Bush Campaign's Supreme Court Appeal

Part 3: Why did the Court decide to hear this case?

More of this Feature • Part 1: Legal Basis of the Bush Appeal • Part 2: What Will the Supreme Court Hear? • Part 4: The Hearing • Part 5: The Decision • Part 6: Text of Ruling    Join the Discussion "Given the extreme closeness of the current results, a federally supervised revote in ALL counties using that system would be the only fair way to deal with this." WRITER89      Related Resources • Latest Election News • Electoral College • Pro Electoral College  • If Florida Can't Vote • Supreme Court Info    From Other Guides • Cliffhanger! • Election Night Papers • British Reaction • Canadian Reaction • Still Too Close • Houston - Problem • Eyes on Tallahassee  • Election Timeline • Newspapers React • Constitutional Law • The US Court System • Righting the Ship • Can the Court be Fair?    Elsewhere on the Web • Florida Sec. of State • Florida Sup. Ct. Ruling • Fla. Elections Div. • United States Code

On Friday, Dec. 1, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board. This will be the first time in its history that the Supreme Court has become involved in a presidential election. The case also involves an interpretation of a state law by a court of that state, another area into which the U.S. Supreme Court rarely treads. So, why has the Supreme Court decided to weigh in this time?

Important: The fact that the Supreme Court agreed to review this case in no way indicates the way the Court feels about the merits of Gov. Bush's appeal, or how the Justices might rule on it.

Keep in mind that the Supreme Court refused to consider Gov. Bush's other appeal -- Siegel v. LePore -- in which the Bush campaign specifically claimed that the hand recounts in Florida violated the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

The Court may have considered Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board to fall under part (c) of its Rule 10:

"(c) a state court or a United States court of appeals has decided an important question of federal law that has not been, but should be, settled by this Court, or has decided an important federal question in a way that conflicts with relevant decisions of this Court."

The situation is clearly "an important question of federal law." However, since this will be the first time the Court has visited presidential elections, there are no "conflicts with relevant decisions of this Court."

It could be the justices are thinking, "If this can happen once, it could happen again," and see their decision as creating important, indeed historic, precedence in interpretation of federal law and the Constitution itself.

Since the Florida court battles began, haven't we really had a feeling this election was headed for the Supreme Court? Sure we have, and you can bet the justices have felt it, as well. They know America, as it often has before, is looking to the Supreme Court for a definitive and final resolution.

The election has also raised some brand new constitutional questions which the Court feels obliged to answer.

Finally, it could be that the Court does not yet know what it, as a group of nine justices, should do about the election, but at least four of them feel the gravity of the issue warrants consideration by America's "Court of Last Resort."

Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board - 
In its petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Bush campaign asks the U.S. Supreme Court to consider three questions:

"The Supreme Court of Florida has held that the Secretary of State cannot certify election results in accordance with preexisting Florida law and must instead wait for the statutorily untimely results of manual re-counts conducted in three Florida counties before certifying the results of the November 7, 2000 presidential election. This holding raises three substantial federal questions that warrant immediate review by this Court: 

1. Whether post-election judicial limitations on the discretion granted by the legislature to state executive officials to certify election results, and/or post-election judicially created standards for the determination of controversies concerning the appointment of presidential electors, violate the Due Process Clause or 3 U.S.C. § 5, which requires that a State resolve controversies relating to the appointment of electors under “laws enacted prior to” election day. 

2. Whether the state court’s decision, which cannot be reconciled with state statutes enacted before the election was held, is inconsistent with Article II, Section 1, clause 2 of the Constitution, which provides that electors shall be appointed by each State “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” 

3. Whether the use of arbitrary, standardless, and selective manual recounts that threaten to overturn the results of the election for President of the United States violates the Equal Protection or Due Process Clauses, or the First Amendment."

Next page > The Hearing > Page 1, 2, 3, 4

 

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