Thursday, December 23, 2004

 

When Karl Met Groucho: History Repeats Itself, First As Tragedy, Second Time As Farce

In 2000, the Supreme Court of the "big" Washington said, Stop the Counting! with Bush only 573 votes ahead, and (except for some rather transparently fraudulent juristic legerdemain) that was pretty much it -- Bush was effectively appointed leader of the Executive branch, by the one unelected branch.

In an act of near-farcical deja vu, in 2004, the Supreme Court of the "little" Washington, on the opposite coast (never mind that you could fit nearly 45 of the "big" Washingtons into the "little" one) said, Hey, Here's Another 537 Votes That Haven't Been Counted Yet, and the result is, that The Democrat With The G Name will likely be made leader of the Executive branch by -- well, a majority of the votes -- what a concept, eh?

Night and day, as far as judicial opinions go. One thing is consistent, though: The GOP argued in both cases to exclude votes from the count, rather than to count every vote. Once more, from the rooftops: The GOP wins only when every vote is NOT counted.

Fortunately, the Washington (state) Supreme Court opinion, because it deals exclusively with state election law, is untouchable by Scalia & Krewe -- unless, of course, this time they're willing to say that the federal Constitution's guarantee to each State of "a republican form of government" means something more, uh -- "fundamentalist" -- than we've ever been led to believe before.

But, who knows? Before Rehnquist kicks off, they may just have another "Star Trek" opinion in them. ("To boldly go where no court has gone before!")

Stay tuned.

posted by Michael 1:46 AM