Florida Supreme Court agrees to hear Gore appeal

By JACKIE HALLIFAX, Associated Press, December 5, 2000

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear Al Gore's contest of the presidential election, while George W. Bush's lawyers prepared to ask the justices to revert to an earlier court ruling that rejected late hand recounts of ballots.

A lawyer close to Bush's legal team told The Associated Press that the Republican would ask the state's top court to reverse course and uphold a state judge's ruling that concluded no recounts were allowed after a Nov. 14 deadline set in state law.

The seven state justices previously ruled the hand recounts could continue beyond that deadline and be added to the official tally. Those recounts trimmed Bush's certified lead in the state from 930 votes to 537.

But the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Florida decision on Monday.

The Bush brief will argue "the only way" state justices can adhere to the wishes of the U.S. Supreme Court -- which set aside the state high court ruling and asked for more information -- is to reject hand recounts it had allowed, said the lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The dual developments placed the fate of Florida's disputed presidential election that will decide the White House winner in the hands of the state's highest court, which Democrats increasingly view as Gore's best last shot to undo Bush's certified victory.

Earlier, court spokesman Craig Waters announced the justices wanted written papers submitted by noon Wednesday, and would hear arguments Thursday morning in Gore's effort to overturn Bush's victory.

The unusually condensed schedule reflected the national urgency of the case.

Gore is appealing a ruling by Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls that rejected Gore's request for a manual recount in two counties and to overturn Bush's certified victory in the state that stands to pick the next president.

Waters said the justices had allotted an hour for oral arguments, 30 minutes for each side. On a technical point of what issues would be argued, he said the lawyers would be "dealing with whether the court should hear the case and the issues of the case as well."

Joseph Lieberman, Gore's vice presidential candidate, stood Tuesday in Washington with Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and other supportive Democratic lawmakers as he said the Florida Supreme Court would be "the final arbiter" of the election dispute.

Gore's appeal was one of two election-related cases at Florida's highest court. The other, returned on Monday from the U.S. Supreme Court, requested clarification of the reasoning behind a state Supreme Court ruling last month that approved partial manual recounts beyond a deadline fixed in state law for the end of vote counting in the presidential election.

The Bush and Gore legal teams already were operating under a 3 p.m. Tuesday deadline for submitting written arguments in that case. No timetable for oral arguments has yet been set in that case.

Waters told reporters he had no information on whether the two cases would be combined.

In the Florida Legislature, Senate President John McKay and House Speaker Tom Feeney, both Republicans, said in a joint statement that they had filed a motion to participate in the appeal before the Supreme Court.

They said they wanted to tell the justices that the Legislature's authority to pick electors stems from the U.S. Constitution and cannot be overridden by the state Supreme Court.

Handing Bush a key legal victory, Sauls said he concluded Gore had not shown there was a "reasonable probability" that the results of the election would have been changed.

Reading aloud to a packed courtroom and nationwide television audience, Sauls came down on Bush's side of the case on point after point. He refused to sweep aside Bush's 537-vote certified victory and begin courthouse counts of what Gore said were missed votes that had been rejected by machines in heavily Democratic counties.

"The evidence does not establish any illegality, dishonesty, gross negligence, improper influence, coercion or fraud in the balloting and counting processes" in the Florida counties where Gore sought hand recounts, Sauls said.

Furthermore, county canvassing boards in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Nassau counties all had acted within their discretion in tabulating votes, Sauls said, and there was "no authority under Florida law" for certifying an incomplete manual recount or for submitting returns after a deadline fixed by the state Supreme Court. That was a vindication of the actions of Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a GOP partisan who certified Bush the winner.

And Sauls said that while the record shows "voter error and/or less than total accuracy in regard" to the results in Palm Beach and Miami counties, these problems "cannot support or affect any recounting."

Gore asked for a ruling overturning Bush's slim lead and a manual recount of about 14,000 ballots in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties. The vice president also sought to change the official vote certification in Nassau County, although only 51 votes were involved there.

The Bush team argued there was no reason for the recount, and said the Texas governor had been certified properly on the basis of tallies submitted by the canvassing boards in all 67 Florida counties.

On other legal fronts:

• Florida Gov. Jeb Bush filed court papers Monday to move to Tallahassee federal court a voters' challenge to 1,500 overseas military ballots that were counted. Government lawyers took action after Leon County Circuit Judge L. Ralph Smith on Monday ordered local officials in 10 counties to provide absentee ballot records and told state officials to answer questions about the ballot deadlines.
• A federal judge in Pensacola will hear arguments in a GOP effort to increase Bush's vote margin by counting overseas ballots that were rejected for lack of a postmark and other problems, mostly those from military voters.
• The federal appeals court in Atlanta heard oral arguments Tuesday in a pair of related cases from Bush supporters who want the court to throw out any election results that included hand recounts.

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