[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 154 (Thursday, December 14, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S11781]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  THE SUPREME COURT DECISION IN THE CASE OF BUSH VERSUS GORE AND ITS 
                               AFTERMATH

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am heartbroken that the Supreme Court 
has issued an opinion that, to me, undermines a core democratic 
principle--that every vote counts and every vote must be counted.
  I am also perplexed that the Court sent the case back to the Florida 
Supreme Court for further proceedings on the recount, since it did so 
while also suggesting that time had run out for the recount. That 
suggestion is disingenuous, considering that the U.S. Supreme Court 
itself helped cause the clock to run out when it voted 5-4 to stop the 
recount last Saturday by issuing a stay.
  I want to compliment the four justices who voted against the stay 
order--Justices Stevens, Souter, Breyer and Ginsberg--two appointed by 
Republican Presidents and two by a Democrat. While several of them 
recognized constitutional problems in the way the recount was being 
carried out, they clearly understood the overriding importance of 
counting every legal vote.
  In his dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens pointed out that 
the Florida Supreme Court, in ordering the recount, merely ``. . . did 
what courts do--it decided the case before it in light of the 
legislature's intent to leave no legally cast vote uncounted.''
  He stated that in its action ``the majority effectively orders the 
disenfranchisement of an unknown number of voters whose ballots reveal 
their intent--and are therefore legal votes under state law--but were 
for some reason rejected by ballot-counting machines.''
  The closing words of Justice Stevens, I believe, will go down in 
history as the thoughts of a great Supreme Court justice:

       Although we may never know with complete certainty the 
     identity of the winner of this presidential election, the 
     identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's 
     confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule 
     of law.

  When the next President is sworn into office in January, I pledge to 
do all that I can to help the country put this extraordinary and 
unsettling election behind us. I will do my best in the United States 
Senate to advance the interests of the people of California, who have 
so many needs and rights that remain to be addressed.
  There are many lessons to be learned from these events. We need to 
change our election procedures to make them uniformly as reliable and 
accurate as possible, so that we will never again be in this situation. 
And more Americans must now realize that their participation in the 
political process is vitally important. I will work on these challenges 
in the coming months, for the sake of Californians and for all 
Americans.

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