At a law school Supreme Court conference that I attended last fall, there was a panel on "The Rehnquist Court." No one mentioned Bush v. Gore, the most historic case of William Rehnquist's time as chief justice, and during the Q. and A. no one asked about it. When I asked a prominent law professor about this strange omission, he told me he had been invited to participate in another Rehnquist retrospective, and was told in advance that Bush v. Gore would not be discussed.
The ruling that stopped the Florida recount and handed the presidency to George W. Bush is disappearing down the legal world's version of the memory hole, the slot where, in George Orwell's "1984," government workers disposed of politically inconvenient records. The Supreme Court has not cited it once since it was decided, and when Justice Antonin Scalia, who loves to hold forth on court precedents, was asked about it at a forum earlier this year, he snapped, "Come on, get over it."
Many Republicans including the very partisan Justice Antonin Scalia like to dismiss and almost forget the very antidemocratic ruling the Supreme Court made that ended the Florida recount back in 2000.
The biggest thing about remembering Bush Vs. Gore is the fact that American election need to have as much oversight as possible and need to be as fair as we can make them.
Our election process is the freedom that trumps all others and it must not be taken for granted or allowed to be tainted by corporate interests or neo-cons with hidden agendas.
It's the last piece of America that we must hold onto, even with death if necessary..
No comments:
Post a Comment