There was something I’ve wondered about re the 2000 election between bush and gore…while the controversy was going on as to who won florida, it came to light that the u.s. constitution states clearly that if there’s a question about who should get the electoral votes of a state, it is to be decided by that state’s legislature…so suppose it hadn’t gone to the supreme court and was left to the florida state legislature of 2000…the state senate was republican-controlled and the state house was democrat-controlled…so the senate would’ve voted for bush to get the electoral votes and the house for gore…so nothing would have been settled…so what would have happened then? no point in agreeing on a consensus third candidate for the electoral votes, he wouldn’t have had enough to win and neither still would bush or gore:smack::smack::smack:
And still of an autumn night they say, with the White House on the
line,
When the campaign’s a ghostly galleon and both candidates cry, “'Tis
mine!”
When the road is a ribbon of ballots, all within easy reach,
A highwayman comes riding, riding, riding,
A highwayman comes riding, and punches two holes in each.
The U.S. Constitution says no such thing.
What you’re thinking of is the U.S. Code, which makes provision for failure to choose by the required day:
The law plainly reads that state legislatures do NOT automatically get to pick the electors, they need to pass laws determining how the electors shall be appointed, and the Florida Legislature had already done this. That law said that protests could be filed with Florida courts, and once that happens, appeals can go as high as the Florida Supreme Court. And if it is argued by either party that their decision violates federal law or the Constitution, then it’s off to federal court, and the case can certainly end up with the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Republican-controlled Florida legislature (“the philosopher-kings of Tallahassee,” to use Dave Barry’s immortal phrase) had adopted a “safe harbor” law that meant that Bush would get the state’s Electoral College votes if, IIRC, the Florida secretary of state’s certification of Bush as the winner held up.
See Jeffrey Toobin’s excellent The Nine for a good overview of the election mess of 2000.
What bothered me about 2000 was that Harris acted according to Florida state law in the certification. Obviously it was in the spirit of getting Bush elected but it struck me that the continual recounts and lawsuits and Palm Beach canvassing board circus seemed to do everything to nullify the legislature’s right to choose the manner of appointing their electors.
but it wasn’t a republican controlled legislature, only republican controlled state senate…the state house was democrat controlled, remember speaker of the house democrat lois frankel on the news every nite…maybe the senate would pick the president, bush, and the house would pick the veep, in this case lieberman, so in the end it would’ve been bush president and lieberman vice pres
And of course, ultimately, the Supreme Court found that FL courts had not followed the laws of their own state. I am not sure whatever happened to those Florida judges but it seems to me there were impeachable offenses committed by that court. The language striking down their decision made it pretty clear that the Supremes thought there was a lot of political partisanship at play there.
That is really the only roll the federal courts have. They are tasked with making sure that the lower courts do not create their own set of rules in a given case and apply the law as it exists. A state court has to do something pretty egregious to be smacked down by a federal court since a lot of leeway is given to the states to set and enforce their procedures.
Assuming there have been no loopholes left in the law then there are procedures for determining the correct outcome in every state. I am not aware of any such loopholes in the Florida laws and the Supremes struck down an attempt to create such loopholes in the Florida court.
And remember it is the US House of Representatives that COUNTS the electoral votes. And that was Democratically controlled. So the House could’ve rejected the votes that Florida sent and not chose to count them.
No, it is the United States Congress, meeting in joint session. In the event of a dispute the houses separate to vote on the dispute, and the result certified by the executive authority of the state stands unless overridden by both houses.
What Freddy said. The way to handle conflicting returns had been settled by laws written after the election of 1876. Part of the problem then was that the two parties controlled different houses of Congress so the Representatives chose one set of electors and the Senate chose the other set (and Oregon was just retarded 
).
In addition, the results are “counted” by the President of the Senate (aka the Vice-President) by tradition dating back to before Hayes v Tilden and I don’t know if that got legislated in by the post-1876 laws.
That didn’t exactly happen in 1876. Then as now the houses voted separately with concurrence needed to overturn the previously certified result. The difference in 1877 was that the “previously certified result” didn’t come directly from state government, but from state government as filtered through the 15-member Electoral Commission. The Electoral Commission was an ad hoc body created by an ad hoc law, the Electoral Commission Act of 1877.
In SC, FL, and LA, the outgoing Republican state governments certified and submitted Republican electoral votes (fraudulently in the case of LA, but if ever a fraud was justified, this one was, because Democrats had “won” the election by terrorizing and murdering black voters in the hundreds of thousands); the Electoral Commission approved the Republican votes; the Senate approved them; and the House disapproved; so the votes stood.
The Constitution assigns the responsibility of counting the votes to the President of the Senate:
The Constitution does not provide a mechanism for resolving disputes. That gap was filled first by ad hoc joint resolutions and laws covering one election at a time, and finally by the permanent law of 1887 which is still in effect.
But before the commission, the House was prepared to object to the disputed electoral votes and under Congressional rules at the time, those votes would be thrown out unless both the House and the Senate agreed to them. That would have thrown the election into the House.
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That’s an awfully revisionist view of events.
Harris did not act in accordance with state law, which called for an automatic recount due to the narrow margin. She decided that a manual recount would take to long and prevent her from certifying the results in a timely matter. The Gore camp sued to force the recount to continue, and the Florida Supreme Court agreed. The Bush camp sued to block the recount and SCOTUS agreed.
As **nametag **wrote, there was never any provision for the outcome to be sent to the Florida legislature for a decision. The legislature got to write the laws that determined what to do… the debate was over how those laws were interpreted. It was SCOTUS that ultimately nullified the Florida legislature.
Really?
Read the Circuit Court ruling by Sauls in Gore v. Harris. She was given by the court sole discretion to decide whether or not to take late returns. It was only after the certification that FlaSC stepped in and they never said Harris violated the law. The said the Circuit Court made the error in interpreting the law.
As for the recount, yes it is an automatic MACHINE count under Fla law which you convienently left out. The hand recounts have to be asked for as Gore did in 4 counties. Each county was allowed to submit reasons why she should accept their late returns and in a clearly partisan move she rejected all 4 - but according to the ruling at the time, this was her perogative.
nametag is right in that the legislature did not get to decide after the fact on their electors. 3 USC 5 specifies that the appointment of electors must follow the rules in effect when Election Day occurs so even if they wanted to split it 50/50 in the name of fairness, they couldn’t do it after the fact. IIRC, they did pass a motion stating that because of safe-harbor and that they were satisfied that law had been followed regarding certification that they would send the Republican electors. It was probably political bluster but it may have been genius. Suppose Gore wins on the recount and it is past safe-harbor. Two slates of electors votes and the results both get sent to Washington DC. Obviously it will be objected to and if it ends up in the House, each state gets 1 vote and I believe by a state-to-state breakdown along party majority lines that Bush would win.
So when you say she did not follow state law, it is you who is the revisionist considering she followed the statute AND judicial ruling in effect at the time.