The Vote: Bush, Gore, and the Supreme Court

Front Cover
Cass R. Sunstein, Richard A. Epstein
University of Chicago Press, 2001 - Biography & Autobiography - 266 pages
Though George W. Bush took office in January, the nation is still recovering from the prolonged and complex process by which he was elected. The Florida electoral controversy and the subsequent decisions by both the Florida courts and the U.S. Supreme Court left citizens and scholars alike divided over the role of the judiciary in the electoral arena. Now, after a few months of reflection, leading constitutional scholarsCass R. Sunstein, Richard A. Epstein, Pamela S. Karlan, Richard A. Posner, and John Yoo, among others—weigh in on the Supreme Court's actions, which remain sensible, legally legitimate, and pragmatically defensible to some and an egregious abuse of power to others. Representing the full spectrum of views and arguments, The Vote offers the most timely and considered guide to the ultimate consequences and significance of the Supreme Court's decision.

The contributors to this volume were highly visible in the national media while the controversy raged, and here they present fully fleshed-out arguments for the positions they promoted on the airwaves. Readers will find in The Vote equally impassioned defenses for and indictments of the Court's actions, and they will come to understand the practical and theoretical implications of the Court's ruling in the realms of both law and politics. No doubt a spate of books will appear on the 2000 presidential election, but none will claim as distinguished a roster of contributors better qualified to place these recent events in their appropriate historical, legal, and political contexts.

Leading constitutional scholars render their verdicts on the 2000 presidential election controversy

Contributors:

Richard A. Epstein

Elizabeth Garrett

Samuel Issacharoff

Pamela S. Karlan

Michael W. McConnell

Frank I. Michelman

Richard H. Pildes

Richard A. Posner

David A. Strauss

Cass R. Sunstein

John Yoo

An earlier electronic edition of The Vote was available on the University of Chicago Press Web site.
 

Selected pages

Contents

Of Law and Politics
1
In such Manner as the Legislature Thereof May Direct The Outcome in Bush v Gore Defended
13
Leaving the Decision to Congress
38
Political Judgments
55
The Newest Equal Protection Regressive Doctrine on a Changeable Court
77
TwoandaHalf Cheers for Bush v Gore
98
Suspicion or the New Prince
123
Democracy and Disorder
140
Bush v Gore Prolegomenon to an Assessment
165
Bush v Gore What Were They Thinking?
184
Order Without Law
205
In Defense of the Courts Legitimacy
223
Whither Electoral Reforms in the Wake of Bush v Gore?
241
Index
255
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2001)

Cass R. Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence in the Law School and the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Born in 1943, Richard A. Epstein graduated from Columbia in 1964 with a degree in philosophy. He continued his education at Oxford, earning a B.A. in law in 1966, and from there attended Yale, where he received an LL.B. in 1968. Following graduation Epstein joined the faculty at the University of Southern California, teaching there until 1972. He became a regular member of the faculty at the University of Chicago in 1973, where he was named James Parker Hall Professor in 1982 and Distinguished Service Professor in 1988. Richard Epstein writes extensively concerning the law. His works include Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995), Bargaining with the State (1993) and Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (1992).