Fla. Senate Moves Slowly on Decision
By David Royse / The Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Florida Senate President John McKay said Friday he wants to take the weekend to read a report on whether state lawmakers should call a special session to pick the state's presidential electors. ``If it's the right thing to do, we're going to do it and if it's not the right thing to do, we're not going to do it,'' the Republican lawmaker said. Still, McKay and his staff were already working on strategy, deciding the GOP-dominated Legislature would name a slate of George W. Bush electors by resolution, rather than passing a law that names them.
Supreme Court Appears Divided In Vote Case
By Michael Kirkland / UPI Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON (UPI) - The Supreme Court of the United States appeared closely divided Friday between liberal justices who believe they should not second-guess the Florida Supreme Court, and conservative justices who believe the state court violated the Constitution. Texas Gov. George W. Bush is challenging the state court's post-Election Day extension of Florida's vote-counting deadline from Nov. 14 to Nov. 26, with a Bush lawyer telling the justices Friday that the state court "radically changed" the rules under which Florida voted.
Supreme Court Zeros in on Rights
By Anne Gearan / The Associated Press, Analysis
WASHINGTON -- It was an interesting role reversal: The conservative Rehnquist court, defined in recent years by its zeal to protect states' rights, struggled Friday to find its place in the contested Florida election. There was Chief Justice William Rehnquist himself, usually a doctrinaire defender of state authority, drilling away on the subject of a Florida state court's alleged misdeeds. "I don't agree with you," Rehnquist said in cutting off Al Gore's lawyer, Laurence Tribe, who had argued the Florida Supreme Court ruling that allowed continued hand recounts does not have federal merit.
Demonstrators Verbally Clash as Supreme Court Meets
By Wes Vernon / NewsMax.com
WASHINGTON -- Police were a bit nervous but well organized in keeping the pro-Bush and pro-Gore demonstrators apart outside the Supreme Court on Friday. Only the appearance of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton stirred things up beyond standard back-and-forth exchanges. But even their provocations elicited no more than an escalation in rhetoric.
Federal Appeals Court To Consider Florida Recounts
United Press International
ATLANTA (UPI) - A federal appeals court in Atlanta announced Friday it will hear arguments Tuesday on whether hand recounts of presidential ballots in selected Florida counties are unconstitutional. The appeal was brought by the campaign of Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Lawyers for Democrat Vice President Al Gore sought the recounts, some of which were included in the state's certified vote tally and cut Bush's margin to 537 votes.
Overseas Absentee Ballot Suit Dropped
United Press International
ORLANDO, Fla. (UPI) - The Orlando attorney who filed a Bush campaign lawsuit against Orange County, Fla., over overseas absentee ballots said Friday the case has been dropped, WESH-TV of Orlando reported. The suit claimed some ballots had been disallowed for political reasons.
Hundreds Of Convicted Felons Voted In Florida
United Press International
MIAMI, Fla. (UPI) - After reviewing almost 500,000 votes in 12 Florida counties, the Miami Herald reported Friday they had identified at least 445 convicted felons who voted on Nov. 7. Of those, the Herald found nearly 75 percent were registered as Democrats.
"Out-Lawyered" Bush Beefs Up Legal Team To Face Gore
By Kathy Gambrell And Mark Benjamin / United Press International
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (UPI) - The campaign of Gov. George W. Bush unveiled
a tough new legal team Tuesday to defend against Vice President Al
Gore's election challenge in Florida. Attorneys said the new force
includes some of the best trial lawyers in the country, seemingly
hand-picked to take on Gore's legal team headed up by legal star David
Boise.
Impatience With Gore Growing
By Susan Crabtree / Roll Call
While Hill Republicans this week expressed confidence that the tide of public opinion had turned against Vice President Al Gore and his crusade for the presidency, Democrat leaders scrambled to staunch a wave of defections and allow him one last chance to gain the legal upper hand. Reacting to mounting public pressure for the Vice President to concede, in several conference calls this week with key Congressional Democrats the Gore campaign pleaded for continued patience as a number of Democrats declared Dec. 12, the deadline for states to appoint presidential electors, a deadline for Gore as well.
Bush Looks To Democrats
By John Bresnahan / Roll Call
Confident he will be the next president, Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R)
is targeting "four to five" House Democrats for top posts in his
administration, according to GOP sources. Senior Bush aides and
political allies have begun to look at several Democrat lawmakers,
including Reps. Ralph Hall (Texas), Charlie Stenholm (Texas), Collin
Peterson (Minn.) and Alan Boyd (Fla.), as well as Sen. John Breaux
(La.), as possibilities for administration positions.
Supreme Court Considers 'Right' To Vote
By Frank J. Murray / The Washington Times
The Supreme Court's search for a verdict on Florida's election gridlock forces it to revisit the court's 1892 declaration that Americans have no fundamental right to vote in presidential elections. The high court must decide how to reconcile that unanimous and binding view of Article II, Section 1 — that only state legislatures may decide how presidential electors are selected — and the Florida Supreme Court ruling that the state Constitution bars the legislature from imposing "unreasonable or unnecessary" restraints on the right to vote.
Supremes May Just Decide Not To Decide
By Maggie Mulvihill / Boston Herald
WASHINGTON -- As the nation waits for the Supreme Court, some legal scolars believe the nine justices might not rule on the presidential deadlock at all, but instead might just ``DIG'' it. In the high court's lingo, DIG stands for ``dismissed as improvidently granted.'' In other words, they could say that the case shouldn't even be before them. ``I think there is a good possibility they may sidestep the main issues,'' said U.S. Supreme Court scholar, Yale University Law Professor Akhil Amar yesterday.
Controversy Swirls Around Supreme Justice Breyer
DRUDGE REPORT
Justice Breyer, appointed by the Clinton/Gore administration, slipped during questioning and revealed just how Election 2000 has become a bitter battle split down partisan lines -- even inside of the land's highest court! Breyer stunned watchers inside of the courtroom as he grilled Joseph Klock, a lawyer for Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Justice Breyer framed the debate by stating: Whether we win, whether your side wins.
A Key Concern for Supreme Court: Avoiding Injury To
Itself
By Linda Greenhouse / New York Times Service
WASHINGTON -- "The case is submitted," Chief Justice William Rehnquist said at the end of the argument, using the verbal formula that means the preliminaries are over and the work of producing a decision is about to begin. Now what? The Hippocratic injunction to "first, do no harm" applies to judges as well as to doctors, even though it is not engraved along with "Equal Justice Under Law" over the Supreme Court's pediment.
The Judicial-Activist State; It's Not just Florida
By Ramesh Ponnuru / National Review
New court rulings have been denounced as swiftly or as harshly as the Florida supreme court's decision on the night of November 21. At issue was a state statute establishing that within seven days of an election, the results are to be certified. In order to give three Florida counties time to complete their hand recounts of the presidential ballots, the court threw out the seven-day deadline and replaced it with a new one of its own devising.
Will Brethren Rule for Brethren to Protect All Courts?
By Dion Farganis and Gordon Silverstein / The Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON -- Court watchers said the U.S. Supreme Court would never touch the Florida recount mess. They were wrong. Then the wise ones split: Some argued that the court was merely being courteous, lending its legitimacy to help move the country toward a resolution; others presented the case as another opportunity for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to add to his legacy of supporting states' rights.
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