly see where the page violates Neutrality but I'm iffy, with regardsto weight. There probably does need to be more about supporters and his works mentioned in the article but I don't know of any and don't have the time to look itup now.--Dr who1975 18:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed Unbalanced

I edited out many redundant negative references, as well as material I thought less important, like nicknames. For example, I deleted a comment he could go to jail for life; the 16 indictments mentioned just before already make clear this is serious stuff. Also removed some vandalism. On reflection, I removed the "unbalanced" tag. It's much more balanced than it was, but I will not object if someone chooses to re-instate it. DaveBurstein (talk) 05:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Broken references

I don't understand how references work, so I can't debug this, but the end of the document shows up as template garbage. Unbalanced parens somewhere? 128.135.191.205 (talk) 01:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)