I hope every registered American voter out there is doing the right thing and casting a ballot in this election, no matter what your political preference or affiliation. Personally, I think we're going to have some repeat of 2000 in that there will be court actions. But it could actually be worse than four years ago.
Picture this: Not only could we have a recount in Florida, but also in Ohio and even possibly Pennsylvania. That's 67 electoral votes right there, I believe, and the three largest anticipated EV contests out there (assuming New York and California go Democrat as expected). If one or more of those cases go through the state supreme courts and end up having to go to the U.S. Supreme Court then we're in a similar setting to 2000. Now, just to really mess with things, imagine that Chief Justice Rehnquist dies before a decision is made. With the recent disclosure of his faltering health, it's not impossible that he could die soon.
I can't imagine a new justice could be nominated and approved by congress before the High Court makes its decision on those case(s), and I don't have enough knowledge of civics to know how a new chief justice is chosen (or whether that truly matters), but it seems plausible we could have a 4-4 deadlocked court, which I believe means the state decisions are affirmed (whatever they may be in these hypothetical cases).
I hope that none of the above doomsday scenario becomes reality. Nor would I really like to see another of the prospective outcomes that could create a split ticket of President Bush and Vice President Edwards (how bizarre would that be!), where I'd expect to see then former VP Cheney reprise his role as Secretary of Defense or maybe Secretary of State if Colin Powell steps down. It would be a sham of a government, and our nation deserves better than that. So if I can have any influence on the two or three or fewer people that occasionally look at my blog it would be to say this: get out and vote so we have certainty in government.
2 comments:
From a brief skimming of other Web news after posting my blog entry, I see that Slate did a story on my scenario this past weekend. I haven't read the story, but the 20 or so words of the abstract seemed to indicate that President Bush could appoint a supreme court justice as a recess appointment (Congress being out of session in this hypothetical) thereby shifting the decision making toward his favor. Would the president be able to maintain any credibility if he did that? Well, it's debatable how much credibility he had on Jan. 21, 2001, so whose to say how this would be different. But he'd likely be the president. There's a legacy for you...
I'm no Bush fan either. And now, a day later with all indications pointing to a Bush victory, I'm rather disappointed. I can only say that the USA's voters have chosen to re-elect President Bush. We're stuck with him, and with a Republican House and Senate, the conservative agenda will scare a lot of people around the world. It sounds like Portugese and Europeans in general won't like it, but I suspect it'll be even worse for millions of people here.
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