2000 presidential election came just days later. In its unsigned opinion, the Court explained that it had voted 5-4 to put a stop to the Florida recount. Allowing the recount to go forward, the Court said, would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back down to the Florida Supreme Court, which had no alternative but to dismiss it. The presidential election of 2000 had been decided, in essence, by the vote of one Supreme Court justice. Needless to say, the George W. Bush camp was jubilant. Al Gore supporters were incensed. Many people were simply happy to have things settled. But others worried that the Court had gone too far. In the past, in landmark cases like Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which put an end to legal segregation, and United States v. Nixon (1974), which led to the first presidential resignation under threat of impeachment, were unanimously decided. After Bush v. Gore, the concern was that the Court had not only overreached itself but undermined its authority by not speaking with one voice. That split decision, 5-4, suggested that Bush v. Gore was a political, not a judicial, decision. Precedents Bush v. Gore wasn't the Court's first foray into the realm of king making. The election of 1876 pitted Samuel J. Tilden, the Democratic governor of New York, against Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican governor of Ohio. After the votes had been counted, it seemed that Tilden had