15 thoughts on “Oh, For A Justice Mary Poppins”

  1. All those original Intent justices threw away their principles to rule on Bush v Gore.

    They threw away States Rights, They dove into a local issue on counting votes at the county level. They overrode the constitutional process where the House of Representatives could elect a president.

    Had all those Original Intent Justices just said.
    “The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.
    The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.[1]
    The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.[2]”

  2. Jack, if the election in 2000 had gone to the House of Representatives, the outcome would have been the same as resulted from Bush v. Gore.

    Furthermore, it’s worth reminding some people that the pivotal issue in Bush v. Gore was decided not 5-4 but 7-2. The 5-4 decision meant two justices refused to come to the conclusion that the 7-2 ruling demanded.

    And which side were those two justices on? Hmmm, let’s see…

  3. One of the outcomes of Bush v. Gore is that we now have Bush v. Gore as a precedent. The Supreme Court said in its decision that the case should not be considered as a precedent for future cases, but that’s just an indication of what a bad decision it was, and not necessarily anything that can prevent it from being used as a precedent.

  4. Right, jack. So how come we have all this fluff about civil rights for blacks? Didn’t Dred Scott v. Sandford settle that stuff back in 1854?

    Oh, and, to use further jack logic, since the Democrats were the party of the slaveholders in the 1860s through 1950s, ninety full years of being officially racist pigs, it seems to me they’ve thrown away their principles long ago, and have nothing to say if some Republican says something racist.

    Here’s a thought to bollux up your mental machinery. How about if we judge speech and action according to the merits of the speech or action, and not the merits, or history, of the speaker or actor?

  5. Oh, please. The ignorance and partisan biases around the 2000 election are ridiculous. The whole legal problem arose when the Florida Supreme Court–a very left-leaning court at the time–twisted Florida law all out of proportion to give Gore a chance to win. How playing games with whether a non-vote is now magically a vote doesn’t disturb ALL of us is beyond me. I had reviewed the voting law before the decision was handed down and was absolutely shocked at how much they had ignored.

    Anyway, because Florida muffed the decision, the Supreme Court was forced to work around that screwy opinion to come up with a way to get the issue settled. Since they couldn’t override a Florida court on a matter of Florida law, they had to take a walk down a tortuous path.

    This isn’t to say that there wasn’t any partisanship at the Court, but it wasn’t simply a matter of Democrat versus Republican.

    I voted Libertarian that time and most times since the 1980s, and I disliked Bush at the time about as much as I disliked Gore. I just didn’t like the Democrats’ attempt to steal the election–which, of course, it was, despite the accusations pointing the other way–and the abuse of the law that began at the Florida Supreme Court.

    Incidentally, I’d like to see Janice Rogers Brown get appointed. She’s a black woman (and–don’t tell anyone–a libertarian), which should meet the criteria that the administration appears to be setting for Souter’s replacement.

  6. “ack, if the election in 2000 had gone to the House of Representatives, the outcome would have been the same as resulted from Bush v. Gore.”

    probably but it would have been constitutional.

    The Supreme Court ended up writing a decision that
    said “Please don’t use this as Precedent, which was
    unheard of in the 225 year history of the Supreme Court.

    There have been other contested elections in this country, and the House of Representatives have fixed all of them.

    That the Supremes had no confidence in the House of Representatives and the Constitution was reason enough to impeach all of them.

    I would have been fine with the House of Reps electing Bush, far more then I was with the Supreme Court doing it.

  7. jack, all the recounts were in Bush’s favor too. There was the election and a recount, and THEN the Constitution was circumvented to allow MORE RECOUNTS that Gore lost. Your guys threw away the concepts and rules for the United States to try to steal the election…YOUR guys. Let me guess, you’re also one of the “We didn’t really land on the Moon.” crowd too.

  8. Local radio was advocating for Richard Simmons. He’s not part of the judiciary, has empathy with women, and his sexuality is ambiguous, even though he considers himself a devout Catholic. Since identity politics is more important than judicial law, he fits the role outlined by Obama and Reid.

  9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_election_recount#Results

    4 recount scenarios were in Gore’s favor. 5 recount scenarios were in Bush’s favor.

    What my objection was the US Supreme Court weighing in on what was a State Issue.

    It was close, very close, much as the Franken case is close.

    A decent recount attempt might have gotten a bit closer to the truth, but, it’s okay. Bush seems to have permanently damaged the GOP Brand, so, you can chalk up the GOP and the US as just one more thing he screwed up in his life full of screwups.

  10. As I recall, the pro-Gore scenarios amounted to “If we counted all ballots where the voter didn’t indicate any preference for president, as being for Gore, Gore wins.”

  11. Jack, when you find a reliable source, then you can demand others do the same. Until then, you’re not fooling anyone here.

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