Supreme Court Decision
The Supreme Court decision of December 12, 2000 is considered by some to be a political decision. It may have been driven by judicial ideology, but was based on law. Seven of the nine justices saw as unconstitutional the decision by the Florida Supreme Court to require a vote recount with an imprecise standard for punch card ballots that violated the equal protection set out by the U.S. Constitution.
The Florida Supreme Court also attempted to legislate when its duty to the citizens of Florida was to interpret law not re-write it. The laws governing presidential elections may seem archaic but they do place upon the legislative branch the duty of defining the rules of a presidential statewide contest before the election takes place. The fact the the rules were imprecise with regards to "voter intent" could not be used as a basis for re-writing the laws after November 7th.
Those that see partisanship in this Supreme Court decision fail to see we are a nation of laws, and those laws were used as a basis for what must have been a very difficult decision by those 9 men and women we entrust to be the court of last resort in defining those laws.
12/13/00
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