Sources: Justice Souter retiring.

[Ever]

;_;

[Gish08]

Bill Clinton had only 55% approval at this time in his Presidency -- yet he ended up being highly respected, even to this day.

So just because GWB and Obama have the same approval rating basically doesn't mean a thing. I sincerely doubt he will leave office, be it after four OR eight years, with an approval rating in the high 20's/low 30's.

[Nimrod's Son]

Gish08 must have forgotten how Bill Clinton was considered a joke in the late 90's and even Al Gore distanced himself during his campaign to keep the stench of Clinton away from him. "Highly respected" would not be a term to apply to Bill Clinton

[Trotskilicious]

considered a joke by who, the right? ok.

from what i read during and after 00 the fact that gore distanced himself actually hurt him. but then again, Gore did win in 2000.

You really just see what you want to see don't you.

[Eulogy]

might as well del : x

[Trotskilicious]

clinton's popularity was high throughout the lewinsky thing and after

[Eulogy]

well nevermind then

[ravenguy2000]

Clinton was highly popular through the whole thing, Gore distanced himself because he rightly didn't want his campaign to become the Bill Clinton show.

Kinda like what he did to his wife 8 years later.

[Trotskilicious]

except she didn't win

you know because gore did n stuff

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

except she didn't win

you know because gore did n stuff

No matter how many times you repeat that it doesn't change the fact that he lost.

[Toast]

ANYBODY would look good following Bush the idiot.

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by Nimrod's Son

No matter how many times you repeat that it doesn't change the fact that he lost.

lost by supreme court mandate

not because he lost the popular vote (or florida since nobody ever counted the ballots) i mean imagine what he coulda done if clinton campaigned for him. you know 1% of the vote for sure in florida and winner is him.

you act like clinton was some kind of toxic blight in 00, but his veep "lost" by the slimmest margin in history (one supreme court vote)

[Debaser]

judicial activism handed bush the presidency in 2000

[Corganist]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

lost by supreme court mandate

not because he lost the popular vote (or florida since nobody ever counted the ballots) i mean imagine what he coulda done if clinton campaigned for him. you know 1% of the vote for sure in florida and winner is him.

you act like clinton was some kind of toxic blight in 00, but his veep "lost" by the slimmest margin in history (one supreme court vote)

If Gore had the Clinton albatross around his neck all campaign long, it wouldn't have even been as close as it was. I think time has made people forget just how sick of Clinton's crap everyone was by the time 2000 came around. The GOP also carried their share of the weight on that (which is why Bush ran so moderate in 2000, trying to distance himself from that), but at the time I think a lot of people held it against Clinton for putting himself in such a bad position.

That said, Gore didn't lose by Supreme Court mandate or one Supreme Court vote or anything like that. Even if Gore won the case and got the recount he asked for, he would have still lost.

Originally Posted by Debaser

judicial activism handed bush the presidency in 2000

If there was anything "activist" about Bush v. Gore, it's that 2 justices (Stevens and Ginsburg) somehow managed to say there was no equal protection violation at all in the way the votes were counted. That was pretty preposterous. As far as the remedy portion of the case (to recount or not to recount) goes, I'm not sure the court came to the right answer....but there was nothing clearly activist about it. It's not like there's clear law on the matter that the court just decided to flaunt. They were in almost totally uncharted waters legally. Bush v. Gore may very well have been a bad decision. But bad does not necessarily equal "activist."

In the end, it would have come out the same more than likely. I don't see what good would have come out of dragging it out. Would we really have been better off having a drawn out situation like the Coleman/Franken crap going on in Minnesota?

[Trotskilicious]

hahaha bush v gore wasn't activist

HOLY SHIT CORGANIST

[Debaser]

semantics. it was a terrible decision. intellectually dishonest. one of the worst in history. simple as that.

party over country. by both sides. too bad the court wasn't above it, either. full statewide recount would have been the only fair solution. who gives a fuck about dragging it out. let's count all the votes. let's do a better job at pretending we're a democracy.

[Corganist]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

hahaha bush v gore wasn't activist

HOLY SHIT CORGANIST

Please, O great legal expert, tell us all exactly what was so activist about it other than the fact that you didn't like the result.

Originally Posted by Debaser

semantics. it was a terrible decision. intellectually dishonest. one of the worst in history. simple as that.

Hyperbole. It may have been a bad decision, but it wasn't in the same league as Dred Scott or Roe v. Wade.

party over country. by both sides. too bad the court wasn't above it, either. full statewide recount would have been the only fair solution. who gives a fuck about dragging it out. let's count all the votes. let's do a better job at pretending we're a democracy.

If the Court had ordered that, then they really would have been engaging in some activism. It was never their charge to find the "fair solution" to the whole situation. Their only duty was to answer the legal questions in front of them. They weren't called in as election officials.

I think the main mistake the court made was deciding, without much evidence to show for it, that Florida couldn't get a constitutionally sound recount approved before the electors met. The Court should have set the deadline as being the date that the electors met and then kicked the case back to Florida, telling them that they had until the deadline to finish a constitutionally kosher recount. Granted, it's doubtful that Florida could have done so in the end...and the Court knew it, but that wasn't any reason for them to not at least put the ball in Florida's court instead of pulling the plug on the whole thing. The results would have been the same in the end, but instead of people going around saying that "the Supreme Court elected Bush," they'd be saying "Bush got elected because Florida's voting process was fucked up" (like they should be).

[Nimrod's Son]

The Court should have set the deadline as being the date that the electors met and then kicked the case back to Florida, telling them that they had until the deadline to finish a constitutionally kosher recount. Granted, it's doubtful that Florida could have done so in the end...and the Court knew it, but that wasn't any reason for them to not at least put the ball in Florida's court instead of pulling the plug on the whole thing. The results would have been the same in the end, but instead of people going around saying that "the Supreme Court elected Bush," they'd be saying "Bush got elected because Florida's voting process was fucked up" (like they should be).

Yes, I agree that the Supreme Court should have left the matter up to Florida... but then again it was Gore who brought the case to the Court I believe.

[Debaser]

if i remember right, gore brought it up to the florida supreme court (which ruled in his favor for recounts) and then bush appealed it to the US Supreme court which ordered the recount to be stopped. and then, welp...no more time left to finish the recount before the electors meet, so bush wins!

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally Posted by Debaser

judicial activism handed bush the presidency in 2000

Revisionist history.

1. Most of the post-electoral controversy revolved around Gore's request for hand recounts in four counties (Broward, Miami Dade, Palm Beach, and Volusia), as provided under Florida state law.

2. Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris announced she would reject any revised totals from those counties if they were not turned in by November 14, the statutory deadline for amended returns.

3. The Florida Supreme Court extended the deadline to November 26, a decision later vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court.

4. Miami-Dade eventually halted its recount and resubmitted its original total to the state canvassing board, while Palm Beach County failed to meet the extended deadline.

5. On November 26, the state canvassing board certified Bush the victor of Florida's electors by 537 votes.

6. Gore formally contested the certified results, but a state court decision overruling Gore was reversed by the Florida Supreme Court, which ordered a recount of over 70,000 ballots previously rejected by machine counters. The U.S. Supreme Court quickly halted the order.

7. On December 12, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5–4 vote that the Florida recounts could not be completed before a December 12 "safe harbor" deadline, and should therefore cease and the previously certified total should hold. The court also ruled 7–2 that the Florida Supreme Court's ruling requiring a statewide recount of ballots was unconstitutional.

a 7-2 decision is pretty non-partisan, especially in 2000. Yes, the other vote was 5-4 but the most activist court involved in this whole thing was the Florida Supreme Court which repeatedly ignored the law (3) (6) (7)

[Debaser]

i'll see your random unsourced revisionist history list and raise you a chain email

A LAYMAN'S GUIDE TO THE SUPREME COURT DECISION IN BUSH V. GORE
by Mark H. Levine, Attorney at Law

Q: I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand the recent Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore. Can you explain it to me?

A: Sure. I'm a lawyer. I read it. It says Bush wins, even if Gore got the most votes.

Q: But wait a second. The US Supreme Court has to give a reason, right?

A: Right.

Q: So Bush wins because hand-counts are illegal?

A: Oh no. Six of the nine justices believed that hand-counts were legal and should count. Indeed, all nine found "Florida's basic command for the count of legally cast votes is to consider 'the intent of the voter.'" "This is unobjectionable as an abstract proposition." In fact, "uniform rules to determine intent" are not only "practicable" but "necessary."

Q: So that's a complicated way of saying "divining the intent of the voter" is perfectly legal?

A: Yes.

Q: Well, if hand counts are fine, why were they stopped? Have the re-counts already tabulated all the legal ballots?

A. No. The five conservative justices clearly held (and all nine justices agreed) "that punch card balloting machines can produce an unfortunate number of ballots which are not punched in a clean, complete way by the voter." So there are legal votes that should be counted but will never be.

Q: Does this have something to do with states' rights? Don't conservatives love that?

A: Yes. These five justices have held that the federal government has no business telling a sovereign state university it can't steal trade secrets just because such stealing is prohibited by law. Nor does the federal government have any business telling a state that it should bar guns in schools. Nor can the federal government use the equal protection clause to force states to take measures to stop violence against women.

Q: Is there an exception in this case?

A: Yes, the "Gore exception." States have no rights to control their own state elections when it can result in Gore being elected President. This decision is limited to only this situation.

Q: C'mon. The Supremes didn't really say that. You're exaggerating.

A: Nope. They held "Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, as the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities."

Q: What complexities?

A: They didn't say.

Q: I'll bet I know the reason. I heard Jim Baker say this. The votes can't be counted because the Florida Supreme Court "changed the rules of the election after it was held." Right?

A. Wrong. The US Supreme Court made clear that the Florida Supreme Court did not change the rules of the election. But the US Supreme Court found this failure of the Florida Court to change the rules after the election was wrong.

Q: Huh?

A: The Legislature declared that the only legal standard for counting vote is "clear intent of the voter." The Florida Court was condemned for not adopting a clearer standard after the election.

Q: I thought the Florida Court was not allowed to change the Legislature's law after the election.

A: Right.

Q: So what's the problem?

A: They should have. The US Supreme Court said the Florida Supreme Court should have "adopt[ed] adequate statewide standards for determining what is a legal vote"

Q: I thought only the Legislature could "adopt" new law.

A: Right.

Q: So if the Florida Court had adopted new standards, I thought it would have been overturned.

A: Right. You're catching on.

Q: Wait. If the Florida Court had adopted new standards, it would have been overturned for changing the rules. And since it didn't do it, it's being overturned for not changing the rules? That makes no sense. That means that no matter what the Florida Supreme Court did, legal votes could never be counted if they would end up with a possible Gore victory.

A: Right. Next question.

Q: Wait, wait. I thought the problem was "equal protection," that some counties counted votes differently from others. Isn't that a problem?

A: It sure is. Across the nation, we vote in a hodgepodge of systems. Some, like the optical-scanners in largely Republican-leaning counties record 99.7 percent of the votes. Some, like the punch card systems in largely Democratic-leaning counties, record only 97 percent of the votes. So approximately 3 percent of Democratic-leaning votes are thrown in the trash can.

Q: Aha! That's a severe equal-protection problem!

A: No it's not. The Supreme Court wasn't worried about the 3% of Democratic-leaning ballots (about 170,000) thrown in the trashcan in Florida. That "complexity" was not a problem.

Q: Was it the butterfly ballots that violated Florida law and fooled more than 10,000 Democrats into voting for Buchanan or both Gore and Buchanan?

A: Nope. The courts have no problem believing that Buchanan got his highest, best support in a precinct consisting of a Jewish old age home with Holocaust survivors, who apparently have changed their mind about Buchanan's view that Hitler was not all that bad.

Q: Yikes. So what was the serious equal protection problem?

A: The problem was neither the butterfly ballot nor the 170,000 or 3 percent of Democratic-leaning voters (largely African-Americans) disenfranchised. The problem is that somewhat less than 0.01 percent of the ballots (less than 600 votes) may have been determined under ever-so-slightly different standards by judges and county officials recording votes under strict public scrutiny, as Americans have done for more than 200 years. The single judge overseeing the entire process might miss a vote or two.

Q: A single judge? I thought the standards were different. I thought that was the whole point of the Supreme Court opinion.

A: Judge Terry Lewis, who received the case upon remand from the Florida Supreme Court, had already ordered each of the counties to fax him their standards so he could be sure they were uniform. Republican activists repeatedly sent junk faxes to Lewis in order to prevent counties from submitting the standards to Lewis in a way that could justify the vote counting. That succeeded in stalling the process until Justice Scalia could stop the count.

Q: Hmmm. Well, even if those less than 600 difficult-to-tell votes are thrown out, you can still count the other 170,000 votes (or just the 60,000 of them that were never counted) where everyone, even Republicans, agrees the voter's intent is clear, right?

A: Nope.

Q: Why not?

A: No time.

Q: I thought the Supreme Court said the Constitution was more important than speed.

A: It did. It said, "The press of time does not diminish the constitutional concern. A desire for speed is not a general excuse for ignoring equal protection guarantees."

Q: Well that makes sense. So there's time to count the votes when the intent is clear and everyone is treated equally then. Right?

A: No. The Supreme Court won't allow it.

Q: But they just said that the constitution is more important than speed!

A: You forget. There is the "Gore exception."

Q: Hold on. No time to count legal votes where everyone, even Republicans, agrees the intent is clear? Why not?

A: Because they issued the opinion at 10 p.m. on December 12.

Q: Is December 12 a deadline for counting votes?

A: No. January 6, 2001 is the deadline. In the Election of 1960, Hawaii's votes weren't counted until January 4, 1961

Q: So why is December 12 important?

A: December 12 is a deadline by which Congress can't challenge the results.

Q: What does the Congressional role have to do with the Supreme Court?

A: Nothing. In fact, as of December 13, 2000, some 20 states still hadn't turned in their results.

Q: But I thought ---

A: The Florida Supreme Court had said earlier it would like to complete its work by December 12 to make things easier for Congress. The United States Supreme Court is trying to "help" the Florida Supreme Court out by reversing it and forcing the Florida court to abide by a deadline that everyone agrees is not binding.

Q: But I thought the Florida Court was going to just barely have the votes counted by December 12.

A: They would have made it, but the five conservative justices stopped the recount on December 9.

Q: Why?

A: Justice Scalia said some of the votes may not be legally counted.

Q: So why not separate the votes into piles -- hanging chads for Gore, indentations for Bush, votes that everyone agrees were intended for Gore or Bush -- so that we know exactly how Florida voted before determining who won? Then, if some ballots (say, indentations) have to be thrown out, the American people will know right away who won Florida. Make sense?

A. Great idea! An intelligent, rational solution to a difficult problem! The US Supreme Court rejected it. They held in stopping the count on December 9 that such counts would be likely to produce election results showing Gore won and that Gore's winning the count would cause "public acceptance" that would "cast[] a cloud" over Bush's "legitimacy" and thereby harm "democratic stability."

Q: In other words, if America knows the truth that Gore won, they won't accept the US Supreme Court making Bush President?

A: Yes.

Q: Is that a legal reason to stop recounts? or a political one?

A: Let's just say in all of American history and all of American law, this is the first time a court has ever refused to count votes in order to protect one candidate's "legitimacy" over another's.

Q: Aren't these conservative justices against judicial activism?

A: Yes, when liberal judges are perceived to have done it.

Q: Well, if the December 12 deadline is not binding, why not count the votes afterward?

A: The US Supreme Court, after conceding the December 12 deadline is not binding, set December 12 as a binding deadline at 10 p.m. on December 12.

Q: Didn't the US Supreme Court condemn the Florida Supreme Court for arbitrarily setting a deadline?

A: Yes.

Q: But, but --

A: Not to worry. The US Supreme Court does not have to follow laws it sets for other courts.

Q: So who caused Florida to miss the December 12 deadline?

A: The Bush lawyers who, before Gore filed a single lawsuit, went to court to stop the recount. The rent-a-mob in Miami that got free Florida vacations for intimidating officials. The constant request for delay by Bush lawyers in Florida courts. And, primarily, the US Supreme Court, which refused to consider Bush's equal protection claim on November 22, 2000, then stopped the recount entirely on December 9, and then, on December 12 at 10 p.m., suddenly accepted the equal protection claim they had rejected three weeks earlier, but complained there was no time left to count the votes in the two hours left before midnight that evening.

Q: So who is punished for this behavior?

A: Gore. And the 50 million plus Americans that voted for him, some 540,000 more than voted for Bush.

Q: You're telling me Florida election laws and precedents existing for a hundred years are now suddenly unconstitutional?

A: Yes. According to the Supreme Court, the Legislature drafted the law in such a messy way that the Florida votes can never be fairly counted. Since Secretary of State Katherine Harris never got around to setting more definitive standards for counting votes, Gore loses the election.

Q: Does this mean the election laws of any of the other 49 states are unconstitutional as well?

A: Yes, if one logically applies the Supreme Court opinion. The voters of all 50 states use different systems and standards to vote and count votes, and 33 states have the same "clear intent of the voter" standard that the US Supreme Court found illegal in Florida.

Q: Then why aren't the results of these 33 states thrown out?

A: Um. Because . . . um . . . the Supreme Court doesn't say . . .

Q: But if Florida's certification includes counts expressly declared by the US Supreme Court to be unconstitutional, we don't know who really won the election there, right?

A: Right.

Q: But then what makes Bush President?

A: Good question. A careful statistical analysis by the Miami Herald extrapolates from the 170,000 uncounted votes in Florida to show Gore clearly won the state and may have done so by as much as 23,000 votes (excluding the butterfly ballot errors). See http://www.herald.com/thispage.htm?c...ion/104268.htm

Q: So, answer my question: what makes Bush President?

A: Since there was no time left for a re-count based on the non-binding "deadline," the Supreme Court decided to choose itself who will be President and has picked Bush to win by a vote of 5 to 4, based on the flawed count it just determined to be unconstitutional.

Q: That's completely bizarre! That sounds like rank political favoritism! Did the justices have any financial interest in the case?

A: Scalia's two sons are both lawyers at law firms working for Bush. Thomas's wife is collecting applications for people who want to work in the Bush administration.

Q: Why didn't they remove themselves from the case?

A: If either had recused himself, the vote would have been 4-4, the Florida Supreme Court decision allowing recounts would have been affirmed, and Scalia said he feared that would mean Gore winning the election. Justices Rehnquist and O'Connor had both said before the election that they wanted to retire but would only do so if a Republican were elected, and when O'Connor heard from early (and, we now know, accurate) exit polls that Gore had won Florida, she responded that was "terrible."

Q: I can't believe the justices acted in such a blatantly political way.

A: Read the opinions for yourself: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/00pdf/00-949.pdf (December 9 stay stopping the recount)

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/supr...-949_dec12.fdf (December 12 opinion)

Q: So what are the consequences of this?

A: The guy who got the most votes in the US, in Florida, and under our Constitution (Al Gore) will lose to America's second choice (George W. Bush), since Bush has won the all-important 5-4 Supreme Court vote, which trumps America's choice.

Q: I thought in a democracy, the guy with the most votes wins. At least in the Electoral College, shouldn't the guy with the most votes in Florida win?

A: Yes. But America in 2000 is no longer a democracy, or even a republic. In America in 2000, the guy with the most US Supreme Court votes wins. That's why we don't need to count the people's votes in Florida.

Q: So what will happen to the Supreme Court when Bush becomes President?

A: He will appoint more justices in the mode of Thomas and Scalia to ensure that the will of the people is less and less respected. Soon lawless justices may constitute 6-3 or even 7-2 on the court.

Q: Is there any way to stop this?

A: YES. No federal judge can be confirmed without a vote in the Senate. It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. If only 41 of the 50 Democratic Senators stand up to Bush and his Supreme Court and say that they will not approve a single judge appointed by him until a President can be democratically elected in 2004, the judicial reign of terror will end.and one day we can hope to return to the rule of law and the will of the people.

Q: Why can't we impeach the justices?

A: That takes a majority of the House and 2/3 of the Senate and is far more controversial. Don't worry. A 4-year judicial filibuster will definitely get the Court's attention. Indeed, it is probably the only way to get the Court's attention.

Q: What can I do to help?

A: Email this article to everyone you know, and write or call your Senator, reminding him or her that Gore beat Bush by more than 540,000 (almost five times Kennedy's margin over Nixon) and that you believe that elections should be determined by counting the People's votes, not the Supreme Court's. Therefore, to stop our unelected federal judiciary from ever again overturning the will of the people, you ask your Senators to confirm NO NEW FEDERAL JUDGES APPOINTED BY A NON-DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT until 2004 when a president can be finally chosen by the American people, instead of Antonin Scalia.

Q: Doesn't anyone on the US Supreme Court follow the rule of law?

A: Yes. Read the four dissents. Excerpts below:

Justice John Paul Stevens (Republican appointed by Ford): "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."

Justice David Souter (Republican appointed by Bush): "Before this Court stayed the effort to [manually recount the ballots] the courts of Florida were ready to do their best to get that job done. There is no justification for denying the State the opportunity to try to count all the disputed ballots now.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Democrat appointed by Clinton): Chief Justice Rehnquist would "disrupt" Florida's "republican regime." [In other words, democracy in Florida is imperiled.] The court should not let its "untested prophecy" that counting votes is "impractical" "decide the presidency of the United States."

Justice Steven Breyer (Democrat appointed by Clinton): "There is no justification for the majority's remedy . . . " We "risk a self-inflicted wound -- a wound that may harm not just the court, but the nation."

[Eulogy]

nimrod's post was from wikipedia

[Nimrod's Son]

that is correct. which is sourced.

[Debaser]

oh

[Debaser]

...and why isn't this activism? you have the supreme court not allowing all the votes to be counted basically because it would supposedly undermine the credibility of whoever wins. isn't undermining the credibility of the vote count exactly what they did here?

[Corganist]

Originally Posted by Debaser

...and why isn't this activism? you have the supreme court not allowing all the votes to be counted basically because it would supposedly undermine the credibility of whoever wins. isn't undermining the credibility of the vote count exactly what they did here?

Do you know what the argument to the contrary was? "Preventing the recount from being completed will inevitably cast a cloud on the legitimacy of the election." So one side says letting the recount go forward causes problems for the election's credibility, and the other side says stopping it would...but the only people that get called out are the ones who hold the former view? That's convenient.

I don't see what is so obviously wrong about the idea that letting a recount go forward is stupid while there is an issue in front of the court that could very likely render said recount completely worthless. What good would a recount have been if it was done with illegal votes in the mix? I guess reasonable minds can differ on whether or not a bad, but completed recount is better or worse than a prematurely stopped recount...but I don't see how it's a slam dunk either way. The Court was in a tough spot, and hard cases make bad law.

And at any rate, I fail to see how "activism" plays into it at all.

[Debaser]

Originally Posted by Corganist

Do you know what the argument to the contrary was? "Preventing the recount from being completed will inevitably cast a cloud on the legitimacy of the election." So one side says letting the recount go forward causes problems for the election's credibility, and the other side says stopping it would...but the only people that get called out are the ones who hold the former view? That's convenient.

how does counting every vote undermine the credibility of an election? and the concern for illegal votes polluting the count was purposely overblown.

[Debaser]

The activism comes thru when judges adopt an intellectually dishonest argument in order to ensure the person they prefer gets elected.

And overriding a state's right to determine how they count their own votes (using a line of argument that logically should override the rest of the entire country as well) doesn't exactly smell like judicial restraint to me, either.

[Debaser]

i don't really care to argue the semantics of "activism", you freely admit that it was prolly a bad decision and I agree.

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally Posted by Debaser

how does counting every vote undermine the credibility of an election? and the concern for illegal votes polluting the count was purposely overblown.

Unless I'm mistaken. Gore never called for every vote to be recounted.. just those in heavy Democrat areas where they would consider "voter intent"

Both sides played the courts to their advantage instead of going the fair route, and we got what we got.