Posted on 11/16/2001 1:24:45 PM PST by Texaggie79
Warning! Only those with strong stomachs and BS wading boots may proceed.
NEW YORK
Months after The Miami Herald recount of the decisive Florida ballots in the 2000 presidential election showed that Al Gore received more votes than George W. Bush, journalists for The New York Times have come to the same conclusion. In the most dimwitted attempt at spin since supply-side economics, however, the paper's headline belies the text beneath.
"Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote," November 12th's Times announced, sending shudders of relief through the ranks of conservatives concerned that the public might someday catch a clue about December's sleazy judicial coup d'état. The Herald recount had found that Bush lost seven of eight different ways to count the Florida ballots-the eighth was the method that the Bush campaign had filed a lawsuit to prevent. The Times used five methods, three of which find that Gore won.
Interestingly, Gore's request for recounts in just four heavily-Democratic counties turns out to be the mathematically-challenged misstep many analysts considered it to be at the time. (Fishing for Gore votes in a recount would have been more productive in Republican-dominated counties, where local officials would be more likely to throw out Democratic ballots. Hopefully Gore would have looked outside his campaign for help with future questions of logic.) The four-county-only recount shows Bush winning by 225 votes, or 2,913,351 to 2,913,126.
But Florida state law, the basis for the Florida Supreme Court ruling, dictates that each county must use its own standard for evaluating flawed and uncertain ballots. Had the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Bush's case, Gore would have won by 171 votes.
Here's the crucial element: When powers were divvied up in the early days of our republic, the federal government got to make war and the states got to count votes. Elections, even national elections, fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the 50 states. So when George W. Bush turned an electoral matter into a legal one by filing suit, the highest court with jurisdiction was the Florida Supreme Court. On December 8, 2000, the Florida court voted 4-to-3 to conduct a careful manual recount of the so-called "undervotes"-ballots with partially-punched chads, for example. The court ordered each county to subject those undervotes to its own standards, which also meant including analyses of "overvotes"-ballots punched with the names of multiple candidates.
Had that recount been completed, Gore would have won Florida, and the Presidency, by 171 votes.
A few hours later, however, the Osama bin Ladens of American democracy swept in. The U.S. Supreme Court issued an injunction to stop the recount, accepting the Bush campaign's argument that a recount might "damage" Bush. Facing a midnight deadline for the selection of state electors three days later, they ruled 5-to-4 to overturn the Florida court ruling.
Let any American who cares about fairness understand this: The U.S. Supreme Court had no business hearing Bush's appeal. The Constitution is clear; they should have returned the case to the Florida Supreme Court. Because they didn't, their decision was illegal. Dressing up an illegal act in black robes under some impressive Corinthian columns doesn't make it valid.
In the end, however, the never-ending quarrel over recounts only obscures the jurisdictional issue. Because the U.S. Supreme Court overruled a court over which it had no power, Bush still would have lost the election even had he emerged from the newspaper recounts with a big victory. He was anointed, not elected.
Bush's backers spent far too much money on him to take a chance on the uncertainties of electoral politics. Perhaps a recount would go their way, they undoubtedly considered in late November and early December; perhaps not. But Cheney & Co. aren't gamblers. They preferred to put their confidence in a Republican-majority U.S. Supreme Court, the institution which will always serve as their sole claim to legitimacy.
Bush didn't trust us. Why should we trust him?
Hey, Rall - SCOTUS tried that once. SCOFLA didn't pay attention. Why did you fail to mention that in your column? Oh, that's right, because it makes your point moot...
Although I find Rall's sudden conversion to federalism heartening, I wonder why he never has questioned federal court activism in the past...
Thank God the Presidential election was not decided only by people who couldn't figure out how to punch pre-cut holes in a piece of paper.
But does it dictate that those standard may change in mid count, or that standards that had been used in the past be tossed out for new standards made up on the fly?
"The U.S. Supreme Court had no business hearing Bush's appeal. The Constitution is clear; they should have returned the case to the Florida Supreme Court."
Uh, no. Article III of the US Constitution is clear that federal court jurisdiction extends to "all Cases . . . arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States . . . ." The Bush team asserted that the Florida Supreme Court's ruling violated both the US Constitution and federal statutory law.
Odd how this applies to the Florida Supreme Court (SCOFLAw) as well.
"Yes. It was by James Glassman and someone else."
"Above the fold? Hell, above the fold, below the fold, on the back page, in the middle, and on the sports page."
It was by James Glassman and someone else
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