PrimeTime Exclusive: Katherine Harris Interview

Jan. 11, 2001 -- For 36 days, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris was arguably the most powerful and talked about woman in America.

In her first interview since she landed in the center of the most bitter presidential election in modern memory, Harris denies any wrongdoing, partisanship, or abuse of discretion in her moves to certify George W. Bush as the winner of her state's contested vote.

"I followed the law," she tells ABCNEWS' Diane Sawyer. "Before God, before the law, before the people of the state of Florida who elected me, I know that I followed the law."

Harris, a Republican and a co-chair of the Bush campaign in Florida, emphasizes that she is an independently elected official — not an appointee of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president-elect’s brother. She says she has no plans to join his administration as an ambassador, as had been speculated in The Washington Post.

"Certainly that is a dream for everyone, but right now I have a job to do and I am very focused," says Harris.

Ties to Bush

Asked what her relationship is with President-elect Bush, Harris, who proudly displays a photo with the Bush brothers in her Tallahassee office, says, "I admire him incredibly, and I respect the job he has done as governor, and I think he is going to be a great president."

But she discounts any suggestion that her actions, such as rejecting hand-counted ballots, were purposely intended to help Bush win. "I believe that George Bush won the election through the vote of the people and the way our republic is set up," she says. "All we did was follow the law in the Department of State."

Had a full recount of the whole state been completed, she says she has no idea who would have won.

"There's just no way I could know … I have no idea," says Harris. "Certainly I had my preference, and I very much hoped that George W. Bush would be our next president," but in her capacity as secretary of state, she says, "I just wanted to be a voice of reason."

She tells Sawyer: "I had to follow the law strictly whether it took a victory to George W. Bush or to Vice President Al Gore." Though she was a staunch Bush supporter, she says, "No matter what, I had to act with integrity in the system because I have to live with myself for the rest of my life, regardless of who the president is."

Harris says she has not heard from the president-elect. "Does that bother you?" asks Sawyer. Harris responds, "I think he has quite a lot to do besides contacting me."

Election Night

Harris says she went to bed on Election Night believing Bush had been elected the country's 43rd president. Just before dawn, she was awakened by a phone call from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who was calling from Austin. She denies the two discussed anything other than the legal process.

"He wanted to know what prompted the automatic recount," she says. "I got dressed immediately and within five minutes I was at the Capitol."

With Harris at ground zero in an explosive political crisis, she says, "We put up basically a fire wall." Bush was ahead just a few hundred votes, and some Florida counties launched a hand recount. But critics argued that Harris seemed inflexible by attempting to block hand recounts and denying even an additional two hours that Palm Beach County requested to complete a recount. Harris says the delay would have been longer than hours, as the county did not finish their recount for two days.

While the Bush team was thrilled, Gore supporters were outraged. Initially, a lower court supported her interpretation of the law, but the highest court in Florida, in a scathing opinion, unanimously ruled against her decisions saying she hadn't followed the spirit of the law. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court let Harris' decision stand.

"We weren't trying to rush it or slow things down," she says of her actions. "There wasn't a strategy behind this."

Harris suggests that Al Gore's request to delay certification of the votes may have actually deprived him of time to contest the certified results. "It shortened the time on the back side for the contest," she says. "From my perspective, it just seems that if [the Gore campaign] followed the law before the Supreme Court changed the law and extended the deadlines, they would have had more time for contest. It is up for history or for them to determine if that was a shot in the foot."

Asked if she had wanted a statewide manual recount, Harris says, "I always want to make sure that every voter feels that their vote is counted, but you're asking such a speculative question because then there was not a standard."

A Fish Called Chad

Harris, who found herself at the center of the late-night talk show circuit with jokes about her makeup and clothing, and was compared in the press to A Hundred and One Dalmatians villainess Cruella de Vil, responds to the ridicule for the first time. "It was just silly," she says. "You know, if that's the worst thing they can say about me after they've gone through my high school and college and talked to my friends and former boyfriends…" And, she adds, "I like dalmatians."

Laughing at criticism about her wearing excessive makeup, Harris recalls shopping late one night when a woman looked at her credit card and then asked, "Are you Katherine Harris?" Harris says she responded, "Yeah, I only have on one layer of makeup. I'm incognito."

Despite her good humor, she says the entire episode took a toll on her. "It was a roller coaster. But when you decide to run for office, you know, that's part of the story," she says. "I learned a lot about the process and I learned a lot about myself."

As for her future plans, Harris says, "As long as I do a good job, I believe the future is going to take care of itself, but actually I like very much being in elected office and there is no consideration about doing anything different until I can be assured that we are going to have the best voting systems in the country." She adds, "The beating that Florida took over these voting systems was terrible and I want to make certain that we reasssert ourselves."

In the meantime, however, Harris says she has now "put it in perspective." She has a new pet, "a New Year's fish," she tells Sawyer. "It is a male. It can't be pregnant. It doesn't have dimples … His name is Chad."

Written for ABCNEWS.com by Rebecca Raphael.