Case Dismissed: Bush v. Gore Goes Into Room 101

Wednesday, 16 August 2006

Here's an excellent analysis on how to transform Bush v. Gore from the most shameful Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case into a powerful weapon for a broader, deeper, more healthy democracy. The argument, by Adam Cohen, is calm, cogent, considered and full of eminent good sense that any reasonable person could agree with wholeheartedly. So, any chance of it being adopted by the American Establishment?

No.

From the New York Times: Has Bush v. Gore Become the Case That Must Not Be Named? Excerpt:

This debate, which has been quietly under way in the courts and academia since 2000, is important both because of what it says about the legitimacy of the courts and because of what Bush v. Gore could represent today. The majority reached its antidemocratic result by reading the equal protection clause in a very pro-democratic way. If Bush v. Gore’s equal protection analysis is integrated into constitutional law, it could make future elections considerably more fair.

The heart of Bush v. Gore’s analysis was its holding that the recount was unacceptable because the standards for vote counting varied from county to county. “Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms,” the court declared, “the state may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person’s vote over that of another.” If this equal protection principle is taken seriously, if it was not just a pretext to put a preferred candidate in the White House, it should mean that states cannot provide some voters better voting machines, shorter lines, or more lenient standards for when their provisional ballots get counted — precisely the system that exists across the country right now.

Of course, the equal protection principle is not taken seriously by the high and mighty, and the ruling was just a pretext to put a preferred candidate in the White House. Still, it's nice to dream about living in a land where reason and law and honest debate are not ground into the dirt beneath the bootheels of power and privilege, isn't it?

Chris Floyd