Bush guards his lead on 2 fronts
Even if court overturns results, Fla. legislature will block Gore
ANALYSIS By Roberto Suro and Jo Becker
The Washington Post
TALLAHASSEE, Nov. 29 — Attorneys for Texas Gov. George W. Bush and his allies are hurriedly building a multilayered effort to keep hold of his slim lead in Florida, so that even if Vice President Gore wins a suit overturning the election results, the Republican-dominated state legislature will block his way to the White House.
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‘For both sides the strategy is to fire all their guns; it’s just that Bush has more guns at this point.’
Kenneth Gross
Washington election lawyer
AT THIS STAGE of the battle for Florida’s 25 electoral votes, Gore is primarily relying on the judiciary, especially the Florida Supreme Court, whose help he will seek once again Thursday. Bush is not only fighting Gore in the courts but he is also preparing an endgame strategy that will involve the other two branches of government here, the legislature and the executive, where he enjoys both a partisan advantage and the power exercised by his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
“For both sides the strategy is to fire all their guns; it’s just that Bush has more guns at this point,” said Kenneth Gross, a Washington election lawyer.
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Perhaps the most potent of those weapons, the legislature, is poised to enter the fray with a special session to consider whether to name its own slate of Florida electors. If Gore manages to win a court ruling that declares him the winner of the statewide vote, Republican leaders in the legislature left little doubt during hearings conducted over the past two days that they would step in to try and undo that.
'DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO'
“Even if there is political fallout, you do what you have to do,” said Al Cardenas, the GOP state chairman, discounting the potential of negative public reaction to what might appear a brazen power play. Citing polls showing a growing number of people seeking a quick resolution to the election crisis, Cardenas said, “by the time the legislature has to act, presumably that will become exponentially greater.”
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A key element of the Bush strategy will play out in the U.S. Supreme Court, which on Friday will hear Bush’s claim that the Florida Supreme Court overstepped its authority by requiring hand recounts to be included in the certified results. Bush is arguing that the Florida legislature and the executive, in the person of Secretary of State Katherine Harris, have the proper authority to set the timetable they did and act on the matter.
When the vote was certified according to the Florida court’s timeline last Sunday, Bush won by 537 votes. So, even if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against Bush and that vote stands, Bush has little to lose. But he has much to gain from a favorable ruling.
CONSIDERABLE POLITICAL IMPACT
“The legal impact might be minimal, but the political impact could be considerable,” said Gross.
That impact could affect the political climate here. Florida GOP officials are already saying that a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bush’s favor, even a narrow one, would greatly strengthen their oft-stated claims that the seven Democrats on the Florida Supreme Court acted in an improper and partisan manner when they intervened in the presidential race. Any decision from Washington that could be portrayed as diminishing the legitimacy of the Florida court would be valuable to the Republicans if there is a showdown between the legislature and the state court.
“If it [the U.S. Supreme Court] underscores that Florida state law and Florida legislature calls the shots in selecting Florida electors, that will indirectly curb excesses of Florida’s courts and at the same time reinforce the authority of the Florida legislature,” said Jan Baran, a Washington election law attorney.
Jeb Bush today signaled his willingness to rely on provisions of federal law and the U.S. Constitution giving state legislatures broad powers to name electoral college delegations. If the election results are still caught up in legal controversy by Dec. 12, the day the delegation is to be named, “it would be a travesty not to have electors seated,” the Florida governor said.
A SIGNIFICANT BUSH VICTORY
George W. Bush’s attorneys, however, would prefer to stop Gore before it is necessary to call in the legislature, and they won another potentially significant procedural victory today.
Using a provision of Florida law that allows a losing candidate to contest an election, Gore is waging a lawsuit alleging that misconduct by election officials here and in three counties cost him 4,000 votes. The principal remedy he seeks is to have a court examine and recount 14,000 disputed ballots from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. Bush’s attorneys argue that if any counting is going to happen – and they don’t want any – the court must recount every one of the more than 1 million ballots cast in the two counties.
Today, Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls, who is hearing Gore’s suit, agreed to Bush’s request to have all the ballots – not just those requested by Gore – shipped from the two counties, raising the specter of a marathon count that could delay resolution of the case well past the Dec. 12 deadline.
A CONTAINMENT STRATEGY
The Bush “strategy has to be to keep things slow and contained in Florida state courts and seek some relatively decisive action from the United States Supreme Court,” said Baran, a Republican.
Gore’s attorneys Thursday will ask the Florida Supreme Court to intervene in the case, either by taking over the counting or ordering Sauls to reverse a ruling Tuesday that put off any count until after he has heard from both sides Saturday.
Failure to immediately begin counting the ballots “casts a shadow of doubt and confusion over the national election,” according to Gore’s appeal to the state’s high court.
An apparent strategy of delay also appeared to be at work in Bush’s response to a separate suit brought by a Democratic activist in Seminole County who alleges that election officials there acted improperly by allowing Republican Party workers to complete voters’ applications for absentee ballots. As a remedy, the suits seek to have all 15,000 absentee votes cast in the heavily Republican county thrown out, which would produce a net gain of nearly 5,000 votes for Gore, winning him the presidency in one stroke. The case has been put on a fast track by Circuit Court Judge Nikki Ann Clark, who was passed up for a promotion by Gov. Jeb Bush earlier this year.
Republican attorneys today asked an appeals court to overrule Clark’s refusal to consolidate the case with Gore’s.
Gore must wage “the reverse strategy from the Bush camp: keep the question of who got the most votes in doubt, and you want to do that for obvious political and public relations reasons,” said Baran. “And they want an activist intervening Florida judiciary.”
Staff writer James V. Grimaldi contributed to this report.
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