Supreme Court May Duck New Jersey Case

Bloomberg, no url | 10/3/02

[Greeklawyer]

Is it not one SC justice who hears the original petition. If I am not mistaken it this case it would be Souter.

[BlackRazor]

Well, then the district court can apply the law laid down by the Eleventh Circuit in Roe v. Alabama, 43 F.3d 574 (11th Cir. 1995): changing the rules in mid-election violations constitutional equal protection.

Yep. I had always thought that was the GOP's best legal route in the 2000 election mess.

[BlackRazor]

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the vote 7-2?

There were two different rulings. The 7-2 ruling said that SCOFLA acted unconstitutionally with their remedy. The 5-4 ruling essentially said there was not time to conduct any further recounts.

[FreeTally]

I honestly don't understand the reluctance.

There is no reluctance. The author just made that up. The first sentence says,

The U.S. Supreme Court, still scarred by the fight over the 2000 presidential electionfight, probably will be reluctant to wade into the battle over New Jersey's U.S. Senate race, legal experts said.

"Still scarred"? "Legal experts said"?

In no rational person's mind is the SCOTUS "scarred" over Gore v. Bush.

[randita]

After the SCOTUS laid down the law in Bush v. Gore, the lower federal courts are perfectly capable of applying it to new cases.

But what would the remedy be? If it's proven that voter's rights were violated, then the courts could require a brand new election, couldn't they? Then Democrats could run yet another recycled candidate.

[Physicist]

The Democrats still have the one ace in the hole: Jumpin Jim could switch again, this time to the "darkside" Dems.

That won't help. If the Dems fall one seat short, the best Jeffords can do is make it a 50/50 split. Cheney breaks the tie for the Republicans.

[Eala]

Weeks after the ruling, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who voted in the majority, said he hoped courts ''will seldom, if ever,'' become involved in another U.S. presidential election.

Me too -- except my hope would be that this would happen because the Dems quit trying to win elections by involving the judiciary.

Since they haven't, for the Court to ignore such actions would signal that the Rule of Law is truly and thoroughly dead, that the Great Experiment is over and the results are in (it failed), and that what really only matters anymore is what you can get away with.

But then, it's coming for a long, long time -- we just haven't been paying attention.

[aristeides]

If the decision is made before Election Day, I imagine a possible remedy would be to run the election with Torricelli on the ballot, with suitable precautions taken for counting military ballots.

It would be a lot harder to devise a suitable remedy after the election is held.

[WOSG]

Actually, the FIRST USSC decision was 9 - 0. second one, yes 7-2, the 5-4 was the split on remedy, 2 wafflers wanted to count every Florida ballot if possible (but not really). But only 3 were hard-core defenders of Rule of Law in elections. Still, it should be easy for USSC to remand this case back and MAKE the NJ SC write their opinion in light of maintaining existing electoral scheme. Is there some Federal law that applies to all Federal elections relevent to this???

Anyway ... media bias, dont you just love it?

[ThinkDifferent]

Thanks for the details. I remembered the critical decision was 7-2, but I had completely forgotten about the initial 9-0 decision to initially remand. But yeah, it's just amazing how we only ever hear about the 5-4 remedy vote. No bias to see here, move along...

[AmericanVictory]

This article appears to be an exercise in wishful thinking by your typical Eurosocialist oriented pressie to whom U.S. constitutionalism is utterly foreign.

[AmericanVictory]

Legal expert = Democrat whores for hire a/k/a "progressives."

[goldstategop]

I'm for conservative judicial activism to give the liberal scofflaws at the New Jersey Supreme Court a taste of their own medicine. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to see the SCOTUS kick their pompous asses into the dirt.