Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor says the court’s decision to rule on the case of Bush vs. Gore— in which she voted with the 5-4 majority that effectively awarded the presidency to George W. Bush after the disputed 2000 election– may have been a mistake.
Looking back, O’Connor said, she isn’t sure the high court should have taken the case.
“It took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue,” O’Connor said during a talk Friday with the [Chicago] Tribune editorial board. “Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.'”
The case, she said, “stirred up the public” and “gave the court a less-than-perfect reputation.”
“Obviously the court did reach a decision and thought it had to reach a decision,” she said. “It turned out the election authorities in Florida hadn’t done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day.”
Um, yeah.
Update: I should add that if the Supreme Court had not taken the case, the decision of the Florida Supreme Court in Gore vs. Harris, ordering a partial manual recount, would have stood.
