Well the fragile peace that Rehnquist had sculpted on the Supreme Court has been shattered into a million pieces. We now know exactly how the Court will vote either on Monday night or Tuesday morning. (Scalia and Stevens clash) Clearly the justices in the minority opinion wanted to make sure everyone knew who they were and how the court was voting. To that end, they released a rare dissenting opinion on the granting of a stay. No case has been argued or even a brief presented in the case, and the court is issuing a dissenting opinion. I think what the minority wants to avoid is an action similar to the one last week when the court vacated the lower court's opinion without disclosing a vote or having a dissenting opinion. The four in the minority have now forced the majority to take the steps in public.

I think now, despite Justice Scalia's legitimate efforts to stop it, a larger portion of democrats will view a Bush presidency as illegitimate. More importantly, I think Scalia is off the mark when he worries that counting these votes will call the legitimacy of a president into question because under Florida law, we will eventually count all the votes.
- posted by levinson @ 12/10/2000 08:33:00 AM