11/17/00 2:55 p.m.
For Butter or for Worth?
What about the attorney general?

By Stephen F. Hayes, a writer living in Washington, D.C.

he media, with unceasing assistance from eager Democrats, have succeeded in making Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris the Starr (not star) of this election. Unfortunately, they are missing a far more compelling story about Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, the Gore campaign's Florida co-chair who has injected himself into the recount controversy.

He has influenced the decisions of local election officials — against his own office's policies — and encouraged manual "recounts" that could, if the left-leaning Florida supreme court agrees, tip the election to Gore.

Yet he has avoided the media scrutiny that depicts Harris as a blue-blooded "crook" and "hack." The "profiles" of Harris exhaustively detail her life as a Republican, her family's wealth, her political ambitions, and her newfound love of the spotlight. Thursday's New York Daily News even reported that Harris, in the early 1990s, was "second banana in a musical revue" in Sarasota, where she would "exhort audience members to jump from their seats and dance like chickens."

The relevance to her ability to enforce Florida law is unclear.

But we have heard nothing of Butterworth's past. Indeed, in a staggering example of the selective outrage of the American media, we have heard little of Butterworth's past week.

Last week, as Volusia County's canvassing board considered going forward with a hand count, Attorney General Butterworth telephoned the chair of that board, Judge Michael McDermott. Butterworth insists that he did not attempt to convince McDermott to conduct a hand count in Volusia County, and he claims to have resigned as chairman of Gore's Florida campaign several hours before the call. "I said every ballot has to be recounted," he said of the call. "I did not say what method they had to use."

Days later, Butterworth issued an "advisory" opinion in favor of hand counts, which are thought to benefit the vice president. The advisory was the decisive factor in at least one county, Broward, opting for a hand count. More interesting, perhaps, is that Butterworth issued the advisory despite two statements on his state website that seemed to caution against — if not forbid — his doing so.

The first concerns the attorney general's role in electoral disputes, and clearly indicates Harris' authority on such matters. "Questions arising under the Florida Election Code should be directed to the Division of Elections in the Department of State." Butterworth's advisory also seems to violate a second rule: "opinions are not rendered on questions pending before the courts." Asked about the contradiction, Butterworth's response sounded like Al Gore's famous "no controlling legal authority" defense. Said Butterworth: "It's not a legal restriction on my authority."

Unlike the widely reported accusations against Harris, the criticism of Butterworth has been limited almost exclusively to a few mentions in local Florida papers. The New York Times, to its credit, did report the call between Butterworth and McDermott. The paper even wrote that Butterworth, "who wanted a manual recount," called the Volusia County chairman and that McDermott, a Republican, cut off Butterworth mid-conversation and told him to "disqualify himself."

But unlike many Times stories, the piece on Butterworth seems not to have spawned the me-too journalism that so often focuses media nationwide on that which the Old Grey Lady deems important.

We know Butterworth called election officials in one crucial Florida county. Did he call others? Broward County commissioner Robert W. Lee says Butterworth's advisory on a hand count caused him to reverse his previous opposition and cast the decisive vote in favor of a manual tally. Did Butterworth call Lee, too?

Gore attorney David Boies made comments four hours before the vote in Volusia County that suggest he may have known the outcome beforehand. Has Butterworth been in touch with the Gore campaign?

It's possible that Butterworth called only one local election official, a Republican, to discuss the recount. He may have decided against contacting the Democrats who dominate the boards in counties selected for hand counts by the Gore campaign.

But given clear role he has played in pushing manual recounts, and with the battle likely headed to the Gore-friendly Florida supreme court, isn't it important to have answers to these questions? Or, at an absolute minimum, for journalists to ask them?