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Supreme moment may yet be Florida's
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 5, 2000 So, who needs the feds? While the U.S. Supreme Court played wishy-washy in D.C. on Monday, a local Florida judge stepped up, gave Vice President Al Gore a figurative slap upside the head and said, hey, you lost. What a contrast! So much for the prediction that the U.S. Supremes would feel the need to give the nation "finality" or "closure" or "legitimacy." Any sense of closure we got on Monday came instead from Leon Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls when he shot down Gore's contest of the Nov. 7 election, county by county. It was a slam dunk for the Republicans. It felt like a turning point. See? Not even our folksy version of Sheriff Andy Taylor (or, if you prefer, Sam Ervin) is on Gore's side any more. Naturally, Gore appealed at once. Yawn. So the federal case, kicked back down from Washington, and the state case, now rocketing upward on appeal, will meet at the Florida Supreme Court. As you will recall, that court already issued a big ruling in Gore's favor on Nov. 21, when it extended the deadlines for manual recounts. But things are a lot different this time. The state court will have to do major legal back flips to negate Sauls' findings. At the same time, the state high court is under pressure to satisfy the U.S. Supremes on why it extended the original deadline at all. Sure, the state court could thumb its nose at the world and keep declaring Gore the president until federal marshals rolled in. However, in the end, no court wants to look that wacky. So things are looking grim for Gore, Supreme-wise. His best remaining hope is for one of the other lawsuits playing out, for example the Seminole County case, to break his way and dump a few extra votes in his lap. The gist of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision Monday was that the court ducked. It did throw out the Florida court's Nov. 21 ruling that extended the deadline for manual recounts. So that victory for Gore was thrown out and Bush's position only improved. However, the high court also punted the case back to Florida for "further proceedings." And it did not decide the constitutional questions posed. Too bad! Lovers of the Constitution -- and those weary of this never-ending fight -- were thirsty for a substantive ruling. The Republicans had argued for a thorough spanking for the Florida court, to punish it for "making up" a new law by extending the deadline. After all, Article II of the Constitution gives each state Legislature the power of choosing the "manner" of selecting presidential electors. The "manner" chosen by the Florida Legislature was our existing election law. Did the state court usurp that law? But the federal court decided merely that the Florida court's ruling had not been clear enough. The feds were puzzled about whether the state court had properly considered the U.S. Constitution and federal law. So the federal court sent the case back to Florida, saying, "This is sufficient reason for us to decline at this time to review the federal questions asserted to be present." There was a ghost of a hint in the court's brief ruling that seemed to favor the Republicans. The court expressed the idea that when a Legislature writes a law governing presidential elections, it is not just carrying out state business -- it also is exercising power granted to it in the U.S. Constitution. That seems to agree with the Republican point of view that the state court's power is limited. But maybe the U.S. Supremes will never have to answer the question. For now, it all is back in the hands of the Florida Supreme Court, which could settle the Florida vote -- and therefore, the national election -- with a finality that the feds would not need to disturb. There would be a certain justice to that: Florida started this mess; we might as well get to finish it.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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