Word: scalias
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...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...
...Another thing that seemed to bother Scalia was voter responsibility, as he hinted when he voted for the stay to halt "the counting of votes that are of questionable legality." The rickety old Votomatics are just hole-punching aids; if the voter has neither sufficient passion to puncture a piece of perforated cardboard nor sufficient intentness to follow directions and clean up his chads on his way to the to-be-tabulated pile, maybe magnifying glasses are too good for him. We make a voter make his way to the polls; do we demand so little of him from that...
...they didn't, and Scalia doesn't sound ready to make Bush pay for the delays. But this is the United States Supreme Court. They can do a lot to buy time, especially with the nation expecting - and arguably deserving - a high-minded solution from its highest court. They can agree to lift the velvet rope of the December 12 deadline, put the bouncers in the Florida legislature on hold until the 17th or so, and get nearly any hand count that suits them begun and finished with days to spare. A little conservative activism might be just what...
...while back, Scalia told Bob Woodward the Supreme Court was "called in to correct mistakes," and for the five that granted the stay the ultimate act of non-activist correction might be to tell Florida's executive and legislative branches to do whatever they want. After all, this is a democracy, and an election - who better to decide this dispute than elected officials? If they do wrong, let the people fire them in 2002 or 2004. (And if the high court does wrong, let a political judgment be remembered as well. The people can change this Court...
...Scalia also said the Court "should not be a prominent institution in a democracy." And if there's one thing five conservatives will be willing to do alone, it's hand it all over to the politicians, in Florida and in Washington (though most of Congress, especially Democrats from Bush states and Republicans from Gore states, cringe at the thought). It's federalist. It's non-interventionist. And it would give the Supreme Court - and possibly judiciaries everywhere - a very low profile indeed...