RationalWiki is not unbiased, but it’s not a political-partisan site either. Its bias, generally, is towards, you know, reason. (Whaddaya want? Reason has a liberal bias.)
I’m not that familiar with the site but the quote reads like something off of Daily Kos.
So you’re purporting as an unbiased source something calling a judge “quite possibly the dumbest trial judge in the State of Florida”, and calls George W. Bush the “public representative of Dick Cheney.” If you really think that’s an example of rational because “whaddya want reason has a liberal bias” then you’re not to be taken seriously on what you think is and is not a source worthy of serious consideration.
I recall a local election here in the Chicago suburbs some years ago which relied on similar paper ballots. There was a dispute as to whether ballots marked with a check-mark or vertical line should count; not sure how it resolved, but I’m guessing some subjective standard (read: vote of the election commissioners) was ultimately required.
For Bush v. Gore, a plausible legal argument based on subjective standards could have justified either candidate winning. SCOTUS would have been criticized no matter which way they went. The fact that the main question on the recounts (which ultimately decided the issue) broke along strict partisan lines and that the decision was written such that it couldn’t be cited as precedent only underscored that subjectivity and made the decision seem partisan.
As BrainGlutton notes, O’Connor’s newfound regret doesn’t seem to be with the decision itself, but the very fact that they agreed to decide it. That may reflect her belief that there was no way to make that decision objectively (or, at least, no way to avoid the perception of rampant subjectivity).
Could you please go back, READ post #9, and QUOTE the part you are purportedly paraphrasing?
I’ll wait. Thank you.
Again, something that you have no evidence Bush was involved in, period. I don’t care about the rest of it, there’s no evidence Bush stole or tried to steal the election, period. If you have evidence, post it. I’m not interested in a bunch of noise.
W was the “public representative of Dick Cheney.” Historians for the next thousand years will agree with little dissent.
Would it be fair to say that when it became clear that the election was going to be decided by judges and not voters, the legal representatives of Bush and Gore were naturally inclined to pursue the strategies they saw as offering the biggest advantage?
It’s not necessarily a “steal” (as has been pointed out, the real majority vote in Florida is unknown) for two opponents contending a close decision to angle for whatever is going to make the more favourable impression on the referee, while downplaying anything that favours the other guy.
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. The third time, lacking Auric Goldfinger’s resources, I think I’ll just take it to the Pit.
They both had legal teams headed by big name former politically connected types. So it’s definitely fair to say they both knew what was happening very quickly. In fact while it’s not generally expected the campaigns usually have some pre-staging for legal challenges whenever they think it might be necessary. Like the night of the 2012 election it was mentioned at one point that Romney had teams of lawyers ready to challenge close votes in some state he was expected to be close in (obviously it was never relevant.) But this is stealing in the same way that me going 12 rounds with someone is stealing with 2 of the judges rule for me in a questionable decision and the other rules for the other guy. It’s stealing in a meaningless sense of the word since the thief actually had no mens rea nor actively was part of anything improper.
Now, we’re talking about politicians here so none of them are pure, but there’s no real evidence that there was any master plan by anyone to actually steal the election. There was an extremely close vote, the first two counts went for Bush, and that ended up giving him the legal positioning he needed to ultimately get his electors certified in that State.
Here is what I remember: Ambiguous and never before tested election laws in Florida were causing a nightmare. In response to what they perceived as an illegal Gore recount, the GOP controlled Florida legislature voted to appoint a Bush slate of electors. If the recounts continued (either appropriately or not) Gore may have pulled ahead and we would have had competing slates of electors, each determinative of the ultimate outcome, and having to be decided by the House of Representatives.
The GOP controlled House would likely have elected Bush as President. The new Senate, however, was tied 50-50, and would fail to choose a VP by January 20. Bush could have then appointed Cheney under the 25th amendment, and been approved by the House and again, TIED in the Senate defeating a VP nominee. The country would have been governed by a President with appointed electors decided by the House of Representatives and a fight for a VP for months. SCOTUS almost had to step in.
And it did with one of the most disgraceful opinions in its history. Scalia and Thomas talking of the 14th amendment protecting Presidential candidates, and Breyer and Ginsburg bleating on about states rights. All partisan whores who wrote a decision so bad that they specifically said that it should have no precedential value.
But in the end, it was better than the alternative fight in Congress.
One other thing I remember: In the middle of that period where we didn’t know who was going to be the next president, Bush said we were facing a constitutional crisis. When a reporter asked him to explain the nature of the constitutional crisis, he stood slack-jawed with that stupid Bush expression. :smack:
I can’t remember what Ginsubrg and Breyer wrote, but this is an area where state law normatively is controlling. If the race that came down to the wire was for State Agriculture Commissioner, then it would have been a sure cert. denied for that very reason. The Republican majority had to flat-out invent reasons to hear the case rather than let the process in Florida play out.
Boy, its sure a good thing that Florida had a strictly non-partisan state AG, otherwise, it might have presented an appearance of partisan skulduggery, and that would be bad. Damn shame about that house falling from the sky on her sister.
Florida had a Democrat, Bob Butterfield, as state Attorney General in 2000.
I agree. But Breyer and Ginsburg NEVER defer to state law. If Gore was losing, they would have written an opinion talking about the 14th amendment and disenfranchising of blacks and other minorities. But since they state law supported their guy, they become freaking George Wallace on states’ rights.
And likewise, since their guy was losing in the state court, Scalia and Thomas became Earl Warren on the need for federal oversight of state process.
Except
So it is a Federal issue dependent on what the legislature has directed. That is why in this case the stautory deadline that Harris abided by was constitutional and could not be changed by SCOFla whereas any other election could be. The problem is that’s where it should have ended and not the whole clusterfuck it turned out to be.
I’m going to play devil’s advocate and say that when a law is in dispute, the courts are the place to solve that dispute. There were arguments that the deadline was able to be extended by the SOS in her discretion, but she didn’t use her discretion and refused in an arbitrary manner not to extend it.
If that is the case, can’t the FL SC step into the fray?
Quite right, Ms Harris was Secretary of State. She was in charge of certification of the election, which is the crux of the biscuit.