← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Walter Yannis
Thread ID: 15042 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2004-09-18
2004-09-18 10:00 | User Profile
[URL=http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/18/politics/campaign/18elect.html?pagewanted=1&th]New York Tiimes[/URL]
Florida Supreme Court Gives Nader a Spot on State Ballot By JAMES DAO
Published: September 18, 2004
TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Sept. 17 - The Florida Supreme Court bolstered President Bush's prospects in this swing state on Friday, ruling that Ralph Nader could appear on the November ballot as the Reform Party's presidential candidate.
In a case, and a setting, that instantly evoked memories of the recount battle of 2000, the court rejected Democratic arguments that the Reform Party had not met state requirements for receiving a ballot line. The court's majority concluded that those requirements were vague, but that it would be unfair to punish the Reform Party for the law's weaknesses.
"Any doubt as to the meaning of statutory terms should be resolved broadly in favor of ballot access," the five-member majority concluded.
A sixth justice concurred with the decision but on different grounds, while the seventh dissented.
Mr. Nader is now on the ballot in 27 states, his campaign said, including several closely contested states like Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire and West Virginia. He could appear on the ballot in more than a dozen other states, pending litigation, they said.
In Colorado, a state district judge, John McMullen, ruled on Friday that Mr. Nader had a right to be on the ballot.
"We're very pleased," Theresa Amato, Mr. Nader's campaign manager, said of the Florida decision. "This gives Florida voters more voices, more choices."
Though Mr. Nader has long asserted that he draws both Republican and Democratic support, most political experts and Democratic officials believe he will siphon more votes away from the Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry. For that reason, Democrats have been working around the nation to keep him off the ballot.
Florida has been hugely important in that effort. Mr. Bush won the state by just 537 votes in 2000, when Mr. Nader received more than 97,000 votes in the state. Exit polls showed that of the Nader voters who were open to other candidates, two-thirds viewed Vice President Al Gore as their next choice.
"If it is a close race that comes down to a few thousand votes, Nader will make a huge difference," said Jim Kane, chief pollster for Florida Voter, a nonpartisan polling organization.
Scott Maddox, chairman of the Florida Democratic Party, said the party had no plans to appeal the case. But Mr. Maddox asserted that Secretary of State Glenda Hood, a Republican appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, had used her office to promote the Reform Party and thereby help President Bush.
"This case will serve to further illuminate the fact that Ralph Nader is a tool for the Republican Party," Mr. Maddox said. "Glenda Hood and Jeb Bush did everything in their power to get Ralph Nader on the ballot."
Alia Faraj, a spokeswomen for Ms. Hood, rejected those assertions. Ms. Faraj said that Ms. Hood twice certified Mr. Nader as the Reform Party candidate over Democratic objections because the candidate and the party, along with several other minor party candidates, had met the state's legal requirements.
"The Department of State was acting as an honest broker," Ms. Faraj said. "Her primary responsibility was to the voters."
The cast of characters in the Supreme Court building here for oral arguments Friday morning brought back memories of butterfly ballots and the 2000 recount contest.
Laurence H. Tribe, the Harvard constitutional scholar who represented Mr. Gore before the United States Supreme Court during the 2000 recount battle, argued the case for the Democrats. Kenneth Sukhia, who helped on Mr. Bush's legal team in 2000, represented Mr. Nader.
And five of the seven current Florida Supreme Court justices participated in the 4-to-3 December 2000 ruling that ordered an immediate manual recount of ballots across the state. That decision was overturned by the United States Supreme Court.
Mr. Tribe even made repeated references to the 2000 struggle, telling the court that a ruling in favor of the Reform Party would create a "chaotic" system that would be "worse than the butterfly ballot.''
"It would be a centipede ballot," he said.
Mr. Tribe later told reporters that he thought the justices would be mindful of the political implications of their decision because they had been accused by Republicans of being partisan in 2000.
"I think they know that whatever they do, it will be viewed through a political lens" he said.
Of the five justices in the majority opinion, three were appointed by Gov. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat, and two by Governor Bush. The two remaining justices were appointed by Governor Chiles.
Friday's ruling opens the door for county election officials to mail more than 50,000 absentee ballots to Florida voters overseas, most of them in the military, on Saturday.
Over the last few weeks, Mr. Nader's candidacy here experienced a roller coast ride of uncertainty. After Ms. Hood had certified that Mr. Nader should go on the ballot as the Reform Party candidate, Judge P. Kevin Davey of Circuit Court, a Democrat, issued a preliminary injunction blocking her action. Ms. Hood appealed that injunction and ordered county election officials to prepare ballots with Mr. Nader's name.
Mr. Davey, in strongly worded rebuke of Ms. Hood, then issued at permanent injunction this week preventing her from issuing those absentee ballots. But the Supreme Court stayed his injunction pending its review of the case.
Under Florida law, a minor party candidate for president could get on the ballot either by obtaining more than 90,000 signatures or by receiving the nomination of a "national party," a term that was not clearly defined. Mr. Nader received the Reform Party's endorsement at a convention in August, and based on that, sought the ballot line in Florida.
But Democrats challenged his candidacy, asserting that the Reform Party was no longer national in scope, was virtually penniless and that its convention had been staged with hired students purely to qualify for the Florida ballot. Designating it a "national party" would open the door to any group to have a presidential ballot line, they said.
"Voters need to be able to rely on the law to protect them against sham candidates and sham parties," said Elizabeth Holtzman, a former Democratic congresswoman and co-founder of the Ballot Project, a group that has been challenging Mr. Nader's candidacy in several states.
But Ms. Hood and the Reform Party asserted that the Democrats and their allies were setting an unfairly strict bar on ballot access. They argued that the state legislature's intent has been to increase access, and they urged the court to take the broadest view possible of ballot rules.
U.S. to Investigate Florida Charges
WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 (AP) - The Justice Department said on Friday that it was investigating accusations that Florida law enforcement officers intimidated elderly black voters during an investigation of voting fraud last spring.
There have been growing calls for a federal investigation of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's response to reports of voter fraud in a mayoral election in Orlando. State agents interviewed dozens of voters who cast absentee ballots. Democrats contended that the agents' presence and behavior had intimidated the voters.
2004-09-19 19:43 | User Profile
Bush is getting a little insurance from Nader. Nader will draw off more liberal Kerry votes giving Bush a little help.
2004-09-19 22:26 | User Profile
Florida is going to be a key state again.
2004-09-20 12:09 | User Profile
Florida Supreme Court Gives Nader a Spot on State Ballot
Interesting way to look at it.