Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Seven years ago today, The Supreme Court put the screws to the American people



Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), is the United States Supreme Court case heard on December 11, 2000. Do you remember we had to wait over a month to find out who "won" the election? It only took the court one day to render a decision.

In a per curiam opinion (ed's note: A "per curiam" decision is delivered in an opinion issued in the name of the Court rather than specific justices. In short, I think it means no one personally wants the stink upon themselves of their almost criminally partisan decision) by a vote of 7-2, the Court (to at least one of their rumored later regrets) held that the Florida Supreme Court's scheme for recounting ballots was unconstitutional, and by a vote of 5-4, the Court held that no alternative scheme could be established within the time limits established by Florida Legislature.


The decision ended the whole circus—thousands of lawyers and observers, fixers, and spin-meisters, bagmen, horse-traders, and talking heads flown in to the swampy scene of massive voter fraud and election board malfeasance—and allowed Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris's previous certification of George W. Bush as the winner of Florida's electoral votes to stand. Florida's 25 electoral votes gave Bush, the Republican candidate, 271 Electoral College votes, defeating Democrat Al Gore, who had won the majority of the popular vote. Al Gore went on to become a crusader for the environment, and win the Nobel Peace Prize. George Bush presided over an unpopular war, episodes of criminality in the White House, and numerous domestic disasters, economic setbacks, and an enemy attack on U.S. soil, and will probably be remembered best for the war he fomented, and his cure for all that ails the country, and world—widespread retrenchment of civil liberties.


Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 11, 2000
Decided December 12, 2000

Full case name: George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, Petitioners v. Albert Gore, Jr., et al.
Docket #: 00-949


Citations: 531 U.S. 98; 121 S. Ct. 525; 148 L. Ed. 2d 388; 2000 U.S. LEXIS 8430; 69 U.S.L.W. 4029; 2000 Cal. Daily Op. Service 9879; 2000 Colo. J. C.A.R. 6606; 14 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 26

Prior history: On writ of certiorari to the Florida Supreme Court

Argument: Link to Oral Argument

Holding: "In the circumstances of this case, any manual recount of votes seeking to meet the December 12 “safe harbor” deadline would be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. "

Court membership: Chief Justice: William Rehnquist; Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer


Concurrence by: Rehnquist
Joined by: Scalia, Thomas
Dissent by: Stevens
Joined by: Ginsburg, Breyer
Dissent by: Souter
Joined by: Breyer; Stevens, Ginsburg (all but part C)
Dissent by: Ginsburg
Joined by: Stevens; Souter, Breyer (part I)
Dissent by: Breyer
Joined by: Stevens, Ginsburg (except part I-A-1); Souter (part I)
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