Word: scalia
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...Even that last bastion of presumed objectivity, the U.S. Supreme Court, is deeply divided along political lines; six of the bench's nine justices (Scalia, Thomas, Ginsburg, Souter, Stevens and Breyer) are solidly committed to ideological positions they are considered extremely unlikely to abandon. That divide was never more clear than on Saturday, when the Court voted 5-4 to stay the Democrats' recount effort in Florida...
...this is good news for the Gore team, since such a divide leaves only Justices Scalia and Thomas to defend the conservative line; Justices Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer and Stevens would need only one of the wavering votes to reverse the stay on the Florida recount...
...Since the Court granted George W. Bush his stay by split decision Saturday, the race has been on to daub the nine Justices with the same red and blue blood as the rest of us, with Scalia and Breyer holding up the battle flags. When Scalia stepped out front to say the words Gore didn't want to hear - "a majority of the court... believe that the petitioner has a substantial probability of success," some legal experts called it the understatement of the year. On Monday, the highest court in the land was going to call the game...
...counts themselves. They reside in the laws of Florida, Texas, Illinois and lots of other states, and are generally accepted as a last resort when elections get too close to call. To a national court mindful on both its left and right flanks of "clouds" over this national election (Scalia himself defended the stay's ability to produce "the public acceptance democratic stability requires"), hand counts themselves may be hard to dismiss...
...During the oral arguments, Scalia missed few opportunities to sneer at Boies for ignoring "equal protection" - what may be sticking in conservative craws the most is the specific inequalities in the current hand count scheme. What could attract Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas is a hand-count plan that codifies the ballot-by-ballot "voter intent" standard strictly, sensibly and statewide. Boies won't get anywhere with them defending the bloated Democratic counts in Broward, Volusia and one-fifth of Miami-Dade that were summarily blessed Friday by the Florida Supremes, and the conservatives on the high court won't relinquish...