The Florida Supreme Court will settle this by the end of the week. GW better get on the horn to Rehnquist and his boys.
"Reform Party Case Update
Oh my. The Florida Supreme Court issued two orders last night in this case.
In the first order, available here, the high court accepted jurisdiction, decided to allow the trial court to address the stay issue first, ordered the trial court to hold the trial and enter a final order Wednesday, and ordered simultaneous briefing of the appeal by noon Thursday. The court also ordered that the full transcript, exhibits and other record materials to be filed with the court by noon Thursday.
The second order, available here, directs the parties to file briefs by 4 pm today addressing a series of specific questions concerning the deadline for mailing overseas absentee ballots, including where the deadline originates and whether it can be extended. It appears that a consent decree between the State of Florida and federal officials requires Florida to mail its overseas absentee ballots no sooner than 45 days before a federal election. With a November 2 election date, the 45-day deadline would be Saturday, September 18.
Somewhere out there a court reporter is not very happy, and that's assuming real-time court reporting is available. I won't even mention the law clerks.
So let's sum things up. The parties have:
-- briefs on deadline issues due in the supreme court by 4 pm today
-- a full trial on the merits of the case tomorrow, and
-- briefs for the appeal due in the supreme court by noon Thursday
In all this, something's a bit unclear to me. Is this really an appeal of the nonfinal order issued last week, or is it an appeal of the final order that will be issued tomorrow? Jurisdictionally speaking, the court is reviewing only the nonfinal, preliminary injunction order. The final order does not yet exist, and when it does it will be appealed first to the district court. Having said that, the preliminary order's correctness may be moot following entry of a final order, and it sure looks like the supreme court expects the parties to brief an appeal of the final order. Why else defer briefing until after tomorrow?
My guess is that the court expects to have it both ways. The court's schedule permits briefing on the final order, even though this is currently an appeal of only last week's order, and, without saying so, the court expects that the final order will be immediately appealed to and passed up by the First District, leaving the whole case in the high court by Thursday morning. Thursday's briefs should address Wednesday's order."
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