I learned only after I returned from my swim. I am shocked!
I had always believed that The United States Supreme Court was above partisan politics. It was only after I read the following article from The New York Times that I learned the extent of the bitterness and the partisanship within The US Supreme Court. I had honestly believed that they would have stayed out of the Florida Farce because it was the State's Right to govern the election and elect the members for the Electoral College.
There is no way that I can understand the consequences. I don't have the educational background, but I believe that the actions of the US Supreme Court could create a Constitutional Crises.
Here is the article from The New York Times.
U.S. Supreme Court Orders Florida Recounts to StopM
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 -- In a sudden and devastating blow to Vice President Al Gore, the United States Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 today to stop the recount going on in Florida and set Monday morning for arguments on Gov. George W. Bush's appeal of the Florida Supreme Court ruling.
With the clock ticking inexorably toward Tuesday, the Dec. 12 deadline for certifying electors, the Supreme Court's order, issued shortly before 3 p.m., could have the effect of erasing the Democrat's chances that the Florida Supreme Court had revived barely 24 hours earlier.
Even if by some chance the Supreme Court eventually rules in Vice President Gore's favor, the ruling could come too late. Briefs are due at 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon -- after the recount was supposed to have been completed -- with 90 minutes of argument set for 11 a.m. on Monday.
The justices who voted to grant the stay were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and his four conservative colleagues: Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer dissented.
The bitter division on the court, awkwardly papered over only last Monday with an order to the Florida Supreme Court to clarify an earlier ruling, burst into the open with the action this afternoon.
Justice Stevens filed a two-page dissenting opinion, which the other three dissenters joined. "To stop the counting of legal votes, the majority today departs from three venerable rules of judicial restraint that have guided the court throughout its history," Justice Stevens said.
The majority did not issue an opinion in support of its order, but Justice Scalia said he felt obliged to issue a statement in response to the Stevens dissent.
"One of the principal issues in the appeal we have accepted is precisely whether the votes that have been ordered to be counted are, under a reasonable interpretation of Florida law, 'legally cast votes,' "he said, adding: "Count first, and rule upon legality afterwards, is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires."
Justice Scalia said that "it suffices to say that the issuance of the stay suggests that a majority of the court, while not deciding the issues presented, believe that the petitioner has a substantial probability of success."
(He's already said that Bush will win,JMOP,Mephisto)
Governor Bush had filed the urgent application for a stay on Friday night, hours after the Florida Supreme Court reversed a lower state court and ordered a statewide manual recount of tens of thousands of ballots.
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Stevens identified three principles he said the order today had violated: respect for rulings by state courts on questions of state law; the cautious exercise of the Supreme Court's jurisdiction on matters that largely concern other branches of government; and declining to exercise jurisdiction over federal questions "that were not fairly presented to the court whose judgment is being reviewed."
"The majority has acted unwisely," he said.
The court acted to take jurisdiction of the case without waiting for Governor Bush's lawyers to file a formal appeal of the Florida Supreme Court's ruling. The justices acted on the basis of the 40-page application for a stay that the Bush lawyers filed late Friday.
Under the Supreme Court's rules, a stay requires the votes of five justices and requires the applicant to show that "irreparable injury" would result unless the court intervened on an emergency basis, without waiting to review the merits of a case.
In seeking to meet that standard, Governor Bush's stay application said the Florida Supreme Court ruling "imperils Governor Bush's proper receipt of Florida's 25 electoral votes" by raising "a reasonable possibility that the votes will be called into doubt -- or purport to be withdrawn -- at a time when the Dec. 12 deadline for naming Florida's electors" would make any later judicial relief futile.
In their brief opposing the stay, Vice President Gore's lawyers said the assertion that "a candidate for public office can be irreparably harmed by the process of discerning and tabulating the will of the voters" was surprising and "remarkable."
The question of irreparable harm was evidently the question in contention for the justices today. In his concurring statement, Justice Scalia said that "the counting of votes that are of questionable legality does in my view threaten irreparable harm to petition," Governor Bush, "by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election."
(How do we know that? All the votes have not been counted. And the Judge in Seminole admitted that there were irregularities. Just because a machine rejects the votes does not mean that a vote was not cast. The machine could be faulty.- Mephisto)
Justice Stevens, in his dissent, said that while "counting every legally cast vote cannot constitute irreparable harm," there was a danger that the stay itself would cause irreparable harm not only to Vice President Gore but "more importantly, the public at large" because, given the deadlines, it would amount to a decision on the merits.
"Preventing the recount from being completed will inevitably cast a cloud on the legitimacy of the election," Justice Stevens said. |
