After the court's Dec. 12 ruling and Gore's concession the next day, Justice Thomas told a group of high school students that partisan considerations played "zero" part in the court's decisions. Later, asked whether Thomas's assessment was accurate, Rehnquist answered, "Absolutely."
In later comments about the court's role in the case, Rehnquist seemed unfazed by the inconsistency of the legal logic. His overriding rationale seemed to be that he viewed Bush's election as good for the country whether a plurality of voters thought so or not.
In a speech to a Catholic service organization on Jan. 7, 2001, the chief justice said sometimes the U.S. Supreme Court needed to intervene in politics to extricate the nation from a crisis.
Rehnquist's remarks were made in the context of the Hayes-Tilden race in 1876, when another popular vote loser, Rutherford B. Hayes, was awarded the presidency after justices participated in a special election commission.
"The political processes of the country had worked, admittedly in a rather unusual way, to avoid a serious crisis," Rehnquist said.
Scholars interpreted Rehnquist's remarks as shedding light on his thinking during the Bush v. Gore case as well.
"He's making a rather clear statement of what he thought the primary job of our governmental process was," said Michael Les Benedict, a history professor at Ohio State University. "That was to make sure the conflict is resolved peacefully, with no violence." [Washington Post, Jan. 19, 2001]
But where were the threats of violence in the 2000 election?
Gore had reined in his supporters, urging them to avoid confrontations and to trust in the "rule of law." The only violence had come from the Bush side, when protesters were flown from Washington to Miami to put pressure on local election boards.
On Nov. 22, 2000, as the Miami-Dade canvassing board was preparing to examine ballots rejected by the voting machines, a well-dressed mob of Republican operatives charged the office, roughed up some Democrats and pounded on the walls. The canvassing board promptly reversed itself and decided to forego the recount.
The next night, the Bush-Cheney campaign feted these brown-shirts-in-blue-blazers at a hotel party in Fort Lauderdale. Starring at the event was crooner Wayne Newton singing "Danke Schoen," but the highlight for the operatives was a thank-you call from George W. Bush and his running mate, Dick Cheney, both of whom joked about the Miami-Dade incident. [Wall Street Journal, Nov. 27, 2000]
The Journal also reported that the assault on the Miami-Dade canvassing board was led by national Republican operatives "on all expense-paid trips, courtesy of the Bush campaign."
The Journal noted that "behind the rowdy rallies in South Florida this past weekend was a well-organized effort by Republican operatives to entice supporters to South Florida," with House Majority Whip Tom DeLay's Capitol Hill office taking charge of the recruitment.
Rewarding Violence
If one were to take Rehnquist's "good-for-the-country" rationale seriously, it would mean that the U.S. Supreme Court was ready to award the presidency to the side most willing to use violence and other anti-democratic means to overturn the will of the voters.
But it seems more likely that Rehnquist and the other four justices were just acting as partisan Republicans.
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