GOP Goes Nuclear

Great Debates
1

I’m getting more than a little concerned by the vehemence of the GOP reaction to Tuesday night’s FL Supreme Court ruling. They can’t driticize the substance of it, but they’re mad as hell about the outcome, which shows their fundamental hypocrisy. They’re lying about the decision, pure and simple, saying things about ‘judicial activism’ and ‘rewriting the laws’, claims that are dashed by a reading of the decision itself.

What they’re cynically relying on is that, even amongst the talking heads, few people will take an hour to sit down and read the decision.

And, in the wake of the decision, they’ve taken things to a whole new level, where any tactic is fair game, by their lights. The appeal to the Supreme Court doesn’t mean much by itself, but in concert with rumblings about overturning the result in Florida either in the FL legislature, or in the U.S. Congress, things are getting downright nasty.

E.J. Dionne, Jr. summed it up nicely, I think, when he said that Gore faced pressure from within his own party to call it quits if either the FL Supreme Court decision went against him, or if there weren’t enough votes after the hand recount. But there’s no comparable pressure on Bush from his party to fold under any combination of circumstances.

A number of Gore-leaning posters, and Gore voters I’ve talked to IRL, have suggested that the best outcome would be for the manual recount to be completed, but for Gore to lose even with those votes included. I’d agreed, at one point.

Now, I have come to see that as simply yielding to GOP blackmail. There’s an election in dispute, but their attitude is that any Democratic win is illegitimate, and there are no circumstances that will keep them from using all their available weapons to undo a Gore win on the recount. So we who favor the Democrat should yield, simply to maintain the peace. I guess we get to play the role of the wifey who tiptoes around her husband to make sure he doesn’t get mad at her for any reason, or for no reason at all. Well, fuck that shit.

And, of course, now that the GOP is opening up a multi-front war, it gives Gore license to open up fronts that he’d previously chosen to let go, such as joining the legal challenge to the Palm Beach ballot.

When one side goes nuclear, it’s possible that the other side might, too.

2

RTFirefly, do you just flatly dismiss the contention that the Court’s role in this was to hear any complaints made after the certification, NOT to assume the role of administering the certification (which they seem to have effectively done in setting deadlines and eliminating–not diminishing, eliminating–any discretionary power the SOS has)?

I’m not trying to be contentious (I don’t want to contribute to the notion that there is an untoward reaction from the Bush side). But I read the opinion (I read it, really) as what they wished the SOS had done. That doesn’t give them the right to install that wish as “law.” The very right they seem most concerned with–the need for ample time to consider complaints after a certification–would not have been damaged at all had the SOS certified at the first deadline. No one would have been disenfranchised, unless the courts were planning to ignore their duty to hear complaints.

The question is not whether they put a logical spin on why this was a Solomon-like decision (which it wasn’t, from my perspective)–the question is why they had any right or duty to interfere in this manner, at this point. Surely that’s a valid question???

3

The ruling (yes, I read it too) upheld the position that the governing statutes were in conflict. The SC’s FUNCTION is to decide which statute takes precedence, and how. Is “interfere” really the right word? Would you use that if the ruling had gone in a way that would have helped your candidate?

You don’t have to like court rulings, but you do have to respect them, if you want the ones that go your way to BE respected.

And I do agree with RTFirefly that the rhetoric we’re getting from the GOP “leadership” shows that they’re putting party over country in a way that damages us all. I have heard nothing of the sort from the Democratic side. But that just continues the pattern of recent years. My biggest concern is that a Bush election, with Tom DeLay and Trent Lott still holding the power in Congress, will be quickly seen as a vindication of it and mandate for more.

4

No, as was pointed out in another thread to me, the courts did not rule that there was an inherent conflict in the stautes (for example, there were recounted votes sent by the deadline that would have been certified). The Courts simply did not agree with the SOS that all circumstances were considered with the appropriate weight–they consider potentially disenfranchised voters to be paramount. That does not give them the right to override the legitimate power of another branch of the government.

So, I’ll ask for the 3rd time today (2nd time in this thread), why would allowing the certification at the first deadline–a power given to the SOS by legislation–have created disenfranchised voters, since there would have been ample time for complaints? THAT’S the process–what led us to believe there was a need to modify established rule to make a ruling on the impropriety of a certification that had not yet occurred by court order.

If one of the Court’s principal concerns was setting a deadline that would permit legitimate complaints post-certification, why was their decision needed at all, since that right would not have been damaged at all if the SOS had certified? THAT’S the point at which the courts have the right and duty to interfere. That’s when “disenfranchised” voters get their voice. It still ain’t over then, and–more than that–this is the established process.

To answer your last point, no, I don’t react to poor rulings with a “you win some, you lose some” contentment. I don’t disagree with this ruling because it hurts “my guy.” I disagree because it’s wrong. And in this case it’s an impropriety that subverts the democratic process. That’s why there will be an appeal–surely, you don’t begrudge this, given your faith in the judiciary?

5

What bothers me most is what would happen if the Republicans should lose Florida. The election can go two ways;

  1. Bush maintains his lead and wins by some few hundred votes. I expect this to happen. I believe that Gore will genially concede the election and try to meet with the governor again for some post-election unification.

  2. Gore wins, by one of the slimest margins, by less than 100 votes. The GOP would go ballastic at this point. Could the Bush campaign concede as graciously as Gore has given indications he would? I’m having my doubts.

Agreed, neither side has been acting particularly presidential in this post-election madness. If the GOP does lose, I ask them to concede as gracefully as possible, for the good of the country.

6

Thank you for saying it, RT…no one would have listened if I had. And you said it so well.

I have felt for ahwile, and it is now being said publicly, that the GOP is consumed with rage at Clinton, at their loss on impeachment, and they simply cannot be reasonable when confronted with the idea that they might lose to the Dems again. It has distorted their perception to such a degree that they have lost all sense of what’s right in their rabid pursuit of what they want, which is to beat the Dems in general, and beat Clinton, and by extension, Gore, in particular. Hillary’s win only added fuel to the fire.

I’m pretty sure that any way you slice it Al can’t win and they wouldn’t let him anyway. My only hope at this point is that they will continue to show just what nasty bullies they are, continue to behave badly, and watch in delight as we throw them out of office in the coming years.

stoid

7

what makes their behavior even more ridiculous is the fact that it’s a near certainty at this point, without Miami-Dade, that Gore won’t get the votes. They could, with a fair degree of comfort, relax and Bush will end up winning anyway. There’s only a couple of days remaining, the chances that the Dems can pull any more rabbits out of hats now are almost non-existant. Yet they still feel the need to fight the recount to the Supreme Court of the US, pursue the miliary ballots, fight the counting issues… it’s like they woke up late to what was happening and are choosing now, when they practically have it locked up, to react.

Which doesn’t say much about how bright they are.

Which is another completely strange thing… I’m hearing talk on TV and Radio about how the GOP wasn’t as smart, slick, clever, quick, etc (and less flattering terms, of course) at the beginning, and the way this is said by those sympathetic to the GOP, it sounds for all the world like they are proud of it. Excuse me… it’s good to be dumb? It’s good to not understand the situation you find yourself in and the possible ramifications of what others are doing? Whatever you may think of the Dems tactics, good or bad, it’s a POSITIVE thing that the republicans were slow to understand and react to them? This is GOOD in a president?

And I don’t hear many people reacting to the fact that the man who would be our president went on TV yesterday and mis-identified the functions of the three branches of government. And THIS does not concern people? They would rather have a guy who doesn’t know his own job, than one who is too clever by half?

<shaking her head in pure bafflement>

stoid

8

Once again, it becomes painfully apparent that the only outcome Stoid would like would be one that favors Gore…

<shaking his head in bafflement>

9

Oh God, I can’t believe the stubborness of those debating these things.

Bob Cos, you have been specifically told by me in more than one thread on this board that your interpretation of what that opinion did is incorrect, both as a matter of what was written therein and as a matter of application of law. Since you fail to understand, I will, one last time (I hope) set forth in simple English what the court did.

  1. The court was asked to interpret the application of two statutes: Section 102.111 and Section 102.112. The first section stated that the Secretary of State was required to ignore the reporting of late vote totals from county canvassing boards. The second section stated that the Secretary of State was allowed to ignore such results, and punished county canvassing boards for filing late totals. Inherently, these statutes conflicted, the first mandating the rejection of late votes, the second allowing their rejection after application of some undescribed in statute discretion by the Secretary of State.

  2. The court proceded to analyze this conflict by applying four rules of statutory ‘construction’ (used here to mean how the statue would be ‘construed’). The first rule of construction applied was that specific statutes take precedence over general statutes. The court felt that Sec. 102.111 was a general statute, and that Sec. 102.112 was a specific statute. The second rule of construction applied was that more recently enacted statutes will take precedence over older statutes in conflict with them. Here, Sec. 102.112 was enacted after Sec. 102.111. Thirdly, they applied the rule that no statute should be construed as to make meaningless other statutory provisions. Here, the fines discussed in Sec. 102.112 would be unnecessary if the mandatory provision of Sec. 102.111 prevented the Secretary of State from accepting late totals. Fourth and finally, the court applied the rule that statutory provisions governing a particular subject should be read with the overall picture in mind. Here, the court determined that, should there be no ability to accept late vote totals, then this would conflict inherently with the provisions allowing manual recounts to be requested as late as the day that the certification was due. In light of this, the court decided that the Secretary of State has discretion under the law to allow late vote counts in. (There were other reasons as well why they felt reading 102.111 as precluding inclusion of any late totals was an incorrect reading of the statutes in question).

  3. The justices reviewed both federal and state law regarding the importance of the right to vote, and determined that making sure the will of the voters is correctly determined takes precedence over following ‘technical statutory requirements’. This is further reason to read the statutes as allowing discretion.

  4. The court limited the discretion allowed under these statutes to the rejection of late totals once admission of those totals would either make the contesting of those totals as allowed under Florida law impossible or disenfranchise Florida voters in a federal election. The Secretary of State has NO other discretion under this decision; she cannot REJECT late totals for any other reason, and she must ACCEPT late totals unless one of those two reasons applies. This is not a surprising result, given Florida’s prior election law, including such cases as Beckstrom v. Volusia County Canvassing Board, 707 So.2d 720 (Fla. 1998).

  5. The court used its equitable jurisdiction to set a limit on when late totals in this election will be allowed. In doing so, it circumvented any attempt by the Secretary of State to set some earlier (or later, yeah, right) limit. I have opined that they did this to preclude further need for appealing additional adverse decisions of the Secretary of State to the spirit of Florida’s laws, as determined by the Supreme Court. I have also opined that, in so doing, the Court was on its shakiest ground, but was still within established law as to what the Court is empowered to do. Finally, one notes with some satisfaction that this ruling may indeed sink the Gore ship, by having caused Dade County to suspend its manual recount.
    Now, if you are going to debate these election issues, at LEAST do so with a correct understanding of what the court said, even if you aren’t happy with it or don’t agree with its reasoning (as, by the way, I don’t in a number of instances).

10

Very nice summary!

stoid

11

Geez guys, put a little balance in your commentary, will you?

Gore today is going to the Supreme court AGAIN, to have THEIR OWN deadline overturned. He wants Miami-Dade to complete the recount, because he needs it to win.

The Gore camp said today that if they lose in court, and lose the hand count, they’ll contest the election. So much for giving up if the recount goes against him, like almost everyone in both parties wants him to do.

Oh yeah, Gore is all sweetness and the model of fair play, isn’t he?

And BTW, Gore is now fighting for Miami Dade to keep counting, against their own judgement. He tried to force them to keep counting in a lawsuit in a lower court, and had it thrown out. Why do that? Why make them keep counting even if there is no way they can certify their results?

Simple. Because Gore has another end-game. If he loses the recount, but a late count from Miami-Dade shows that he WOULD have won if it had been accepted, he’ll keep mounting legal challenges. HE will go to the U.S. Supreme court over this. And he may even launch a populist campaign, hoping to get enough people to yell and march that there will be an overturn in the Electoral College. Anyone want to take a bet on that?

The Supreme Court’s ruling was that the deadline should be extended because of a conflict in the law that allows for manual counts, but doesn’t allow enough time for the largest counties to complete them. But they’ve simply replaced one conflict with another. The current deadline of Nov 26 now only allows 16 days (before the hard deadline of Dec 12) for the entire election to be contested. And that is potentially a much slower process, especially with ‘dimpled chads’ being counted. Essentially, if Gore wins and the Bush camp contests the results, it could come down to an examination of every disputed ballot by a review panel. There could be tens of thousands of these. If it’s impossible to review them in the time allotted (remember, it’ll take time to file the protest, get the re-count, assemble a panel, fight off the inevitable Democratic appeals, etc., before the count even starts), then the court has simply removed one conflict that favors Bush and replaced it with another conflict that favors Gore.

Yeah, those justices were a model of logical thinking and fairness.

12

Update: The Supreme Court threw out Gore’s request to force Miami-Dade to do the recount. The Gore campaign has now officially said that if the election is certified Saturday and Bush comes out the winner, they will contest the election. And it’s looking like that’s exactly what will happen. Gore is WAY short of the votes he needs, and the recounting is almost finished.

BTW, the Gore campaign was seeking to have only 10,700 ballots counted that were marked as undervotes, while ignoring all the rest. That was probably illegal anyway.

I don’t think either side has much of a claim on fairness and lack of hypocrisy in this whole affair. What we’re seeing is two guys who want power very badly, surrounded by people who have a lot to gain if they get that power, fighting tooth and nail to get it any way they can.

If you don’t think Gore is a hypocrite, let me remind you that he was the guy going around saying, “I just want a fair count, within the law. That’s all.” Then he appealed to the Supreme court to get the law overturned, and got it. Then it turned out that he wouldn’t be able to finish in time (largely because the canvassing commissions have been halted and slowed down many times by Gore lawyers demanding that they change standards for counting to favor Gore), so he went back to the Supreme Court to get his own ruling overturned. This was so egregious that the justices were contacted by the clerk and struck down the request unanimously in a matter of an hour or less.

There are no good guys or bad guys in this fight. It’s nothing more than trench warfare with lawyers on the front lines.

13

Please - they spent as much time saying exactly that as they did on any other point. Se DS’s detailed statement farther down.

The concern was, given the SoS’s background as well as her decision to simply ignore recounts, that any later complaints would also be summarily and unfairly rejected. You can see that, can’t you?

You have a LONG way left to go to make a case that it’s “an impropriety that subverts the democratic process” to summarily reject valid votes cast by We the People. Is your desire to get your man in office so strong as to ovveride the basic principles of democracy itself?

As for an appeal, what court do you think will hear it? This is a matter of state law, settled by the state supreme court. Only a serious flouting of the US Constitution would get it overturned by a federal court. Bush’s complaint that it’s unfair not to recanvass the whole state (!!! He’s turned that down several times, even to the FL SC itself) just won’t do it.

14

Hehehe - I left out the “not” in that sentence. You know what I meant, though.

15

Oh lord, that has got to be the winner for the most outrageous distortion yet on this board of what has been going on in Florida. You ARE kidding, right? I don’t suppose that Bush and the Secretary of State acting to stop the recounts at every turn might have had the smallest effect?

For a guy that is calling for balanced commentary, this is a pretty outrageous reach.

It wasn’t “his” ruling. It was the SC’s ruling, and while it appeared to favor Gore, he certainly wouldn’t have asked for a deadline of Sunday!

I disagree. I think there are definitely good guys and bad guys. And I think they are on both sides.

But I’m distressed at where its gone, that’s for sure. it has become incredibly bitter and desperate on both sides, and that disappoints me. I had hoped that Gore would come out of this a little better.

As for the Bush side, let us not forget that under all the niceties of running for office there is a blood feud. It is the son hoping to avenge the father, after all. And that feeds his anger and desperation.

It’s just fucked no matter what happens.

I do believe this: that the ultimate results of all this will be good. More people will vote, more people will vote more carefully, money will be spent upgrading the election systems, the election laws everywhere will be clarified and tightened… whatever the next president does or does not do, the big picture is the lessons learned for the whole country in this.

16

You’re right, Stoidela. I should have said that the counts were being delayed by lawyers from both sides.

However, specifically in the case with Miami-Dade, it really has been largely a fight between Gore’s lawyers and the canvassing commission. Remember, this is the county that originally said it didn’t see the need for a recount. Gore’s lawyers pressed them into doing a sample count. They did it, and then decided not to do a full count because they felt that the handcount showed that the machine count was accurate enough (i.e. there was no flaw in the machines). Gore’s lawyers hit them again, and they decided to do the full count. After they started, Gore’s lawyers started wrangling with them over the dimpled chad issue.

Then the canvassing commission decided to try for a best-of-both-worlds approach. They ran all the ballots back through the machines and sorted out the undervotes. Some 10,700 of them. They announced that they were only going to count these. Gore’s lawyers AND Bush’s lawyers challenged them on that - Gore wanted a full count, and Bush’s Lawyers pointed out that selecting out ballots for their ‘maximim effect’ in changing vote totals while ignoring other ballots was illegal.

After all of this, Miami-Dade came to the realization that they never had enough time to count even the 10,700, which would have had to be manually inspected for dimples. So they gave up. Gore’s lawyers took them to court, and lost. They appealed, and lost. They took their appeal to the State Supreme Court, and lost. That’s where it stands today.

I’ll grant you that I may have missed some Bush shenanigans in Miami-Dade along the way. There’s no question that both sides have an army of lawyers flooding the Sunshine State.

17

I might add that the Dade County situation does present a really tricky legal issue, one that would be very much fun to diddle around with in court if it hadn’t been mooted by the Florida Supreme Court’s deadline. Dade County makes a determination under the appropriate statute that a manual recount is necessary. To do this, they have to have made certain factual determinations. Once those determinations are made, the statute appears to require the manual recount. BUT, as the canvassing board noted, they couldn’t finish that recount in time, that is, by the deadline set by the Court. SOOOOOO, do they have to complete a recount, even if that recount can’t count? Common sense says no, and send the counters home to their turkeys. And I am willing to bet the Bush flacks who were SO insistent that ‘shall’ means ‘must’ aren’t going to insist that it means ‘must’ here. :wink:

18

Great. Wow, you’ve wounded me.

I assume you are referring to the answer you provided in this thread http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=47674. If you had looked you would have noticed that my post here was made prior to your response on that thread, so your characterization of my question as stubborn (for apparently having ignored your wisdom) is flatly wrong.

I asked you for clarification, given your apparent expertise (I do not have any real legal expertise, only a genuine interest in this matter). I asked for that clarification politely and in the interest of honest debate. You have responded in both instances discourteously when there was no need to do so. So, continue to roll your eyes and make snide remarks if you’d like, but don’t pretend I have ignored a response when that response did not exist when I posted in this thread.

And I did not need you to explain what the Court ruled; my most basic question was why the ruling was required at all. Your response to this, if I am understanding you, was that, “Attorneys often ask the court in situations like this to fashion remedies that prevent the need for endless appeals. Not always granted, but sometimes granted.” Great, that really helps clarify this sticky legal point. I appreciate it.

19

There’s a typo in the OP.

It should read :

GOP Goes Nucular

Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

IMHO this thing is degenerating fast, and has no hope of getting a fair settlement in the courts. The rhetoric heats up with no fair resolution in site. Each side spins over less every day. Every institution, from the canvassing boards to the US Supreme Court, is accused of being a political institution incapable of being fair. This is bad news which could lead to long term effects in our society, IMHO.

To me, as a scientist with no legal background, the whole shebang is a question of precision. If we have a thermometer with gradations of 1 degree, we do not read a temperature out to the nearest 1/10000. I think this is what is happening with the Florida vote…

The first count had Bush by 1700. The recount had Bush by 300. With an error of 1400 over 2 counts, we cannot state a winner with statistical (satistical cheap dig) significance.

Both sides are acting more moronic as the days go by. What we should be striving for are more precise counts.
Dems are pushing for policies which will clearly not be more precise, and Reps are shutting their eyes to the imprecision. With these two options, the courts cannot decide on a more fair course of action. And, we cannot change the way we run elections in mid-stream.

It is an ugly mess and I forsee no possible way of settling anything fairly.

20

The most important shenanigan, of course, was that window-pounding and chasing people around that Bush’s brownshirts did in Miami on Wednesday. According to Joe Lieberman, one of the county commissioners said that if it hadn’t been for that bit of intimidation, they’d still be up there, counting.

Up until then, the rule of law, one way or another, seemed to be the sole determinant of the outcome. But not anymore, not after that.

Ironically, this action happened on the same day an op-ed piece by National Journal editor Michael Kelly appeared in the Washington Post, accusing the Dems of thuggery. Can’t wait to see his next piece.

In terms of good guys and bad guys, I fall somewhere in between Stoidela and Sam Stone. I don’t see any white hats, but there are still substantial gradations, IMO, along the gray-to-black portion of the spectrum. IMO, it’s hard to compare Gore’s steadfast seeking of a manual recount in four counties (combined with the offer of a statewide recount), and overzealousness on the issue of military postmarks (or the lack thereof), with:
the Bush crew’s lying about Gore’s role in the recounts, lying about having won already, lying about the FL Supreme Court decision, spreading accusations about Gore trying to steal an election, resolutely ignoring the disenfranchisement of perhaps 12,000 Democratic voters by a biased ballot instrument in Palm Beach county whose confusing aspects affected one side alone; ignoring or dismissing unusual problems that black voters encountered at or near the polls on Election Day, repeatedly trying, through the FL executive branch and in FL courts, to block the hand recounts even before the original certification deadline, despite the absence of any statutory justification for doing so; going to the Federal courts a mere three days after the election to try to block manual recounts, in a stunning attempt to get the Feds involved in what any respectable Republican would have previously considered to be a local issue…need I go on?

In short, while I don’t consider Gore to have taken a high road, I feel justified in saying that Bush and the GOP have not only gone with the low road, but have dug themselves a major trench in it.

Stoidela, I’m also discouraged and dispirited by this whole thing. I’m not one of those who thinks this will be good for the country. Rather, I think this has become a major battle in an ongoing civil war. (Previous skirmishes include the impeachment imbroglio and the '95 government shutdown.) I think too many such battles harden the battle lines all across the country, and highlight areas of dispute while burying the very real areas of national consensus.

I feel Wednesday’s outraged (and outrageous) GOP reaction to the Florida decision, combined with their widening of the war, more or less forced Gore into a choice of fighting on, or surrendering to vile and untrustworthy men who have shown no regard for the will of the people. He’s choosing to fight, but it stinks either way.