THE GORE EXCEPTION:
A LAYMAN'S GUIDE TO
THE SUPREME COURT DECISION IN BUSH V. GORE
Q: I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand the
recent Supreme Court
decision in Bush v. Gore. Can you explain it to me?
A: Sure.
I'm a lawyer. I read it. It says Bush wins, even if Gore got the most
votes.
Q: But wait a second. The US Supreme Court has to give a reason,
right?
A: Right.
Q: So Bush wins because hand-counts are
illegal?
A: Oh no.
Six of the nine justices believed that hand-counts were legal and should
count. Indeed, all nine found
"Florida's basic command for the count of legally cast votes is to
consider 'the intent of the voter.' "
"This is unobjectionable as an abstract proposition." In fact, "uniform rules to determine
intent" are not only "practicable” but "necessary."
Q: So that's a complicated way of saying,
"divining the intent of the voter” is perfectly legal?
A: Yes.
Q: Well, if hand counts are fine, why were
they stopped? Have the re-counts have
already tabulated all the legal ballots?
A: No.
The five conservative justices clearly held (and all nine justices
agreed) "that punch card balloting machines can produce an unfortunate
number of ballots which are not punched in a clean, complete way by the
voter." So there are legal votes
that should be counted but will never be.
Q: Does this have something to do with states'
rights? Don't conservatives love that?
A: Yes.
These five justices have held that the federal government has no
business telling a sovereign state university it can't steal trade secrets just
because such stealing is prohibited by law.
Nor does the federal government have any business telling a state that
it should bar guns in schools. Nor can
the federal government use the equal protection clause to force states to take
measures to stop violence against women.
Q: Is there an exception in this case?
A: Yes, the Gore exception. States have no rights to have their own
state elections when it can result in Gore being elected President. This decision is limited to only this
situation.
Q: C'mon.
The Supremes didn't really say that.
You're exaggerating.
A: Nope.
They held "Our
consideration is limited to the present circumstances, as the problem of equal
protection in election processes generally presents many complexities."
Q: What complexities?
A: They don't say.
Q: I'll bet I know the reason. I heard Jim
Baker say this. The votes can't be
counted because the Florida Supreme Court
"changed the rules of the election after it was held." Right?
A. Wrong.
The US Supreme Court made clear that the Florida Supreme Court did not
change the rules of the election. But
the US Supreme Court found this failure of the Florida Court to change the
rules after the election was wrong.
Q: Huh?
A: The Legislature declared that the only
legal standard for counting a vote is
"clear intent of the voter."
The Florida Court was condemned for not adopting a clearer standard
after the election.
Q: I thought the Florida Court was not allowed
to change the Legislature's law after the election.
A: Right.
Q: So what's the problem?
A: They should have. The US Supreme Court said the Florida Supreme Court should have
"adopt[ed] adequate statewide standards for determining what is a legal
vote."
Q: I thought only the Legislature could "adopt" new law.
A: Right.
Q: So if the Court had adopted new standards,
I thought it would have been overturned.
A: Right. You're catching on.
Q: Wait.
If the Florida Court had adopted new
standards, it would have been overturned for changing the rules.
And since it didn't do it, it's being
overturned for not changing the rules?
That makes no sense.
That means that no matter what the
Florida Supreme Court did, legal votes could never be counted if they would end
up with a possible Gore victory.
A: Right. Next question.
Q: Wait, wait. I thought the problem was
"equal protection,” that some counties counted votes differently
from others. Isn't that a problem?
A: It sure is. Across the nation, we vote in a
hodgepodge of systems. Some, like
the optical-scanners in largely Republican-leaning counties, record 99.7% of
the votes.
Some, like the punch card systems in
largely Democratic-leaning counties, record only 97% of the votes. So approximately 3% of Democratic-leaning
votes are thrown in the trash can.
Q: Aha!
That's a severe equal-protection problem!!!
A: No it's not. The Supreme Court wasn't worried about the 3% of
Democratic-leaning ballots (about 170,000) thrown in the trashcan in
Florida. That "complexity” was not a problem.
Q: Was it the butterfly ballot that violated
Florida law and fooled more than 15,000 Democrats into voting for Buchanan or
both Gore and Buchanan?
A: Nope.
The Supreme Court has no problem believing that Buchanan got his
highest, best support in a precinct consisting of a Jewish old age home with
Holocaust survivors, who apparently have changed their mind about Hitler.
Q: Yikes. So what was the serious equal
protection problem?
A: The problem was neither the butterfly
ballot nor the 170,000 or 3% of Democratic-leaning voters (largely African-Americans) disenfranchised. The problem is that somewhat less than
0.01% of the ballots (less than 600 votes) may have been determined under
ever-so-slightly different standards by judges and county officials recording
votes under strict public scrutiny, as Americans have done for more than 200
years. The single judge overseeing the
entire process might miss a vote or two.
Q: A single judge? I thought the standards were different. I thought that was the
whole point of the Supreme Court opinion.
A: Judge Terry Lewis, who received the case
upon remand from the Florida Supreme Court, had already ordered each of the
counties to fax him their standards so he could be sure they were uniform. Republican activists repeatedly sent junk
faxes to Lewis in order to prevent counties from submitting the standards to
Lewis in a way that could justify the vote counting. That succeeded in stalling the process until Justice Scalia could
stop the count.
Q: Hmmm. Well, even if those less than 600
difficult-to-tell votes are thrown out, you can still count the other 170,000
votes (or just the 60,000 of them that were never counted) where everyone, even
Republicans, agrees the voter's intent is clear, right?
A: Nope.
Q: Why not?
A: No time.
Q: I thought the Supreme Court said the
Constitution was more important than speed.
A: It did.
It said, "The press of time does not diminish the constitutional
concern. A desire for speed is not a
general excuse for ignoring equal protection guarantees."
Q: Well that makes sense. So there's time to
count the votes when the intent is clear and everyone is treated equally then. Right?
A: No.
The Supreme Court won't allow it.
Q: But they just said that the constitution is
more important than speed!
A: You forget. There is the "Gore exception."
Q: Hold on.
No time to count legal votes where everyone, even Republicans, agrees
the intent is clear? Why not?
A: Because they issued the opinion at 10 p.m.
on December 12.
Q: Is December 12 a deadline for counting
votes?
A: No.
January 6, 2001 is the deadline.
In the Election of 1960, Hawaii's votes weren't counted until January 4,
1961.
Q: So why is December 12 important?
A: December 12 is a deadline by which Congress
can't challenge the results.
Q: What does the Congressional role have to do
with the Supreme Court?
A: Nothing. In fact, as of December 13, 2000,
some 20 states still hadn't turned in their results.
Q: But I thought ---
A: The Florida Supreme Court had said earlier
it would like to complete its work by December 12 to make things easier for
Congress. The United States Supreme
Court is trying to "help" the Florida Supreme Court out by reversing
it and forcing the Florida court to abide by a deadline that everyone agrees is
not binding.
Q: But I thought the Florida Court was going
to just barely have the votes counted by December 12.
A: They would have made it, but the five
conservative justices stopped the recount last Saturday.
Q: Why?
A: Justice Scalia said some of the votes may
not be legally counted.
Q: So why not separate the votes into piles --
hanging chads for Gore, indentations for Bush, votes that everyone agrees were
intended for Gore or Bush -- so that we know exactly how Florida voted before
determining who won?
Then, if some ballots (say, indentations)
have to be thrown out, the American people will know right away who won
Florida? Make sense?
A. Great
idea! An intelligent, rational solution to a difficult problem! The US Supreme Court rejected it. They held in stopping the count on December
9 that such counts would be likely to produce election results showing Gore won
and that Gore's winning the count would cause "public acceptance"
that would "cast a cloud"
over Bush's "legitimacy” and
thereby harm "democratic
stability."
Q: In other words, if America knows the truth
that Gore won, they won't accept the US Supreme Court making Bush President?
A: Yes.
Q: Is that a legal reason to stop recounts? Or
a political one?
A: Let's just say in all of American history
and all of American law, this is the first time a court has ever refused to
count votes in order to protect one candidate's "legitimacy" over another's.
Q: Aren't these conservative justices against
judicial activism?
A: Yes, when liberal judges are perceived to
have done it.
Q: Well, if the December 12 deadline is not
binding, why not count the votes afterward?
A: The US Supreme Court, after conceding the
December 12 deadline is not binding, set December 12 as a binding deadline at
10 p.m. on December 12.
Q: Didn't the US Supreme Court condemn the
Florida Supreme Court for arbitrarily setting a deadline?
A: Yes.
Q: But, but --
A: Not to worry. The US Supreme Court does not have to follow laws it sets for
other courts.
Q: So who caused Florida to miss the December
12 deadline?
A: The Bush lawyers who, before Gore filed a
single lawsuit, went to court to stop the recount.
The rent-a-mob in Miami
that got free Florida vacations for intimidating officials.
The constant request for delay by Bush
lawyers in Florida courts.
And, primarily, the US Supreme Court,
which
refused to consider Bush's
equal-protection claim on November 22, 2000,
then stopped the recount entirely on
December 9,
and then, on December 12 at 10 p.m.,
suddenly accepted the equal protection claim they had rejected three weeks
earlier, but complained there was no time left to count the votes in the two
hours left before midnight that evening.
Q: So who is punished for this behavior?
A: Gore. And the 50 million plus Americans
that voted for him, some 540,000 more than voted for Bush.
Q: You're telling me Florida election laws
and precedents existing for a hundred years are now suddenly unconstitutional?
A: Yes.
According to the Supreme Court, the Legislature drafted the law in such
a messy way that the Florida votes can never be fairly counted. Since Secretary of State Katherine Harris
never got around to setting more definitive standards for counting votes, Gore
loses the election.
Q: Does this mean the election laws of any of
the other 49 states are unconstitutional as well?
A: Yes, if one logically applies the Supreme
Court opinion. The voters of all 50
states use different systems and standards to vote and count votes, and 33
states have the same "clear intent of the voter”
standard that the US Supreme Court found illegal in Florida.
Q: Then why aren't the results of these 33
states thrown out?
A: Um. Because... um... the Supreme Court
doesn't say...
Q: But if Florida's certification includes
counts expressly declared by the US Supreme Court to be unconstitutional, we
don't know who really won the election there, right?
A: Right.
Q: But
then what makes Bush President?
A: Good question. A careful statistical analysis by the Miami Herald extrapolates
from the 170,000 uncounted votes in Florida to show Gore clearly won the state
and may have done so by as much as 23,000 votes (excluding the butterfly ballot
errors). See:
http://www.herald.com/thispage.htm?content/archive/news/elect2000/decision
/104268.htm.
Q: So, answer my question: what makes Bush
President?
A: Since there was no time left for a re-count
based on the non- binding "deadline," the Supreme Court decided not
to count the votes that favor Gore.
Instead, by a vote of 5 to 4, they picked Bush the winner, based on the
flawed count they'd just determined to be unconstitutional.
Q: That's completely bizarre!
That sounds like rank political favoritism! Did the justices have any
financial interest in the case?
A: Scalia's two sons are both lawyers at law
firms working for Bush. Thomas's wife
is collecting applications for people who want to work in the Bush
administration.
Q: Why didn't they remove themselves from the
case?
A: If either had recused himself, the vote
would have been 4-4, the Florida Supreme Court decision allowing recounts would
have been affirmed, and Scalia said he feared that would mean Gore winning the
election. Justices Rehnquist and
O'Connor had both said before the election that they wanted to retire but would
only do so if a Republican were elected, and when O'Connor heard, from early
(and, we now know, accurate) exit polls, that Gore had won Florida, she
responded that was "terrible."
Q: I can't believe the justices acted in such
a blatantly political way.
A: Read
the opinions for yourself:
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/00pdf/00-949.pdf
(December 9 stay stopping the recount) -
PDF format
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/supremecourt/00-949_dec12.pdf
(December 12 opinion) - PDF format
[Andrys’ alternative for the Dec. 12
opinion, including Dissents]
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html
(December 12 opinion and dissents) -
HTML browser and PDF formats
Q: So what are the consequences of this?
A: The guy who got the most votes in the US,
in Florida, and under our Constitution (Al Gore), will lose to America's second
choice (George W. Bush), since Bush has won the all-important 5-4 Supreme Court
vote, which trumps America's choice.
Q: I thought in a democracy, the guy with the
most votes wins. At least in the
Electoral College, shouldn't the guy with the most votes in Florida win?
A: Yes.
But America in 2000 is no longer a democracy, or even a republic. In America in 2000, the guy with the most US
Supreme Court votes wins. That's why we
don't need to count the People's votes in Florida.
Q: So what will happen to the Supreme Court
when Bush becomes President?
A: He will appoint more justices in the mode
of Thomas and Scalia, thus ensuring that the will of the people is less and
less respected. Soon lawless justices
may constitute 6-3 or even 7-2 on the court.
Q: Is there any way to stop this?
A: YES.
No federal judge can be confirmed without a vote in the Senate. It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster.
If only 41 of the 50 Democratic Senators
stand up to Bush and his Supreme Court and say that they will not approve a
single judge appointed by him until a President can be democratically elected
in 2004, the judicial reign of terror may end, and one day we can hope to
return to the rule of law and the will of the People.
Q: Why can't we impeach the justices?
A: That takes a majority of the House and 2/3
of the Senate and is far more controversial.
Don't worry. A 4-year judicial
filibuster will definitely get the Court's attention. Indeed, it is probably the only legal and practical way to get
the Court's attention.
Q: What can I do to help?
A: Email this article to everyone you know,
and write or call your Senator, reminding him or her that Gore beat Bush by more
than 540,000 (almost five times Kennedy's margin over Nixon) and that you
believe that elections should be determined by counting the People's votes, not
the Supreme Court's.
Therefore, to stop our unelected federal
judiciary from ever again overturning the will of the people, you ask your Senators to confirm
NO NEW FEDERAL JUDGES APPOINTED BY A NON-DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT until
2004 when a president can be finally chosen by the American people, instead of
by Antonin Scalia.
Q: Doesn't anyone on the US Supreme Court
follow the rule of law?
A: Yes.
Read the four dissents. Excerpts
below:
Justice John Paul Stevens (Republican appointed by Ford):
"Although we may never know with
complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential
election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge
as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."
Justice David Souter (Republican
appointed by Bush):
"Before this Court stayed the
effort to [manually recount the
ballots] the courts of Florida were ready to do their best to get that job
done. There is no justification for
denying the State the opportunity to try to count all the disputed ballots now.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Democrat
appointed by Clinton):
Chief Justice Rehnquist would
"disrupt" Florida's "republican regime."[In other words,
democracy in Florida is imperiled.] The
court should not let its "untested prophecy” that counting votes is
"impractical" "decide the presidency of the United States."
Justice Steven Breyer (Democrat
appointed by Clinton):
"There is no justification for the
majority's remedy..."...We "risk a self-inflicted wound -- a wound
that may harm not just the court, but the nation."
Postscript
Q: A few more
Questions. How did this Q&A get
passed around so much?
A: It certainly
surprised me. I originally sent it on December
13, 2000 (the morning after the Supreme Court decision) to 15 or 20
people. I think it struck a chord among
1) Americans who saw the media celebrate while their right to vote was swept
under the rug, 2) Americans who were concerned the Supreme Court had acted in
an overtly political manner but weren't sure because the decision was couched
in legalese, and 3) Americans who wanted to fight back but didn't know
how. Michael Moore got my first draft
(typos and all), put it on his website and accelerated the movement around the
globe. I have no connection, however,
to Michael Moore and did NOT support Ralph Nader in 2000. Hey Mike!
Use the update! Please! (He's not listening.)
Q: Can you
document all this?
A: Every bit of
it. Email does not allow for
footnotes. But everything I say is well
documented from a variety of sources:
the two US Supreme Court opinions (obviously), Federal Law (3 USC Sec. 5),
former Supreme Court case-law, the opinions of the Florida Supreme Court and
the Florida courts below, Florida statutes, and, occasionally, press accounts.
Q: Are you
drowning in emails?
A: Yes! After I made the courageous (or foolhardy,
take your pick) decision to put my email address in the Q&A, I have
received more than 3000 emails in 5 days from all 50 states and more than a
dozen foreign countries. If I'm just
getting 1 in a 100 back, this little Q&A has been read by several hundred
thousand Americans. But I do have a law
practice to attend to. So please don't
email me back unless you doubt my existence, want to publish it or give me an
interview, or "really" have an important question or comment. 90%+ of the comments thus far have been
positive. I used to respond to each
email individually (back when I was only receiving 10-20 a day rather than 100
an hour thanks to the geometric progression of the Internet), but I rarely do
so now, except to pass out this updated version to those of you who ask for it
or doubt my existence.
Q: Have the
Bushies come up with any response?
A: Only weak
ones. They falsely claim, like the 5
justices in the majority claimed, that 7 justices support their views. That's clearly not the case. None of the four dissenters joined any
portion of the 5-person "per curiam" decision, and these 4 dissenters
have some pretty strong views on the matter as you can see above. Indeed, in addition to the 4 dissenters who
wanted to immediately count the votes (2 under the Florida Supreme Court
standard and 2 on a new uniform standard), an additional 2 in the majority
(O'Connor and Kennedy) say they wanted to count the votes...but oh golly gee,
time's up for democracy (although on November 22, when they had the time, all
nine rejected a hearing on the same Bush equal protection claim they eventually
decided at the last minute).
Q: How about your
strongest argument? That the Florida
Court was in a Catch-22 situation, damned if they changed the rules and adopted
a new uniform standard? And damned if they stuck with the general standard
chosen by the Florida Legislature?
A: The Bushies
can't touch that one.
Q: What about the
fact that December 12 isn't really a deadline?
A: A few of the
Bushies claim the Florida Legislature really, really, really wanted the
December 12 deadline as a "safe harbor", but not one of them
(including one of them that represented Bush before the US Supreme Court) has
yet been able to show me a law passed by the Legislature before the Election
setting December 12 as a drop-dead deadline.
There they go again, just as with the Florida legislative "special
sessions," trying to change the rules after the game to anoint Bush the
victor without counting votes.
Q: What about the
argument that voters who didn't remove their hanging chad should lose their
right to vote?
A: I think that's
pretty harsh, don't you? Particularly
when, at least in Palm Beach County, voters were given only FIVE MINUTES to
vote on about 30 candidates and propositions.
The five-minute limit was printed in bright red, very large bold
all-capital letters, just below the much smaller instructions cited by Scalia,
Rehnquist, and Thomas in their concurrence that I am certain few voters had
time to read. In any event, the law in
Florida has always been "clear intent of the voter," and the idea
that not punching the chad all the way through disenfranchises a voter has
always been solidly rejected by the Florida Courts. Perhaps, for this reason, Kennedy and O'Connor couldn't stomach
this argument. Only the concurring
opinion of Scalia, Rehnquist, and Thomas -- the three strongest conservative
state-rights advocates! -- would overturn Florida's opinion on century-old
Florida state-law without any federal basis for doing so.
Q: Whatever
happened with Seminole and Martin counties?
A: As you know,
Republicans in those counties corrected thousands of absentee ballot
applications that were going to be thrown away due to improper completion. The supervisors of elections in those
counties allowed Republican ballot applications to be corrected but not
Democratic ones. The Florida Supreme
Court -- consistent with its opinion that every vote counts and acting
according to law rather than partisan dictates -- condemned the supervisors but
decided not to throw away any votes.
I've never met a Republican able to square the view that clear-intent
Democratic-leaning votes with the "voter error" of failing to
completely remove a chad should be thrown away while the Republicans who erred
in completing their absentee ballot applications should still have their votes
counted.
Q: So is this
election over? Has the fat lady sung?
A: Her mouth is
open and she's on her final note, but she has yet to finish it. According to Federal Law (3 USC Section 5),
Congress cannot challenge any slate of electors when it's determined by December
12 OR when
"...such determination [is] made pursuant to such law
so existing on" Election Day. In this case, however, the US Supreme Court
did exactly what it warned Florida not to do:
it changed Florida law after the election. If Florida had applied the Legislative "clear intent of the
voter" standard as the Florida Supreme Court had ordered, that would not
have been a change in the law and no challenge would have been possible. However, the US Supreme Court, by insisting
Florida adopt a more specific standard, has changed the law, and the results
may therefore be challenged by Congress.
Q: How would the
results be challenged?
A: On January 6,
2001, it only takes only ONE Congressman/woman and ONE Senator to object to
Florida's electoral votes. Then both
houses votes on the challenge.
Q: What are the
chances of us actually stopping Florida electoral votes from counting and
electing Gore?
A: A snowball's
chance in West Palm Beach. Even if all
50 Democratic Senators were to vote for Gore (with Gore providing the deciding
vote as Vice President), the House would vote for Bush, and it requires both
Senate and House to reject an electoral slate.
But, even though the challenge would fail, wouldn't it be fun to
try? If only, to show that we the
People are unwilling to accept the Supreme Court's refusal to count our
votes? Call Robert Wexler.
Q: Will the votes
ever be counted?
A: Under Florida's
Sunshine Laws, various media and Republican organizations have requested to
count the votes. And they should be
able to legally do so, unless the vote count is stopped by Republicans like
Washington Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn, who advocates the ballots be
"sealed." The most recent
count has already brought Bush's margin down to 24 (That's right. Twenty-four.) See
Q: Do you think the
disenfranchisement of Democrats in Florida and across the nation --
African-Americans in particular -- is intentional?
A: It's certainly
systematic. The machines do not act
randomly. They do discriminate against
Democrats far more than Republicans.
The reason for this is that the worst-technology voting systems tend to
be located in poorer areas, where voters tend to lean Democratic. These counties apparently just can't afford
up-to-date new systems. I would
strongly support a nationwide uniform ballot and a nationwide ban on punch card
ballot systems. I would expect the
Republican will try to block such voting reforms on two grounds: the machines are "good enough" (Hey!
97% accuracy!) and, get this, states' rights! They'll claim that the states should be left alone to control
their own elections and dictate their own methods of tabulating votes (except
when Gore is running).
Q: But you didn't
answer my question. Are
African-Americans intentionally being kept from the polls?
A: On Elections
Day, I helped voters who were turned away at the polls go back and legally
vote. I took responsibility for voters
in three Congressional districts. 90%
of the complaints came from one largely African-American Congressional
district, including not just voters turned away at the polls, but a polling
place that opened three hours late. As
for Florida, I didn't really believe the claims of intentional discrimination,
until I read this newspaper article from England:
http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,409137,00.html
Be careful. This
will make you angry. It appears Ms.
Harris may have "accidentally" disenfranchised thousands of African-American
voters, enough to illegally change the results of the election.
Q: Why is this
Q&A so darn long?
A: Because you
folks who email me keep asking me questions!!!
Q: And who the
heck are you anyway?
A: I'm a practicing
lawyer in Los Angeles and a graduate of Yale Law School. My practice consists entirely of
litigation, with a strong appellate practice.
Q: Thank you.
A: No, thank YOU,
for reading this to the end and for caring about democracy in America.