On Dec. 4, the high court unanimously vacated the Florida Supreme Court's unanimous decision that mandated hand recounts in the counties contested by Gore. The implication was that if the Florida Supremes were simply interpreting the state statutes, they were home free. But if they were using the Florida Constitution they were likely in violation of Article Two, which places the power in the Florida Legislature. The U.S. Supreme Court in this send-back to the Florida Supreme Court said not a word about the need for the Florida justices to set uniform standards in any recount. Similarly, last Saturday, when the Rehnquist Court stayed the recounts that were then in process, no instruction was given about uniform standards.
Logic dictates that uniform standards of hand counts are necessary.
So by their judicial self-restraint, the Florida Supremes ended up being reversed because they refused to rewrite the Florida statutes. And anyway, the Rehnquist Court said, you're too late to impose the uniform standards we now require. This after the high court stayed the hand counts. Fred Rodell, the great iconoclast of the Yale Law School, is kvelling in heaven now. Fred said always that we are a nation of men, not of laws.