U.S. Supreme Court Overturns Florida Court

Dec. 13, 2000 -- The U.S. Supreme Court all but assured George W. Bush the presidency late Tuesday, reversing a Florida court decision that had ordered a recount of tens of thousands of disputed ballots.

Just two hours before a federal deadline for certifying presidential electors, the deeply divided court voted 5-4 to overturn a Florida Supreme Court decision that had ordered the state’s 67 counties to recount ballots that did not register votes on Election Day, ruling the move violated the equal rights provision of the U.S. Constitution.

But the nation’s highest court did leave open the slim possibility that the Florida court could reconsider its decision, sending the case back to the state Supreme Court for further review. However, the court seemed to recognize that time is a key factor.

“Because it is evident that any recount seeking to meet theDec. 12 date will be unconstitutional … we reverse the judgmentof the Supreme Court of Florida ordering the recount to proceed,”the majority opinion said.

The decision came shortly after 10 p.m. ET Tuesday, and its decision was deciphered live by broadcasters and legal experts on national television. The ruling is likely to put an end to this extraordinary, five-week-old presidential election dispute, and clear the way for Bush to make his transition to the White House next month.

At least three justices strongly agreed with arguments made by Bush’s legal team that the Florida Supreme Court overstepped its bounds and violated both federal law and the Constitution when it last Friday reinstated the hand recounts of ballots initially rejected by machines. And seven justices, in all, agreed there were “constitutional problems” with the recounts.

But in a blistering dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens called theBush legal appeal a “federal assault” on the laws of the state of Florida.

“Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that willbe inflicted by today’s decision,” wrote Stevens. “One thing, however, is certain. 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 thejudge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.”

Stevens was joined in his dissent by justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Also dissenting was Justice David Souter.

Gore advisers had said before the ruling they believed that if the vice president lost the case in the highest court in the land, he would mount no more challenges to Bush’s claim to the presidency. Last month, Florida’s secretary of state certified Bush as the winner of Florida’s 25 electoral votes in what will go down as one of the closest presidential elections in history.

One of Gore’s lawyers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, offered a grim perspective, calling it a “death blow.” And privately, sources close to the vice president said the Gore team was angered by the decision and were holding out hope of continuing the fight.

But the vice president’s campaign chairman, William Daley, released a statement saying Gore and his running mate, Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, were reviewing the decision and would address it at some point later today.

“The decision is both complex and lengthy,” Daley said in the statement. “It will take some time to completely analyze this opinion.”

Bush aides said the Texas governor would wait to see Gore’s first move before the man they view as president-elect would address the nation. But in a subdued comment from former Secretary of State James Baker, the Bush adviser said the Texas governor and his running mate, Dick Cheney, were pleased with the decision.

“This has been a long and arduous process for every one involved — on both sides,” Baker said in brief comments to reporters.

An Unsigned Opinion

Both sides last night were attempting to understand the legal as well as the political implications of the historic ruling.

Although a large majority of the court agreed there were constitutional problems with the recount, the justices disagreed on a remedy.

“It is obvious that the recount cannot be conducted incompliance with the requirements of equal protection and dueprocess without substantial additional work,” the court wrote.

But the court said that because Florida lawmakers intended ineffect to complete the choosing of electors by Dec. 12 an orderrequiring a new recount “could not be part of an appropriate”remedy.

The court issued its ruling in an unsigned opinion. ChiefJustice William H. Rehnquist and justices Antonin Scalia andClarence Thomas went further in a separate opinion, saying theFlorida Supreme Court also violated the Constitution and federallaw in ordering the recount.

Rehnquist wrote that the Florida Supreme Court “significantly departed from the statutory framework” of Florida law when it ordered the recount, and authorized “open-ended” proceedings that would not be completed by Dec. 12.

“This was done in a search for elusive — perhaps delusive — certainty as to the exact count of 6 million votes,” the chief justice wrote.

Although Justice Stevens agreed that using different standards to determine the “intent of the voter” could raise serious concerns, Stevens strongly weighed in on what he considered the rights of the voters to have their votes counted.

“As the majority further acknowledges, Florida law holds that all ballots that reveal the intent of the voter constitute valid votes,” Stevens wrote in his dissent. “Recognizing these principles, the majority nonetheless orders the termination of the contest proceeding before all such votes have been tabulated.”

“In the interest of finality … the majority effectively orders the disenfranchisement of an unknown number of voters whose ballots reveal their intent and are therefore legal votes under state law, but were for some reason rejected by ballot-counting machines,” he wrote.

Deeply Divided

Even during Monday’s oral arguments in the case known officially as Bush vs. Gore, the high court’s nine justices appeared as deeply divided as the rest of the nation over one of the closest presidential elections in history.

Bush’s attorneys told the justices Florida’s high court had usurped the power of the state Legislature by ordering the recounts. But Gore’s team argued the state court has authority over the matter and that, in fairness, all votes must be counted.

During the questioning, several justices focused on what standards, if any, should be used during manual recounts to determine legal votes.

Under Florida law, the only standard for divining legal votes is to identify the “intent of the voter.” The lack of guidance left a good deal of subjectivity in the recount process as elections officials examined disputed ballots in a range of conditions — some with only indentations, others with “hanging” chad, for example.

With just days to go before the Electoral College votes on Dec. 18, the justices also seemed aware during Monday’s arguments that time was running out to elect a president.

At least officially, Tuesday marked the deadline for the states to appoint their presidential electors. Although Florida could conceivably miss this deadline by a few days, a slate of electors appointed after Tuesday can be challenged in Congress.

Although the court usually takes months to craft rulings, the justices have been known to return decisions in a speedy fashion. In 1953, it took the court just one day to vacate a stay of execution in the Ethel and Julius Rosenberg espionage case, a decision that sent the couple to the electric chair.

The court turned another case around in one day in July 1972, when it was asked to consider the seating of delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Both of these rulings came during the summer, and not during the court’s more hectic normal term, as with the current case.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Florida House voted to approve a slate for electors for Bush.

Also Tuesday, the Florida Supreme Court rejected the appeals of Democratic voters who claimed 25,000 absentee ballots in Martin and Seminole counties should be tossed out because Republican workers were allowed to fix errors on some ballot applications. The cases, rejected in circuit court last Friday, had the potential to swing thousands of votes — and the election — in Gore’s favor.

ABCNEWS.com’s Geraldine Sealey and The Associated Press contributed to this report.