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thewarden
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
USA
25 Posts |
 Posted - 02/04/2008 : 08:25:02 AM
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Oh, and Brad... the complaint about the 2000 election is usually about the way the Supreme Court -- ignoring precedent and logic -- chose to get involved. There was no justification for the Supreme Court to overturn a Florida State Supreme Court decision about a Florida election law. The fact that they voted on party lines made a mockery of the concept of an independent judiciary. The behavior of Florida officials -- especially Katherine Harris -- was abhorrent, and would be considered tampering with elections if it was done in another country.
It was a close election. The electors in Florida would have been disputed regardless. There is a Constitutional procedure for dealing with disputed electors -- it goes to the Congress (as happened in 1876 famously). Congress was controlled by the GOP and Bush would have become President regardless. But the fact that Republican officials manipulated the process in Florida and then in the U.S. Supreme Court short-circuited the process making the result illegitimate even if the outcome would have been the same even if lawful procedures had been followed. It is to Bush's everlasting shame that he allowed such shenanigans to be pursued in his name.
Democracy is not just about outcomes, it is about process. And the way the 2000 election was resolved was just plain wrong in terms of process. What adds insult to injury is that Republicans seem completely unwilling to accept or acknowledge any of this. Saying "Get over it" over and over is not acceptable.
That election will remain a sore spot until some prominent Republicans comes out and says, "George Bush would have become President lawfully regardless under our Constitution, but the actions of Florida officials and the U.S. Supreme Court were inappropriate and violations of the public trust."
Bush stole an election he was going to win anyway. In a weird way, I consider that worse. He was too impatient and contemptuous about our democratic procedures to wait. |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2008 : 11:39:21 AM
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One might say the same thing about the Florida State Supreme Court involving itself, unsolicited, in the election process of that state.
A legal process was in place allowing for a recount and the State official (what was her name) was required by LAW to turn in the results of the state's voting by a set date following the required time allowed for recounts.
If Bush should be ashamed for the things done in his name, I can certainly recall some things shameful done in Gore's.
For example, Gore's team was gleefully insistent that late ballots coming in overseas from military personnel be thrown out. That was the law, they said.
Unless of course you are a "disenfranchised" minority statistically likely to vote Democrat. Like blacks or transplanted New Yorker senior citizens who mysteriously were "fooled" by a ballot later shown to be perfectly understood by 5 graders.
No, if you are a "disenfranchised" voter likely to vote for Gore, the laws governing recounts and state deadlines for validating the state's elections MUST BE TOTALLY OVERTHROWN OR IGNORED.
So you see, one law must be obeyed to the letter. Late ballots from soldiers are to be thrown out. Other laws...well, we can just ignore those because it wouldn't be fair.
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thewarden
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
USA
25 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2008 : 12:02:35 PM
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The Florida Supreme Court was involved because there was a court case (actually several) involving Florida election laws. They HAD to be involved. There was no jurisdiction for the U.S. Supreme Court. The "equal protection" claim based on the use of different methods is just completely absurd -- and the court acknowledged as much when they explicitly stated that this decision should not be used as a precedent. The U.S. Supreme Court intervened and was so ashamed by their own intervention that they felt they had to warn others not to follow their example in the future. There is simply NO comparison between the actions of the two courts. The Florida Court's rulings were bad law perhaps -- you can argue it various ways -- but they had not just a right, but obligation to rule on the issue brought before them. The U.S. Supreme Court just unilaterally jumped into the fray.
Gore won Florida if you don't count the absentee ballots. Bush won because they were counted. So I don't know what to make of this bizarre claim of wanting to disenfranchise military voters. Yes, there were a lot of challenges to voting by mail -- due to lack of postmarks and notories and such. But frankly, I find it amusing that the Republicans are all up in arms about voter fraud issues, but in this case felt that mailed-in ballots with no notarizing and no postmark ought to be accepted. I mean come on. And anyway, even though many were challenged, the vast majority were accepted, and it proved to be the margin of victory.
It is simply not true that the results had to be certified by a particular date. What is true is that the results could be certified by a particular date. Harris rushed with unseemly haste to squeeze in a certification at a time when she was under no obligation to do so.
And here is why Democrats remain upset. Republicans are unrepentant about the 2000 election, when as I always point it, they had no reason to mess around with the process. Bush was going to win in end because disputed elections go to Congress and Congress was controlled by the GOP. People might not like that kind of outcome, but having a political solution to a political dispute is what democracy is all about. Having people in ostensibly non-partisan positions, like Sec of State of Florida or the U.S. Supreme Court acting like political hacks is perilously close to what happens in authoritarian countries. You either respect the process or you don't. Personally, I like the Constitution. I think it is a good document. And I think it should be followed. |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2008 : 4:46:00 PM
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Warden, not to re-fight the 2000 election (and I do dispute a few of your observations), the problem is that Democrats had lived by Supreme court decisions for 40+ years up to that time to achieve political ends. If you live by the sword, you die by the sword. A classic example is the Roe v. Wade decision. Quite a few liberal legal analysts admit the decision is sloppy and there is no basis in the Constitution for it to be made. Yet, Democrats, for the most part, have wielded that decision for creating a Constitutional right. Once you break the strict constructionist viewpoint, you can't expect the Supreme Court to only choose your way as the make-up changes. So, I really don't feel a lot of sympathy when Democrats scream that the Supreme Court didn't have jurisdiction. Anyways, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the Florida method was unconstitutional and 5-4 that the election could be certified. In effect, the only ideological split on the court was whether Florida could try once again to count the votes properly.
- Si desea pulse 2 para español, encontrar un país diferente. - |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2008 : 5:08:22 PM
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The Florida Court's rulings were bad law perhaps -- you can argue it various ways -- but they had not just a right, but obligation to rule on the issue brought before them. The U.S. Supreme Court just unilaterally jumped into the fray.
No, they did not unilaterally jump into the fray. Gore attorneys appealed to the state SC to have the recounting deadlines extended. THAT was an appeal by Gore to set aside the legal election process and statutes in order to serve his own ends. In RESPONSE to that appeal to the state SC, Bush attorneys appealed to the next highest court, the United States Supreme Court to demand that state laws not be set aside. Surely, if Gore can appeal to the state SC, Bush was not wrong to take it to the next higher court. This is simple civics. And since the Supreme Court was APPEALED to, one cannot say that they entered the fray unilaterally. Certainly no more than you could say the Florida SC entered unilaterally because Gore appealed to them.
Sorry, but "Team Bush's" forays into the courts were demands that Florida state laws and statutes be OBSERVED and followed to the letter of the law.
"Team Gore's" forays into the courts were attempts to have Florida's laws and processes SET ASIDE and ignored.
You cannot say that Bush did not respect the legal processes involved in the election process. His arguments were only that the existing processes on the books be followed.
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People might not like that kind of outcome, but having a political solution to a political dispute is what democracy is all about.
Quite so. At no time that I can recall did a Bush attorney go before a judge and ask that a Florida law be ignored or overturned or that a deadline required by state statutes be extended even though the legal deadlines and requirements for recounts had been met.
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Harris rushed with unseemly haste to squeeze in a certification at a time when she was under no obligation to do so.
Actually, Florida statutes at the time required each county to certify and report their returns by 5 P.M., November 14th.
I do not consider following the laws on the books to be "unseemly" or hasty. That's what elected officials are supposed to do.
You also forget the federal statutory deadline for the state to certify it's electors. That was December 12th. With no objective, across the board guidelines for a manual recount of the entire state, there was really no possible way for Florida to do a manual recount in time for that December 12 deadline. The Supreme Court acknowledged this in their decision.
The Florida Supreme Court was attempting to unilaterally REWRITE Florida's election laws.
THAT IS NOT A "DEMOCRATIC" PROCESS. That is legislating from the bench. You cannot claim to be a staunch defender of the democratic election process and then defend an attempt by judges to rewrite laws that WERE democratically set in place by an elected legislature and signed by an elected governor.
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Personally, I like the Constitution. I think it is a good document. And I think it should be followed.
Would that we exercise the same respect for Florida's election laws, mandates, statutes and deadlines...
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thewarden
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
USA
25 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2008 : 5:50:07 PM
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Ugh. You don't get to decide what the Florida election laws meant. The Florida Supreme Court does. They decided the deadlines were not binding. As I say, this may be bad law, but it is the law.
The U.S. Supreme Court is not the next highest court. It is a federal court, not a state court of last recourse unless a federal issue is at stake. There was none -- the "equal protection" argue is laughable, so much so that (a) the Court itself acknowledged that it should not be used as precedent, and (b) current members of the Court never mention it anymore in defenses of the decision. Either you believe in federalism, or you don't. In this case, the sheer hypocrisy of the decision is what is striking. You have a majority of the court committed to federalism who explicitly make a single exception to make sure their preferred candidate wins. The Court gets hundreds upon hundreds of requests for cert a year, and rejects hundreds and hundreds of them because there is no grounds for the request. This is what they should have done. They were under no obligation to take the case.
The electoral college is supposed to meet in December. Had the results dragged on, two slates of electors would have presented themselves. The dispute would then have gone to the Congress. That is not an emergency. That is how the system was supposed to work. What is so hard to grasp here? I just don't see how conservative can, in good faith, defend Bush v. Gore. If you like Bush v. Gore, you, by definition believe that federalism and state's rights are meaningless and that judicial activism is a good thing.
Roe is a terrible decision, btw, but at least I admit that. I have yet to find a conservative who is willing to acknowledge that Bush v. Gore was an abomination. In defending it, you are valuing political victories above principle. And that is what gets under democrat's skins.
BTW, I did not start this discussion. My contribution to thread was initially just that I didn't think GWB was that compelling a personality to carry a movie. I just didn't like Brad's misstatement about what annoys Dems about 2000.
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2008 : 5:50:36 PM
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| Opened up a can of worms, didn't I. Jeez, I didn't mean to open up old wounds on the 2000 election; I was trying to make a point that a lot of Hollywood's political posturing is sheer hubris. Would someone be able to give an argument pro or con there? |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2008 : 7:59:23 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by thewarden
Ugh. You don't get to decide what the Florida election laws meant. The Florida Supreme Court does.
Ah, but you, Warden, do have the ability to read minds:
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You have a majority of the court committed to federalism who explicitly make a single exception to make sure their preferred candidate wins.
That's right: Stevens, Souter, and O'Connor are partisan right wingers. You read it here first. |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2008 : 8:07:44 PM
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Brad, I think you are right that it's hubris and narcissism. Hollywood operates on groupthink because everything is relationship driven. You have to know the "right people" to get work. You aren't going to get anywhere by telling a narcissist what they don't what to hear. I'm wondering if the shifting paradigm to more channels and the ability to produce content at a far cheaper cost is going to break Hollywood's monopoly. Or is it mainly going to be the same because, by nature, actors are narcissists.
Warden, I don't know that the SC decision was horrible based on past precedent of the SC sticking it's nose into legislative areas. I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying that we've let the SC do this before without much complaint. Getting in high dungeon over it now is like complaining that the chicken left the barn after all of the other animals have already left. If Democrats want to put the SC back into its proper realm, I'm fine with that. However, realize it's a two edged sword just like the way it currently operates is a two-edged sword. Most conservatives won't admit it because they believe the SC has the power that the liberals believe it has. Not many Democrats will tell you that Roe v. Wade is poor law. By the same token, not many Republicans are going to tell you that Bush v. Gore is poor law based on Constitutional limits.
One last point, if the FL SC didn't think the US SC had jurisdiction, why didn't they just ignore it? That's the basic argument you're making. If the FL SC had told the US SC to buzz off, they could have made their case. However, the FL SC acted like the US SC had jurisdiction and therefore they acted in concert with what you consider to be an unconstitutional act.
As I pointed out before, 7-2 was the decision that said the FL recount was unconstitutional. That surpasses the conservative majority at the time. The claim that this was completely partisan is wrong.
The thing you need to admit though is that the FL SC was acting just as political by warping Florida law to suit it's purposes. It was pretty obvious that the FL SC was going to keep demanding recounts until it got the result it wanted. When you have guys with magnifying glasses trying to determine if someone had indented a chad, you have a serious problem and tons of material for satire.
Well, I'm done with this. :-)
- Si desea pulse 2 para español, encontrar un país diferente. - |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2008 : 8:50:59 PM
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You don't get to decide what the Florida election laws meant. The Florida Supreme Court does.
I was under the impression that the state legislature and the governor who signs bills into law already decided what Florida election laws meant.
And those people, elected by the people of Florida, passed statutes with set, fixed dates and procedures for votes, recounts, and validations.
And there aren't too many different ways to "interpret" a statute that says, "Your county's votes must be validated and certified by November 14." Additionally, the U.S. Supreme Court also noted that there was nothing within Florida election law that even allowed or provided for an entire statewide, county by county manual recount.
In order for the Florida SC to decide that such a thing was allowed they would have to declare something that absolutely did not exist in any published law book.
Again, that is not a democratic process.
That is legislating from the bench and creating law outside the boundaries of the legislative and executive processes.
I believe you made some mention of such things being the hallmark of authoritarian regimes.
It is a curious state of affairs when somebody who's sole argument during the entire proceedings was "Obey the election laws of Florida" can be said to have stolen the election from somebody who's modus operandi for the entire proceedings was to go before as many judges as possible and beg them to ignore the election laws of Florida.
It is really almost astonishing to consider.
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Ugh. You don't get to decide what the Florida election laws meant. The Florida Supreme Court does.
That is not an emergency. That is how the system was supposed to work. What is so hard to grasp here?
Had Florida election laws and procedures been followed, there would have been no reason for ANYTHING to occur beyond the boundaries of the state.
It is mystifying to me how you continue to exclaim about "letting the system work" when Gore's entire strategy was to NOT let Florida's election processes and deadlines be followed. From start to finish he was purposefully trying to circumvent the laws of Florida and encourage judges to CREATE, NOT INTERPRET laws that NOBODY voted on and no governor ever signed into existence.
Again, that is NOT a democratic process. That is creating law from the bench.
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twitterpate
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
1026 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2008 : 9:47:57 PM
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Ummm ... moving right along....
Whatever one thinks of Stone as a moviemaker or political activist, this sounds like EXACTLY the wrong time to be making this movie. You can be cutting edge and topical - that would require making a Bush movie during, well, the Bush administration. Or you can be reflective on Bush's actual place in history. That would require giving enough time for current events to mature into history.
What a movie about Bush, to come out shortly after his presidency ended, will likely be is neither crisp and refreshing grape juice nor finely-aged wine. It will be cheap plonk that takes you straight to the hangover without the fun part in between. |
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thewarden
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
USA
25 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2008 : 10:08:17 PM
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I wish law were quite that easy. The Florida Supreme Court was perhaps legislating from the bench. Their assessment was that ultimately Florida has a recount provision in its laws, and that the intent of the legislature was to allow for recounts. At best this was a poorly written law in the sense that it allowed for recounts in theory, but didn't leave enough time in practice. The Florida Supreme Court assumed, I guess, that it was better to err on the side of allowing the intent of the law to stand (i.e. making a recount possible). Certainly, the Florida Supreme Court wrote incoherent opinions and failed to provide sufficient justification. But, on the other hand, the problem was that local officials were not moving with any sort of reasonable alacrity in actually recounting. If you believe the intent of the law was to make recounts impossible in practice when faced with slow-rolling from state officials, then I guess you can argue that the Fla SC was unambiguously in the wrong. I agree that at a minimum, their rulings were problematic.
But again... this has nothing to do with the actions of the US SC. It has nothing to do with the fact that Harris -- who was nominally the state official who should have been overseeing the prompt execution of the recount was actually closeted most of the time with GOP strategists to try to thwart any recount.
The 7-2 ruling argued that the Fla SC was wrong in allowing a mishmash of procedures to apply. But it was the 5-4 ruling that was really problematic, because after a rough start, Fla officials were adopting a workable standard under the Leon CT judge (forget his name). The Fla SC was trying to make sense of a situation where the intent and letter of the law were arguably at odds. The US SC was making up stuff out of whole cloth. Scalia has argued publicly they they needed to stop the recount because "The rest of the world was laughing at us." Last I checked, international humor is not a criteria for Constitutional decisions... but then again, I didn't know that the VP's office was an independent 4th branch of government until recently either. So, what do I know?
And again, the bigger point is that Democrats are unhappy about the way the Supreme Court intervened and the way Fl officials like Harris behaved, not simply because Bush won despite losing the popular vote. And it is just annoying to hear that Dems have had their panties in a bunch ever since 2000 just because their man lost. I'll tell what else... most Dems desperately wanted to rally around Bush after 9/11, but he deliberately chose to govern in a divisive fashion. And finally, the notion that only hard-left, George Soros-loving, Saddam Hussein-defending, Michael Moore-supporting, defeat-o-crats dislike GWB is laughable. His approval rating has been in the 30s forever. None of the current GOP candidates wants to run as his heir (they all harken back to Reagan).
I'm done on this issue, and I apologize for dragging it out, but frankly, I find it difficult to allow out and out caricatures of democrats to stand unchallenged. It creates the impression that we are a bunch of weaklings unwilling to stand up for ourselves. |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2008 : 1:24:54 PM
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Well, I will say that the laws did allow for recounts. Machine ones. If memory serves (I'm not going to google this) there were two machine recounts done. Machines, unlike people, only have one standard of counting a vote. Machines don't have a preference for who wins. Machines don't know how to be subjective.
Let's face it. Gore's people only insisted on subjective hand recounts in a few Democrat leaning districts because the machine recounts didn't give him enough votes to win. Do you suppose that if the machine recounts had put him over Bush by even 10 votes Gore wouldn've said, "You know...we'd better do a hand recount."
Not hardly.
Yes, Florida law did not have any apparatus in place for a subjective, multi-standard county by county hand recount. And with the votes of each county required by statute to be validated by the 15th of November, that was not the appropriate time or place to try and create quick standards on the fly. That was not the time or place to create a law outside of the legislative process. I seriously question the fairness of such an act. It is too much changing the rules of poker on the fourth hand.
As far as hanging chads or dimples, I don't know about you folks but when I vote I approach it with the seriousness of disarming a bomb. That is how careful I am, how meticulous I am in that voting booth. I read everything. I make absolutely certain that the button or dimple that I want to push gets PUSHED.
Sounded like too many voters in Florida approached the whole procedure with all the seriousness of skipping down the corner bodega for a 2 liter of Pepsi. Their fault and nobody else's.
For what it is worth, I don't believe I was providing a caricature of Democrats as sniveling. I was merely providing another point of view that suggests that far from stealing an election, all Bush ever did was insist that the laws on the books be obeyed and that new laws not be created on the fly from the bench. |
Edited by - Citizen Carrier on 02/05/2008 1:37:41 PM |
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TheFoywonder
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
833 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2008 : 3:36:31 PM
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Let's not pretend that if the roles had been reversed the Republicans wouldn't have been sniveling and the Democrats saying "Get over it!"
Now Playing in Foyeurism at Foywonder.com: ACTION U.S.A. - The best kept secret in all of action b-moviedom explodes into the Foyer
Plus: B-WARE THE BLOG is alive at http://www.livejournal.com/users/foywonder |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2008 : 6:06:58 PM
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I'm loathe to admit, but Foywonder is probably right. I think the difference between some of the snots in Beverly Hills and people around here is:
(1) You get the feeling that people in here do what they can to back their arguments up, giving reasons for their stances.
(2) Even when things get heated up, you never get the impression that people in here would be happy to burn someone at the stake at the stake for simply suggesting (with evidence) that someone might be wrong.
Okay, (2) was a slight exaggeration, but you know what I'm talking about. |
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