High Court Usually Avoids Vote Disputes

Nov. 22, 2000 -- More than two weeks after Election Day, the legal wrangling for votes between the leading presidential candidates has finally reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lawyers for Texas Gov. George W. Bush today appealed to the high court, asking the justices for a quick review of Tuesday’s Florida Supreme Court ruling that allowed manual recounts to be included in the state’s final vote tally. The Republican team also asked the court to bypass a federal appeals court and review a federal judge’s decision last week not to block the recount.

There’s no guarantee the court will accept the case, but if it does, the justices will face an array of unprecedented questions critical to the outcome of the presidential election.

Bush’s first obstacle is getting the court to hear arguments in the case. Four of the nine Supreme Court justices must agree to grant oral arguments. At issue is whether the justices will identify a pertinent question in the appeals pertaining to federal law or the Constitution.

“It is very unlikely the U.S. Supreme Court would getinvolved,” Stanford University constitutional law professorKathleen Sullivan said. “Number one, the issues are issues ofstate law. The law of chad is a state law issue, not a federal one.”

Looking for Precedent

But ABCNEWS legal consultant Jan Baran says the justices might take the case even if they don’t think they should get involved.

“The court has historically been very reluctant to get involved in election disputes,” he said. “But if there were ever extenuating circumstances this would be it. They might take the case just for purposes of deciding they shouldn’t get involved.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has handed down at least two significant rulings on election law in the last few decades. In a 1970 case from Indiana, the justices ruled that even if the state conducted a recount in a tight U.S. race, members of the Senate had the power to make an “unconditional and final judgment” on whom to seat as a member.

In another case, the court ruled in 1969 that the House of Representatives was wrong to refuse a seat former Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who was under investigation by the Judiciary Committee, even though he received a majority of the votes. But neither of these cases addresses questions related to a disputed presidential election.

“We have a different issue here with presidential electors,” Baran says. “The Constitution says the method of choosing presidential electors shall be decided by state legislatures.”

Roles Reversed

In today’s high court appeal, Republican lawyers stressed the issues raised by Florida’s recount could potentially affect the entire nation.

“The unequal, constantly changing, and standardless selective manual vote recount under way for the past two weeks in Florida is a patently unfair process that is having an impact far beyond Florida’s borders, and that cries out for correction by this court,” Bush’s lawyers said.

The appeal of the judge’s ruling asked the court to decide “whether the use of selective, arbitrary and standardless recounts that threaten to overturn the results of the election for president of the United States violates the equal protection clause, the due process clause and the First Amendment” of the Constitution.

Today’s appeal appears to turn the traditional roles of Republicans and Democrats on their heads. In the past, Republicans have advocated a “federalist” system in which the federal government does not intervene in what are normally considered state matters. In this case, Democrats are claiming the issue is the domain of the state government, while Republicans are asking for federal intervention.

The court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist also has a record of supporting states’ rights. In several cases over the past five years, the justices have pared down the power of the federal government and placed power with the states.

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