Today we join the many thousands of voices mourning Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Entering Congress in '99, she was the first African-American woman to represent Ohio in the U.S. Congress. Jones chaired the House Ethics Committee and was a member of the Ways and Means Committee. “She poured her heart and soul into her job,” said fellow Ohio Congressional Representative Dennis Kucinich.

I first came across Jones in the November days after the 2004 election when Jones, who was raised in a working class home in Cleveland, was watching what had happened on election day and realizing that something had gone very wrong. Long lines and shortages of polling machines where one group of people lived; ease and efficiency of voting in the suburbs. In hearings set up by community groups, she confronted Ken Blackwell, the then Secretary of State -- the state's top election cop -- who also happened to work for the state Bush/Cheney campaign. She declared that there had been a systematic effort disenfranchise certain voters in '04.

Later, she made history, leading the house floor fight against certification of President Bush's re-election. "How can we possibly tell millions of Americans who registered to vote, who came to the polls in record numbers... to simply get over it and move on?" The moment is captured on Michael Moore's film Farenheit 911. Where there was no one willing to object in 2000, in 2004 there was Ms. Jones. We'll miss her. She knew that while it may be wrong to shout fire in a crowded theater, in a burning one, it's the only right thing to do.

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