At 12:28 PM 1/14/2003 -0800, Tim May wrote:
On Tuesday, January 14, 2003, at 08:29 AM, Steve Schear wrote:
Everything the Supreme Court did in the 2000 election was fully
justified. The Dems lost, then tried to change the rules.
Perhaps its my lack of depth in understanding the Constitution and its
Amendments, but it seems to me that the robed ones were applying the
Equal Protection Clause in a way that could de-legitimize virtually every
election in American history. Their intervention and they way it was
decided sets a very bad precedent.
Some old Jews and some negroes screwed up their ballots and accidentally
voted, they claimed, for Pat Buchanan instead of who they claimed to
interviewers they "intended" to vote for, namely, Al Gore. (A ballot
designed by a Democrat precinct, by the way.)
It was proper that they were neither given a chance to vote over again nor
given a chance to have incorrectly punched ballots altered to give the
votes to Gore.
All true, but you didn't address my concern about the nature of the SC
intervention.
In the book, 'The Accidental President,' by Newsweek writer David A.
Kaplan--challenges statements by some justices in the aftermath of the
decision that they had put the matter behind them and were once again
enjoying cordial relations. It describes Souter and the three colleagues
who joined him in dissent--Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg
and John Paul Stevens--as angered and baffled by the majority opinion.
Kaplan's book excerpt reveals that the animosities within the Court spilled
over at a gathering of the Justices while they were hosting six visiting
Russian judges. ``'In our country,' a Russian justice said, bemused, 'we
wouldn't let judges pick the president.' The justice added that he knew
that, in various nations, judges were in the pocket of executive officials
-- he just didn't know that was so in the United States,'' Kaplan writes.
``Stephen Breyer was angry and launched into an attack on the decision,
right in front of his colleagues. It was 'the most outrageous, indefensible
thing' the Court had ever done, he told the visiting judges. 'We all agree
to disagree, but this is different.' Breyer was defiant, brimming with
confidence that he'd been right in his long dissent.'' Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg was more baffled than annoyed, attempting to rationalize the
legitimacy of the ruling. ``'Are we so highly political, after all?' she
said. 'We've surely done other things, too, that were activist, but here
we're applying the Equal Protection Clause in a way that would
de-legitimize virtually every election in American history','' Kaplan writes.
steve
