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Understanding the 2000 Election: A Guide to the Legal Battles that Decided the Presidency
Paperback Edition: Updated and with a New Foreword
The nation will not soon forget the drama of the 2000 presidential election. For five weeks we were transfixed by the legal clashes that enveloped the country from election night to the Gore concession. It was instant history, and will be studied by historians, lawyers, political scientists, media critics and others for years to come.
Even for those who followed the events most closely, the legal twists and turns of the post-election struggles seemed at times bewildering. We witnessed manual recounts of election ballots, GOP federal court lawsuits challenging those recounts, two Florida Supreme Court opinions, lawsuits over butterfly and absentee ballots, questions about the role of the Florida legislature and the United States Congress in resolving presidential election disputes, and two United States Supreme Court decisions, the second of which finally handed the election to Bush. Although the 2000 Presidency was decided through much legal wrangling, one should not have to be a lawyer to understand how we came to have Bush rather than Gore as our President in that hotly contested election.
Understanding the 2000 Election offers an accessible, comprehensive guide to the legal battles that finally gave George W. Bush the Presidency five weeks after election night. Meant to stand next to and clarify the numerous journalistic and personal accounts of the election drama, Understanding the 2000 Election offers a offers a step-by-step, non-partisan explanation and analysis of the major legal issues involved in resolving the presidential contest. The volume also offers a clear overview of the Electoral College, its history, what would be involved in switching over to a direct election, and the likely future of the Presidential electoral process. While some still decry the 2000 election outcome as the result of political manipulation rather than the rule of law, Greene shows that almost every legal conclusion of the post-election struggle can be understood through the application of legal principle, rather than politics.
The nation will not soon forget the drama of the 2000 presidential election. For five weeks we were transfixed by the legal clashes that enveloped the country from election night to the Gore concession. It was instant history, and will be studied by historians, lawyers, political scientists, media critics and others for years to come.
Even for those who followed the events most closely, the legal twists and turns of the post-election struggles seemed at times bewildering. We witnessed manual recounts of election ballots, GOP federal court lawsuits challenging those recounts, two Florida Supreme Court opinions, lawsuits over butterfly and absentee ballots, questions about the role of the Florida legislature and the United States Congress in resolving presidential election disputes, and two United States Supreme Court decisions, the second of which finally handed the election to Bush. Although the 2000 Presidency was decided through much legal wrangling, one should not have to be a lawyer to understand how we came to have Bush rather than Gore as our President in that hotly contested election.
Understanding the 2000 Election offers an accessible, comprehensive guide to the legal battles that finally gave George W. Bush the Presidency five weeks after election night. Meant to stand next to and clarify the numerous journalistic and personal accounts of the election drama, Understanding the 2000 Election offers a offers a step-by-step, non-partisan explanation and analysis of the major legal issues involved in resolving the presidential contest. The volume also offers a clear overview of the Electoral College, its history, what would be involved in switching over to a direct election, and the likely future of the Presidential electoral process. While some still decry the 2000 election outcome as the result of political manipulation rather than the rule of law, Greene shows that almost every legal conclusion of the post-election struggle can be understood through the application of legal principle, rather than politics.
202 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 6, 2018
A good summary of a very interesting set of cases. There is some attempt to translate the legal-ese to everyday English, but I wish the author would have committed a little more fully to writing for non-law-students. Educated readers should be able to navigate this, but non-law-students might get bogged down with the learning curve for unfamiliar legal language and reasoning.
I had not realized how outrageous the butterfly ballots were.
I had not realized how outrageous the butterfly ballots were.
October 1, 2011
Very good introduction to the flawed 2000 U.S. presidential election. The author clearly explains the legal issues at stake and the elucidates the logic of the results (for the most part) of the courts in some of the most important cases before the Florida courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. In the end he is unable to make plausible the very last decision of the U.S. Supreme Court which gave the presidency to Mr. Bush. Thus, for this last case, the author tries to come up with an alternate theory (grounded in freedom of speech---which only shows how far-fetched the basis for the Supreme Court ruling was) to make the outcome plausible.
The tone of the book is quite conciliatory. The author rightly realizes that the order and rule of law are at stake, and thus he wishes to present the outcomes as logical and plausible, even if the opposite outcome is equally logical and equally (or more) plausible. He is essentially asking the readers to give the courts the benefit of the doubt. Given this goal, he doesn't so much analyze the courts' rulings so much as frames them to make them seem less arbitrary.
The tone of the book is quite conciliatory. The author rightly realizes that the order and rule of law are at stake, and thus he wishes to present the outcomes as logical and plausible, even if the opposite outcome is equally logical and equally (or more) plausible. He is essentially asking the readers to give the courts the benefit of the doubt. Given this goal, he doesn't so much analyze the courts' rulings so much as frames them to make them seem less arbitrary.
October 23, 2007
very detailed, yet understandable. the author is a law professor and does a great job. the florida ballots were confusing and hand-count procedures were vague. that set the stage for a contested election only 500 votes apart on almost 3 million votes. gore got a lot of help from the florida supreme court, but the conservative-majority on the federal supreme court ordered the hand count to stop. effectively handing the election to bush jr.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews