Bob Barr and the Nader effect

[General Havoc]

Are you going to stop appealing to motive anytime soon? Fallacies don't become you. I simply note there's no desire to be held accountable, which isn't odd from the conservative side of the bench.

Now, if you'd like me to support him being a Fascist, since I know what Fascist means(Corporate-State fused together), I could point to his abolishing the Millionaire's Rule to benefit CEOs in elections, or applying the bill of rights to an entire corporation, and similar rulings. But please, don't belittle my intelligence with 'RAR YOU JUST HATE YOU LOST' and other fallacies, especially when the ruling in question has nothing to do with fascism.

Are you going to start reading my posts soon?

He and his fellow justices have been giving the same real answers I just expounded upon at length, but since it's much easier to say "Scalia is a fascist" than it is to either read long explanations or think about them, people continue to hassle him over and over about that decision.

I was speaking of the fact that people ascribe motivation to his ruling on no basis whatsoever other than his own evil, and that this is why nobody appreciates the actual reason behind it. Search the above quotation and tell me where it was that I was speaking of you?

The answers are one post above you. Read them and then tell me about how he "torched the basic principle of democratic elections". Conveniently forgetting about anything that doesn't support your pre-conceived notions of what happened does not do your case any justice.

You claimed he torched the basic principle of democratic elections. I have still not heard how it is that you got to that point. Maybe he did! I'm willing to believe it! Explain how, based on the legal grounds then, don't dangle these things in mid-air and expect me to accept them as gospel. I spent an hour and a half explaining Scalia's legal grounds for his ruling, while you apparently believe he had either no legal grounds at all, no motive beyond being evil and corrupt. If you're going to accuse me of ascribing motive, stop doing it yourself.

[SirNitram]

I'd say the provisions set up in the law to decide the Presidential Election are not 'Hand it over to SCOTUS', and their ruling decided the election, how you could not be reaching this point is mystifying. Are you aware of the provisions?

[General Havoc]

The provisions set up in the law are to permit the legislature to decide, by whatever means they wish, how to assign electoral delegates. SCOTUS upheld that since the election had been called for Bush, and since there was broad agreement (7-2) that the recount process was illegal, and since there was a safe harbor deadline within 24 hours, that there was no recourse but to certify the original election count, which decided the state for Bush. The fact that Florida's delegates would be the deciding factor in the 2000 election was not (and by the way, should not have been) a factor in their decision. SCOTUS is not in the habit of making decisions based on extenuating factors. The letter of the law as five of the judges saw it was to abort the recount process and assign the electoral delegates based on who had been certified the winner. They followed it.

The other four judges saw it differently. I am not in a position whereby I can claim that they were wrong, or that the five judges were wrong. Both both dissent and majority opinions in this case were based upon readings of the constitution and the federal code. Those codes do not change simply because this election was close.

[SirNitram]

Well, we hit our first bump. Yes, the Legislative branch of the US Federal Government can decide.

SCOTUS is the Judicial branch of the US Federal Government.

Ergo, that's the first problem with your reply.

The second is just endemic to your entire time in this thread: Instead of actually considering that you could be completely wrong, that minor procedural rulings do not pass the smell test in this, you have retreated into the pre-packaged response of far too many: It's because Scalia is evil. It's because he's Fascist. It's this, it's that, it's all the person questioning it's fault. In short, Appeal To Motive fallacy, which you have never let go of.

The letter of the law as the majority saw it was a set of procedural nonsense that added up to not simply counting the votes. The fact there are obvious idealogical ties between the five majority and the one they ruled in favor of, is worth noting.

The idea they did not decide the election.. That they were innocent bystanders with no ability to simply let the Florida Supreme Court's ruling stand, or to revert to the Legislative branch's remedies(Specifically, the 12th Amendment).. Is ludicrous.

Specifically, I will draw attention to SCOTUS vs. Florida SC in this. SCFL rules to complete the count. On Dec 1, SCOTUS agrees to hear Bush. Dec 4(And those who watch SCOTUS know this is absurdly fast, especially given the weekend), an unsigned opinion sets aside the verdict with no reason and remands it SCFL. It declined to rule on the constitutionality and legality of the SCFL decision. Dec 8, SCFL rules on both it's own decision handed back and some local ones: Everything must be counted. Simple principle.

Saturday, the very next day, SCOTUS injunctures the counting suddenly and on the 12th, they once again punted it back, again, knowing the 12th was the legal deadline for the electors to be chosen.

Let me condense this: The SCOTUS repeatedly stepped in, continually punted back the rulings by 5-4, and ran out the clock. It used procedural points in the majority, but the pattern is there to be seen.

(Details were cribbed mostly form here)

[General Havoc]

Well, we hit our first bump. Yes, the Legislative branch of the US Federal Government can decide.

SCOTUS is the Judicial branch of the US Federal Government.

Ergo, that's the first problem with your reply.

No, no, no, the state legislature has the right to decide, not the US Federal government, not the federal legislative branch, ergo congress. The constitution is crystal clear on this matter. The electors are apportioned in whatever manner the state's legislature decides. I covered this already, in bold type, in my first long post.

I'm not asking you to read my posts out of some desperate attempt to brand you as ignorant. You are not ignorant, but you cannot cogently respond to what I am saying without a clear idea of what I am actually saying.

The law says that the State legislature has the right to determine how the electoral delegates are assigned. The legislature in Florida has passed laws as to how that is to be done, and the Florida Legislature empowered the Florida Secretary of State (Katherine Harris, a great fool, panderer, and political crony of the governor, I grant) to certify the elections results. She did so. Ergo the Legislature had already made their decision, as far as the SCOTUS was concerned.

The second is just endemic to your entire time in this thread: Instead of actually considering that you could be completely wrong, that minor procedural rulings do not pass the smell test in this, you have retreated into the pre-packaged response of far too many: It's because Scalia is evil. It's because he's Fascist. It's this, it's that, it's all the person questioning it's fault. In short, Appeal To Motive fallacy, which you have never let go of.

Nitram, you responded to a direct question of what legal grounds Scalia used to justify his position by indicating (though I concede, not coming out and saying it) that he had none, which is a flat untruth. You jumped on me when I suggested that too many people (I was not refering to you specifically, but to the debates that always surround what happened in 2000, and I'm sorry if I made that unclear) take the "Scalia is a fascist" view of things. You accuse me of appealing to motive, yet you have yet to even read (I am led to believe) the actual text of what I posted, and reject everything I say based on a completely fictitious assumption of what I must mean. I am not the one in this thread making logical falicies left and right.

You are right, I should not assume you are calling Scalia evil.... except that seems to be the crux of your damned argument. You claim Scalia voted as he did for no reason whatsoever, and leave unstated the implication. You've yet to even reply to the rationale he actually did give, as did the other five judges. What the hell am I supposed to conclude save that you think he is a corrupt political partisan making decisions without legal basis to benefit his party.

A fallacy is only a fallacy if it's wrong. What DO you think Scalia's reasoning was if I'm guilty of such faulty assumptions? You do not win points by accusing me of failing to understand your arguments when you leave your arguments deliberately unsaid.

The letter of the law as the majority saw it was a set of procedural nonsense that added up to not simply counting the votes.

The votes were counted. They were counted and certified by the state elections authority. A recount was ordered because of irregularities, I grant, gross irregularities. That recount was conducted illegally, in violation of the Equal Protections clause of the US Constitution, as I have shown. In absence of a viable recount, what precisely do you suggest the SCOTUS should have ordered used if not the certified elections results? Guesswork? Ideological identity politics? Ouiji boards? There was a full slate of elections returns available. It is not "procedural nonsense" to make use of said slate. It is in fact, as five judges found, the only appropriate response.

Four judges disagreed. Those judges argued that the safe harbor clause was being misinterpreted, and that the court should have ordered another recount. I am not qualified to say that this was the right or the wrong decision. I feel (and I sense you feel as well) that the dissenting judges were correct. I will not however throw out the entire reasoning behind the majority decision based on the fact that you falsely brand it as "procedural nonsense".

The fact there are obvious idealogical ties between the five majority and the one they ruled in favor of, is worth noting.

And what? The fact that there are equally obvious idealogical ties between the four minority and the one they ruled in favor of is not worth noting? I'm trying not to make a motivational fallacy here, so I'm just gonna ask directly: What is your motive in suggesting only that the five majority judges were blinded by their ideological politics, and not the four dissenting ones?

Is it not possible that conservative judges, who believe in literalist readings of the constitution and the law, might have acted in a manner conforming with their beliefs, while liberal judges, who believe in a more broadly interpretative reading of the constitution and the law, might have acting in a manner conforming with theirs? Why is the political affiliation of the conservative judges the only one in question?

The idea they did not decide the election.. That they were innocent bystanders with no ability to simply let the Florida Supreme Court's ruling stand, or to revert to the Legislative branch's remedies(Specifically, the 12th Amendment).. Is ludicrous.

In the first place, the Supreme Court found (7-2, by the way) that the Florida Supreme Court's ruling was unconstitutional. As to the 12th amendment, it allows for the House of Representatives to decide the issue only if there is NO majority of electors for any candidate. The only way that would have become the case in 2000 is if Florida's electoral votes were not counted at all. Whether Bush won the votes or Gore won them, someone was gonna wind up with an electoral majority.

In the second place, the issue of who won the 2000 election was not before the Supreme Court in any way shape or form. It is not ludicrous, in fact it is absolutely fundamental to the justice system of the United States that this point be made clear. For the SCOTUS to declare that the House was to decide would remove the electoral franchise from the State of Florida itself. Nobody, not Gore, not Bush, not anyone, was claiming that nobody had won Florida. The Supreme Court had absolutely no standing to do what you are claiming it ought to have done. None. That you would prefer they had such an authority does not conjure it up out of thin air. They did not have the means to appeal to the 12th amendment, for it applies only if there is no majority of electors for any one candidate. Under no permutation of the laws was this the case in 2000. Gore's team did not even mention the 12th amendment in making its case.

Specifically, I will draw attention to SCOTUS vs. Florida SC in this. SCFL rules to complete the count. On Dec 1, SCOTUS agrees to hear Bush. Dec 4 (And those who watch SCOTUS know this is absurdly fast, especially given the weekend), an unsigned opinion sets aside the verdict with no reason and remands it SCFL. It declined to rule on the constitutionality and legality of the SCFL decision. Dec 8, SCFL rules on both it's own decision handed back and some local ones: Everything must be counted. Simple principle.

Saturday, the very next day, SCOTUS injunctures the counting suddenly and on the 12th, they once again punted it back, again, knowing the 12th was the legal deadline for the electors to be chosen.

You make it sound like a conspiracy to deliver the election to Bush, but as I am not ascribing motive, I will not assume that's what you mean. SCOTUS did move absurdly fast, but partially because time was a factor in this case. By the 1st of December, the issue had already been dancing around the courts for nearly a month. The deadline to seat electors was the 18th, the Safe Harbor deadline was the 12th. If the rulings lasted beyond that point, it would result in the total disenfranchisement of Florida's slate of electors. There was no option but to move quickly.

I explained, already, in as great detail as I could, the reasons that SCOTUS gave for injuncturing the recount on the 11th. That ruling was, as I have mentioned several times, not 5-4, but 7-2. Half the Liberal wing of the SCOTUS agreed that the recount was being performed in an unconstitutional manner. The disagreement (and the aspect that was decided 5-4) was (broadly stated) whether or not another recount was permissible. The majority decided it was not. The dissenting four justices decided it was. Both of them had legal grounds to stand on.

Let me condense this: The SCOTUS repeatedly stepped in, continually punted back the rulings by 5-4, and ran out the clock. It used procedural points in the majority, but the pattern is there to be seen.

I don't think I'm being fallacious when I say that you're now suggesting that there was a conspiracy within SCOTUS to give the election to Bush. Is that fair? You're alluding to a "pattern" of behavior within SCOTUS' reactions and you've already called all five conservative justices' motives in voting as they did into question. And yet all you have to suggest as to what they should have done otherwise was to ignore both the law, the established procedure, and the constitution of the United States itself. They had no authority to remand this decision to the US House of Representatives. That much is made adamantly clear by the text of the 12th amendment. They had found by a massive majority that the recount as it was proceeding was unconstitutional. Should they have found otherwise? Should they have permitted it to continue anyway? What would you suggest? Not even Judges Breyer and Souter, two members of the liberal wing of the court, would countenance the recount as it was being conducted. Are they also members of this conspiracy? Were they acting in bad faith? Were they wrong?

And the answer to that last question might well be 'yes', (certainly the remaining two justices said so), but they are not simply wrong because you don't like the result. And before you accuse me of ascribing motive, I'm ascribing that motive because you've given me nothing else to go on. You speak of procedural nonsense as though it is a bad thing, but the Supreme Court does not make decisions based on "what they think is a good idea". They make decisions based on what the law is, and what the law says, and what the law permits, and what the law does not permit. The law does not permit this decision to be remanded to the House. The law does not permit them to disenfranchise Florida. They found that the law did not permit Florida to conduct the recount in the manner that they did, and the law did not permit this decision to be deferred beyond December 12th.

Exactly what else were they supposed to do?

EDIT: I've edited this post a lot to correct spelling, refine my meaning, and so on, but I do want to end with this little factoid: During the recount that was being conducted before the SCOTUS quashed it, the one they found was being conducted illegally, at no time during the recount process was Gore ever ahead of Bush in the popular vote in the state of Florida. Bush's margin was razor thin, and at some times he was further ahead of Gore, and at some times he was less so, but never was it found that Gore was actually leading Bush.

Now, this by itself means nothing. The recount itself was both flawed and never finished. But lest we imagine that the Supreme Court saw that Gore was going to win and instantly squashed it, the recount by no means had guaranteed Gore's victory, or even suggested Gore's victory in Florida in 2000. I will finish by saying that I agree with Justice Stevens in his dissent. "We may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner." That should not be taken to mean that the winner was Gore. It should be taken to mean we just don't know.

[SirNitram]

Well, first Justice Stevens is full of it. A full, to the letter of the law recount happened in the years since, and it said bluntly that Gore won. In short, please shove that bit of distortion away.

I have, no matter how hard you insist otherwise, pointed to the objective facts. I showed Scalia's actual words when asked, that you dislike that they were his own words and flippant isn't my fault, it's his. I have run down the timeline, I have noted the Florida Legislature's deadline to declare electors, and I noted the 12th Amendment's remedy. These were, of course, the legitimate means by which to pursue this.

The idea that I am playing some game with Scalia's motives is laughable; from the post I pointed to Scalia's refusal to even mention his reasons, I have noted his conservative bent, and the one he voted for is a fellow conservative. Is that too difficult for you to process, that he is a biased judge in favor of conservatives?

'Pattern = CONSPIRACY!' is lunacy. Conspiracies are generally more than a single group repeatedly engaging in mischief. If you wanted to see signs of conspiracy, there is evidence to make the accusation, from the flawed voter purges of Democrats to the electoral results being announced by a Bush campaign official in their capacity as a news anchor, to the 'rowdy crowds' that were in fact the Bush Campaign's staff. I have simply made a clear statement: The SCOTUS injected itself of it's own volition and performed rulings that did nothing but run out the clock. The effects of such were blindingly clear, and thus there's really no reason to not conclude the intention to hand the state to Bush. I mean, are you really going to argue Scalia and the rest of the Majority are blind idiots?

You're arguing as an idiot. I know you are smarter, but you try to weasal at technicalities which demand we view SCOTUS as a bunch of senile monkies who only emerge from their cage when required. If that were so, they were frankly unfit to rule then and indeed, any time.

I have laid out the facts. The best you can do is nitpick about 7-2 on an unsigned decision, or that the first remedy is the FL Legislature and not the House, as specified in the Constitution, gods, what a horrible document. You even argue the Constitutional remedy in the 12th Amendment is a horrible thing that must be stopped! But that's not for the Supreme Courts to rule. They are to rule from those laws.

[General Havoc]

Nitram... it is become utterly clear to me that you have once again read nothing of what I said, to the point where four times in the above post, you have actually claimed I argued the exact opposite of what I actually argued.

You continue to insist that the 12th amendment was a remedy for this, even though I have explained three times why this was not the case, and why Gore never even argued in favor of it.

You continue to insist that conservative justices voting conservatively is evidence of corruption, while liberal justices voting liberally is not.

You continue to insist that Scalia and the other majority justices had no reason to act, when I have gone to exhaustive efforts to explain why it was that they acted as they did.

You have blanketly ignored every single thing I have said. You do not refute the things I have said, you do not condemn me for thinking and saying them, you do not counter my arguments with arguments of your own, you completely ignore what I say, and make up new arguments that you put in my mouth so as to beat a straw man to death. At no time did I ever say, suggest, or advocate ANY ONE OF THE THINGS you claim I have. At no time did I do this.

I have no further time to waste repeating the same arguments that you will once more refuse to even read. You are not qualified to tell me that I am arguing like an idiot, because you have not the first idea of what my arguments are. Nothing you have said indicates the SLIGHTEST understanding of what I just mentioned. I will not quote you point by point, for that is a lengthy exercise. I will simply quote your last point:

The best you can do is nitpick about 7-2 on an unsigned decision, or that the first remedy is the FL Legislature and not the House, as specified in the Constitution, gods, what a horrible document. You even argue the Constitutional remedy in the 12th Amendment is a horrible thing that must be stopped! But that's not for the Supreme Courts to rule. They are to rule from those laws.

I spent an hour and a half, and a page of text, explaining in as much detail as I could why the 12th amendment had no bearing on this situation. I tried to the best of my ability to make it apparent. You responded by putting words in my mouth about how I hate the constitution, because of what you believe (incorrectly) the 12th amendment says. There is not one word, not one statement, not one inkling, in what you have stated, that in any way you even glanced at what I was stating, for you have taken my opinion to be that the Constitution's solution was horrible and evil, when instead it was that the constitution's solution expressly does not apply.

But you don't even know that, because you haven't read a word.

Words fail me Nitram. I feel now like a complete fool, for I have been arguing to someone who does not even pay me the courtesy of reading the words I have written. There is nothing more that I have to say to you.

Until you read what I posted above, I shall not spent hours of my life repeating myself for your benefit.

[SirNitram]

Oh, shove it up your ass. If you can't see why the SCOTUS shouldn't have gotten involved, if you can't see how they are indeed, supposed to rule on Constitutionality of things, not anything else(Which, sorry, reverts to the 12th, so sorry. That's the remedy in the Constitution.), if you can't see how there were remedies they should have let go(And indeed, if you were reading, you'd notice I acknowledged the Florida Legislature as the ones to do it, and running out the clock on them was what the SCOTUS did), and if you can't see why such a politically aligned court interfering in an election is corruption, there's no hope. You screech I don't read what you right. I point out you don't even seem able to grasp what I have.

So go on. Declare I read nothing of yours. I don't care. The facts were laid out: The SCOTUS interfered when they are politically charged more than most courts, they should not have, and they repeatedly intervened with actions that would simply complicate and waste time. They had no reason to. SCFL was doing their job. The county courts were doing theirs. The Legislature, in fact, was ready to go. If you can't see why the SCOTUS had no business injecting itself simply to remand decisions and eat up time, it's your own damn lookout.

[General Havoc]

Shove it up your OWN ass. You actually cited my arguments as being the EXACT LITERAL OPPOSITE of what they were. I asked dozens of questions of you, you answered NONE OF THEM. I made dozens of seperate points. You addressed NONE OF THEM. I claimed that the 12th amendment was the reason why they did not devolve it to the US House of Representatives. You claimed I had said the 12th amendment was stupid and evil. WHY THE FUCK should I waste my time responding to the same posts for the FOURTH TIME when you did NOT read them before, will NOT read them again, and will repeat yourself until the stars burn out no matter what I say.

If you will not even pay me the courtesy of considering what I have said, then I see no reason to bother with what you have. Go to hell.

[SirNitram]

Anytime you want to uphold your claim you are walking away, you are free to. But your own words on the 12th..

For the SCOTUS to declare that the House was to decide would remove the electoral franchise from the State of Florida itself.

That's what I meant about the 12th being decried by you. Frankly, it's the Constitutional remedy, and any ruling the SCOTUS should have made, given their bloody job, should have referenced that.

But we've covered that they never considered who would win. They simply kept remanding the SCFL's ruling and sticking to procedural votes for maximum CYA.

Now, are you going to settle down and perhaps debate the point I've been making, was that the SCOTUS shouldn't have stuck it's fucking nose in in the first place? Indeed, because liberal justices go liberal and conservatives go conservative in this situation?

[General Havoc]

Nitram, it is NOT a constitutional remedy for the SCOTUS to remand the decision to the House of Representatives. I've already said a hundred times that the 12th amendment is ABSOLUTELY clear on this matter. The House can only consider the election if there is no clear majority in the electoral college. There is no grounds, NO grounds to remand the decision to the House of Representatives when the issue is how a given state is to apportion its delegates.

To do what you are suggesting, the SCOTUS would have to have found that Florida was physically incapable of seating its electoral delegates, set aside ALL of the voting from Florida, and remove their electoral franchise. Point to me the legal precedent for that. Show me where the SCOTUS would draw the law backing for such a ruling? At BEST, that would be a massive MASSIVE extension of the 12th amendment, well beyond the intention of the amendment itself, and far and away the most radical decision the SCOTUS has ever made in its history. They would literally be contradicting the letter of the constitution.

Nobody, not one justice, from the most conservative to the most liberal, neither Bush's nor Gore's legal teams, not one member of the House itself, nor any legal scholars, nobody involved with the case even considered (to my knowledge) remanding the decision to the House. The SCOTUS cannot set aside the Constitution whenever convenient. It was not an option for the SCOTUS to do this.

And by the way, Nitram, I've been saying that very thing all night:

As to the 12th amendment, it allows for the House of Representatives to decide the issue only if there is NO majority of electors for any candidate. The only way that would have become the case in 2000 is if Florida's electoral votes were not counted at all. Whether Bush won the votes or Gore won them, someone was gonna wind up with an electoral majority.

Regardless, as to your next point:

I admit, I can see a case to be made for not involving SCOTUS at all in the first place. Bush and co. (I think it was Bush that brought the suit) took the matter to SCOTUS in the first place, but the SCOTUS had every right to refuse to hear it. They do that all the time. I do not have the information to speculate on why they heard it. It is possible they did so because they wanted to see "their guys" win. I believe that the protocols in the SCOTUS are that six justices need to agree to hear the case, but I do not have direct evidence for that and could be wrong. In fairness to SCOTUS, if we're claiming that the liberal and conservative justices of the Supreme Court are biased based on their political affiliation, I don't see how the Florida court was to be any less biased than they were. Florida's supreme court ordered the recount, which I suppose is not objectionable, but their recount process was flagrantly unconstitutional. I don't know the details there.

I can definitely see the point about keeping the SCOTUS out of it entirely, but once it was in the SCOTUS' hands, I really don't see how they could have ruled other than the way they did, save in the case of that 5-4 element, as I mentioned before.

[SirNitram]

I have not said they must apply the 12th Amendment straight. Indeed, if they were to rule honestly on the matter of electoral mishaps, it's rather impossible now(Impossible to get a tie). But their job is interperating the Constitution and applying it to law. This means that they, in any ruling on elections for the President, must apply the relevent amendments, and derive some intent or remedy based on that. But this distracts from the point they should not have intervened.

The SCOTUS ruled twice, one time with no signatures on the decision. We will never know the votes there. It did not, at any point, say the ruling from SCFL was wrong. It simply punted it back with the intent to waste time.

Now I will indulge in speculation as to the reasons they get involved. The 5 conservatives judges are obvious, they have political and idealogical interest here. However, there was also a controversy that was getting increasingly overhyped(I remind you, those near-rioters outside the recount offices were Bush staff, sent to do that) by the media, who was wringing their hankies and acting like it must be solved TODAY TODAY TODAY. Anyone who has dealt with deadlines and drama know they don't mix; the more people scream it must be resolved IMMEDIATELY, you must COMMENT ON THIS, we must have REPORTS, the more you fall behind.

The vicious cycle, once started, had only one conclusion. The media would run it constantly, thanks to 24/7 news networks. It would be in all the headlines. People would get recount fatigue because it quickly became impossible to not notice it shoved in your face. This excaberated the aforementioned drama. The other SCOTUS judges likely felt they should intervene to stop the madness, but instead of real rulings, we got procedural silliness and remanding, all rather obvious to run down the clock.

Was there a 'conspiracy' here? No. Bush's campaign was corrupt, but I doubt there were backdoor meetings with SCOTUS' conservative judges. They knew the makeup, however, and they knew how to play the media. SCOTUS was not a conspiracy, as five people voting on their idealogical lines when they are often picked for those is not only expected but natural. One could argue there was a conspiracy in the media to overhype this into oblivion, because it meant alot less work to fill the news hours. Who wants to research a story when you can breathlessly cover, again and again, every detail?

[General Havoc]

I still don't agree regarding the 12th amendment issue. The constitution is meant to be interpreted fairly narrowly. Yes, I know that there's many decisions that could be cited that are the exact opposite of this, including many of the most landmark (Brown v. Board, Roe v. Wade, Miranda v. whoever-Miranda-was-versus), but by and large the court is not in the habit of making enormous leaps with amendments to the constitution except in very specific cases.

I agree that the culture of "RESOLVE THIS" probably helped rush the decision. I agree that the SCOTUS voted largely as one would expect it to vote given the ideological lines of the constituent judges. I also agree that the SCOTUS might have been better served not sticking their noses in in the first place. This however was a big issue, a national issue despite the regional bearing on it. I can see why the SCOTUS felt it was necessary to weigh in rather than leave it to the Florida SC. I also still feel that once they decided to involve themselves, the decision they came to was probably the only one they could have come to.

Whether or not they should have been involved in the first place... is another story.

[SirNitram]

I doubt I'll ever agree with 'The decision they came to', because it seems blatantly transparent. Mind you, I have a serious beef with procedural rulings from the SCOTUS lately. That's not their goddamn job. Consider, for example, Ledbetter vs. Goodyear Tire And Rubber co. It's a basic, simple, equal pay for equal work issue. She found out she was being paid notably less than those performing equally to her. Up it goes.. And what does SCOTUS rule on? Because she had not filed a complaint every year she was paid less(Regardless of her knowledge of this), within 180 days of being out of sync. Of course, sworn statements show she didn't know within this window, but here's why I hate the 'Procedural' vote in SCOTUS: It avoids the real issue while causing damage.