U.S. Supreme Court Overturns Florida Supreme Court
Monday, December 4, 2000
FOXnews
The U.S. Supreme Court dealt Al Gore a major blow Monday, overturning the Florida Supreme Court decision that allowed recounts to be included in the state's certified results.
The nine justices unanimously sent the case back to the Florida court, saying the judges there did not take federal law into account in their Nov. 21 decision, which ultimately let hand-counted ballots narrow George W. Bush's lead over Gore to 537 votes.
"After reviewing the opinion of the Florida Supreme Court, we find that there is considerable uncertainty as to the precise grounds for the decision," the court wrote.
A Dramatic Friday
The court held a dramatic argument session Friday after agreeing a week earlier to hear Bush's appeal of the Florida court ruling, which extended the deadline for reporting recount results from Nov. 14 to Nov. 26.
The justices had appeared deeply divided over whether there were grounds to overrule the state court.
Bush's lawyer, Theodore Olson, argued that the Florida Supreme Court's decision to allowed the extended recount "overturned the carefully enacted plan" by state legislators for resolving election disputes.
He contended the state court violated the Constitution and an 1887 federal law that makes states' choice of presidential electors binding on Congress as long as disputes were resolved under laws enacted before the election.
Gore lawyer Laurence Tribe said the recount process merely was "like looking more closely at the film of a photo finish. It's nothing extraordinary." He added, "Why tell people the count if you won't count it?"
Gore's advisers were telling allies after the argument that the vice president would continue pressing his election contest in Florida courts regardless of what the Supreme Court decided.
Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified Bush the winner in Florida on Nov. 26 after manual recounts in a few Democratic-leaning counties that Gore had sought. The state Supreme Court had ordered those recounts to proceed beyond the Nov. 14 date that Harris cited as the deadline fixed in state law.
A key issue before the Supreme Court was whether the case involved any federal issue that warranted overturning Florida's highest court. In recent years, the Supreme Court has carried out what some observers call a states' rights revolution, tilting the federal-state balance toward the states in a series of 5-4 votes with Chief JustCounty Canvassing Board, 00-836.
— The Associated Press contributed to this report |
