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12/09/00
12:20 p.m. |
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See? The Florida constitution is nowhere to be found. What possibly can be wrong with this decision? Well, the problem is that the court should be judged by what it does, not what it says. It has totally reworked the constitutional and statutory scheme for this election. In a presidential election in Florida, authority proceeds, very roughly, in a kind of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance progression from the U.S. Constitution to the Florida legislature to the canvassing boards. The Florida court has, over the last few weeks, run roughshod over each of the three: explicitly using the Florida constitution to trump the U.S. Constitution in its deadline extension, annihilating the statutory handiwork of the legislature both in that decision and the one yesterday, and, finally, essentially eliminating any role for the canvassing boards yesterday. The court can cite the legislature all it likes, but it is still relying on its "equitable power." And it's still really "broad." |
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he Florida supreme court
was smacked down by the U.S. Supreme Court when it relied on the "broad
equitable power" invested in it by the Florida constitution to rewrite
Florida election law a couple of weeks ago. So, yesterday it nominally
relied on the Florida legislature for its authority. Instead of citing
the Florida constitution to support its vague "will of the people" rhetoric,
the court referred to the legislature: "that the outcome of elections
[should] be determined by the will of the voters, forms the foundation
of the election code enacted by the Florida legislature." Elsewhere the
court piously maintained — with its eye firmly on the U.S. Supreme
Court — that "we are dealing with the essence of the structure of
our democratic society; with the interrelationship, within that framework,
between the United States Constitution and the statutory scheme established
pursuant to that authority by the Florida legislature."
