# Bush v Gore question
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-v-gore-question/583323
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 26, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-v-gore-question/583323 "2011-05-26T17:57:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-v-gore-question/583323/1 "2011-05-26T17:57:53Z")
I am reasonably familiar with the procedure for a petition for the issuance of a Writ of Certiorari to Supreme Court of the United States. I was going over the wikisource Bush v Gore Documents and found [this](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore/Certiorari/Order)
> [@](#):
>
> OCTOBER TERM, 2000
>
> Supreme Court of the United States
>
> DECEMBER 9, 2000
>
> Certiorari Granted
>
> No. 00-949 (00A504). Bush et al. v. Gore et al. Sup. Ct. Fla. Application for stay, presented to Justice Kennedy, and by him referred to the Court, granted, and it is ordered that the mandate of the Supreme Court of Florida, case No. SC00-2431, is hereby stayed pending further order of the Court. \*\*In addition, the application for stay is treated as a petition for writ of certiorari, and certiorari is granted. \*\*Briefs of the parties, not to exceed 50 pages, are to be filed with the Clerk and served upon opposing counsel on or before 4 p.m., Sunday, December 10, 2000. This Court’s Rule 29.2 is suspended in this case. Briefs may be filed in compliance with Rule 33.2 to be replaced as soon as possible with briefs prepared in compliance with Rule 33.1. Case set for oral argument on Monday, December 11, 2000, at 11:00 a.m., and a total of one and one-half hours allotted for oral argument. Reported below: 772 So. 2d 1243.
(Bolding mine)
1)From what I can see, the Court considered the Stay Application as a Petition for a Writ and the same was granted. So did i) the Bush campaign not appeal in the first instance and if so, did the US Supreme Court grant relief beyond what was asked by the Applicants?
1. I am aware that unlike most commonwealth countries, the SCOTUS disposes of Cert Petitions on papers. But would’nt a Stay Application be argued orally and secondly would’'nt it in any case have been asked as a matter of course in the appeal petition.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-v-gore-question/583323/2 "2011-05-26T18:00:37Z")
SCOTUS can do whatever it wants. The law is what they say it is.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-v-gore-question/583323/3 "2011-05-26T19:08:20Z")
Courts only have power that is given to the by Law. Even ultimate Courts in a hierarchy,
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-v-gore-question/583323/4 "2011-05-26T19:36:08Z")
At a guess, it looks like they applied for a stay to Kennedy J. as the SCOTUS judge responsible for that circuit, which may have had quicker time-lines than an application for certiorari to the Court itself? That may have been in the expectation that he would refer it to the Court, which would treat it as a request for cert?
As for the oral hearing, I don’t think they would have an oral hearing for a stay application - they simply get too many applications from across the country. I’ve always understood that most hearings in SCOTUS are paper hearings, not oral.
Maybe one of our US law-dopers can cast light on it?
Aside:
> [@](#):
>
> 1. I am aware that unlike most commonwealth countries
In Canada, leave applications to the SCC are also paper hearings, although occasionally the Court will hold an oral hearing on a leave application.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-v-gore-question/583323/5 "2011-05-26T20:25:26Z")
^
To clarify I meant that the it was my (mistaken?) belief that Commonwealth Courts could and did have oral hearings at times to decide the issue of leave, unlike the SCOTUS which never did.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-v-gore-question/583323/6 "2011-05-26T20:29:05Z")
> [@AK84](#):
>
> Courts only have power that is given to the by Law. Even ultimate Courts in a hierarchy,
In the US, the SCOTUS decides what is and is not the law. It’s called a Constitutional Crisis if the rest of the government disagrees. Of course they do stick somewhat to the Constitution, which we bothered to write down.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2011, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-v-gore-question/583323/7 "2011-05-27T04:58:23Z")
> [@AK84](#):
>
> ^
> To clarify I meant that the it was my (mistaken?) belief that Commonwealth Courts could and did have oral hearings at times to decide the issue of leave, unlike the SCOTUS which never did.
Can only speak for Canada, but here there was a right to an oral leave hearing until the late 1980s, when Parliament amended the Act to make oral leave hearings optional, in the discretion of the Court. The Court occasionally has an oral leave hearing, but my guess is that it’s not more than one or two a year.