Reid defends Florida recounts

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2000 | 9:59 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a vocal Al Gore ally, continued to defend the Democratic presidential nominee on Tuesday and called for patience in recounting the Nov. 7 vote in Florida.

Reid urged state officials trying to certify the vote before a recount Tuesday to "cool your jets."

"People should want a fair result rather than a fast result," Reid said at a news conference held with Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., in the Capitol.

Bayh, a former Indiana secretary of state who presided over a recount, stressed that a manual recount and delayed vote result are not unusual in a close race.

"The only thing extraordinary here is the office involved," Bayh said.

Bayh said state and local races often are decided after hand counts. It only makes sense to conduct hand counts for a more important presidential race, Bayh said.

People should not be troubled by election officials scrutinizing every ballot, even holding ballots up to the light -- that's the purpose of a manual count, Reid said.

Reid and Bayh on Tuesday stressed there was no rush to certify the election because overseas ballots are not due until Friday.

Reid lost a Senate race to Paul Laxalt in 1974 and called for a recount that made Laxalt the winner by 611 votes. Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., in 1998 called for a recount in a race Reid eventually won by 428 votes.

"Election night for me took six weeks -- six weeks of lawyers bantering back and forth," Reid said.

Reid said there was no certain time when Democrats would stop supporting Gore's vote challenges.

"When there has been a fair count in the state of Florida," Reid said.

But Republicans say Gore has had a fair count and Bush is the winner.

Republicans and Democrats in Congress are trading barbs over the presidential election. Congress members put off finishing this year's session until Dec. 5 to await an election outcome.

"The vice president has stepped over a line here that no candidate for president has ever stepped over," Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, said. "I believe the Democrats are trying to steal this election, clean and simple."

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., disagreed. "It's clear to me now that (Republicans) will go to any lengths to put George Bush in the White House, and that that is a higher priority for them than the national interest."

It remains to be seen if both parties in Congress will embrace either Gore or Bush as president, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., told the Associated Press Tuesday.

"My attitude is once the decision's made, the decision's made, even if it's one of questionable circumstances," Lott said. "We've got to move on, and I think we have to find a way to work together."

Some fear Congress will be more divided than ever after such a close presidential election. Others say the charged post-election atmosphere will foster more compromise.

Congress itself is more evenly divided with 49 Democrats and 50 Republicans in the Senate and one race in Washington state undecided.

In the case of a 50-50 split, Reid said, Democrats will argue for evenly split committees -- where much of Congress' work is done -- to be led by two chairmen, a Republican and a Democrat.

That's been done before in the Nevada Legislature and was "awkward but quite efficient," Reid said.