Quote:
Originally posted by Gattigap
In other news, I note an interesting article from Slate making the argument that the Supremes won't be deciding the election this year, largely because the Supes are scared shitless of having to deal with the issue again, and because political mechanisms do exist to resolve problems. Those mechanisms usually inure to the benefit of Republicans, so there's hope in Bushland.
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Not sure I buy the logic here. There are several small statements I disagree with (for example, that the Court was surprised at the blowback over their Bush v. Gore decision, and that the Court utterly eviscerated the precedential value of Bush v. Gore). They all add up, though, to a very different view of these justices. I don't think they are at all frightened of wading into electoral controversy, and I think many view the controversy over Bush v. Gore as relative minor in comparison to many other controversies. The Florida elections are not the same minefield as abortion, for example.
But, here's a different thought -- given the way the votes came out last time, would there be a bias this time in the court toward Kerry? After all, it is a very different thing to decide the election twice in four years for the same person than to decide the election twice while promulgating consistent rules in a non-partisan fashion. If they decide for Kerry, it would cut a lot of the criticism from last time around that it was a results driven decision (of course, it would do so by being results driven...)
