HOME PAGE

US Muslims in politics
Muslims in election 2006
Election Watch 2006
Muslims in election 2004
Election campaign 2004
Dem Convention 2004
GOP Convention 2004
Post-Election 2004 brief
Muslims in election 2002
Muslims in election 2000
 

CONTACT US

American Muslim Voice
 

Rice News – Feb 15, 2001

“Muslims are now a public political force that should and will be taken seriously.”
Speakers consider role of religion in 2000 elections

BY B.J. ALMOND

Two weeks before the 2000 presidential election, the American Muslim Political Coordinating Council endorsed George W. Bush. More than 90 percent of Muslim voters in Florida chose Bush.

This and other examples of how politics and religion mix nowadays were presented during a Feb. 1 forum titled “Reflections on the Elections: The Role of Religion in the 2000 Elections.”

“Religion played a very major role in deciding the entire outcome of the elections,” James Reichley told Rice students, faculty, staff and other guests at the event hosted by Rice’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. A senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Graduate Public Policy Institute, Reichley was one of five panelists at the forum.

William Martin, the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Professor of Religion and Public Policy in Rice’s Department of Sociology, focused on the impact the Muslims had on the elections. The Muslim population in America is estimated to be 6.7 million, and more than 62 percent of Muslims over the age of 18 were registered voters in the 2000 elections.

“The dream of American Muslims is to organize themselves into an effective counterweight to Jewish voters, in numbers if not in expertise and influence,” Martin said.

After the four largest Muslim groups formed the American Muslim Political Coordination Council to provide consistent advice to Muslims on political issues and candidates, the council requested meetings with Bush and Gore. Bush met with the council, but Gore had to cancel his meeting to tend to matters at the White House. Bush won the council’s endorsement.

Surveys indicate that two-thirds of the 60,000 eligible Muslim voters in Florida went to the polls. “If Gore had gotten 58 percent of those 40,000 votes, as Clinton did in ’96, he would be our president today,” Martin said.

The Muslims united behind a candidate, proving they can deliver votes, he said. “I think it’s safe to say Muslims are now a public political force that should and will be taken seriously.”

This program was the first of three in the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Lecture Series on Religion and American Public Policy. Harry Chavanne is a former Rice trustee who was instrumental in building the Department of Religious Studies at Rice.

http://www.rice.edu/projects/reno/rn/20010215/Templates/religion.html