Editorial: High court picks Bush, ends mess?

Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2000 | 10:15 a.m.

The Supreme Court has ruled. The matter is settled. The mess continues.

It is now all but certain that George W. Bush will be the next president of the United States. Still, the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal Tuesday evening to permit a recount of Florida's presidential vote will serve to undermine Bush's legitimacy. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a deeply split 5-4 decision that reflected the nation's division as well, reversed a previous ruling by the Florida Supreme Court. Florida's high court had ordered a recount of all the undervotes in that state, a prospect that Bush worried could tip the election to Vice President Al Gore. The U.S. Supreme Court cited what it viewed as varying standards for counting that made this effort unconstitutional. But the majority's claims that intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court was warranted in this matter just didn't wash.

The four dissenting justices ridiculed the majority's opinion, citing many other instances where the court has declined to get involved in issues that the U.S. Constitution reserves to the states, not the federal government. Justice John Paul Stevens, in his dissent that was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, said the Constitution provides the states with the authority to determine how presidential electors are selected. While acknowledging that the use of different guidelines to gauge voter intent raised serious concerns, Stevens aptly reasoned that an impartial judge could resolve all objections that could arise during a recount.

It also was disingenuous for the majority to rule that there simply wasn't enough time left for a recount to be completed, including the adoption of uniform vote-counting standards. The dissenting justices correctly responded that the actual drop-dead date for completion was Dec. 18, not Dec. 12 as the majority claimed, which provided ample opportunity to finish the job that Florida's counties had begun. Indeed, it was Bush's repeated legal objections to a recount, and the U.S. Supreme Court's own dilly-dallying when it came to this case -- including its issuance of a stay over the weekend that stopped a recount from being finished by Dec. 12 -- that prevented a final tally. A recount, absent the U.S. Supreme Court's unnecessary interference, certainly could have determined who genuinely won the popular vote in Florida and, in turn, the White House. Ulti mately, journalists or historians, using open-records laws, may examine the contested ballots and determine who received th! e most votes.

The dissents were harsh, especially for a case where many legal observers believed that the U.S. Supreme Court would try to forge common ground in order to provide more public support for its ultimate decision. Stevens lamented what he viewed as an assault, by both Bush and the court's majority, on the impartiality of the judicial system at the state level, a cynicism he worried could expand. "Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision," Stevens wrote. "One thing is certain, however. 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 the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."

While the U.S. Supreme Court's decision has fallen short in arriving at a satisfactory resolution, the fact is that the court has spoken, and the matter is settled. That's the way it must be for our democracy to work. It's now time for Gore and his supporters to offer their moral support and good wishes to the president-elect. It is also time for Bush to reach out to the tens of millions of Americans who supported Gore's campaign in the way only a real leader can do. This nation has survived wars and other calamities -- its people certainly can overcome an unprecedented, albeit a bitterly contested, presidential election.