Bush v. Gore

Randall Kennedy

The ideologically diverse commentators brought together by Bruce Ackerman to analyze Bush v. Gore offer a wealth of arresting and deeply-informed observations about an unprecedented case that will be passionately argued about for as long as the United States Supreme Court exists. In the library of commentary generated by the Supreme Court’s decision, Bush v. Gore: The Question of Legitimacy is absolutely essential reading.

Library Journal

Do the political and legal consequences of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore (2000) relieve societal unease about the way democratic and political systems were altered during the 2000 presidential election? Ackerman (Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale Univ.) here collects a series of extended discussions on this topic by a distinguished array of current and former law professors representing many different ideological stances. The essays were written long enough after the decision to provide a different perspective from books published immediately afterward, such as Richard Posner's Breaking the Deadlock: The 2000 Election, the Constitution, and the Courts and Howard Gillman's The Votes That Counted: How the Court Decided the 2000 Presidential Election. The 13 articles almost equally address whether this decision had a solid basis in the "rule of law" or a foundation in legal principles and whether the U.S. Supreme Court should have used the doctrine of "political questions" and allowed either state or congressional institutions to resolve such disputes. Some argue that taking that path would prevent judges from immersing themselves in political thickets and thereby creating dangerous threats to the court's legitimacy with the American public and elected officials. This deft examination of the various legal and political implications of Bush v. Gore will attract readers in academic and law libraries. Steven Puro, St. Louis Univ. Machinery of Death: The Reality of America's Death Penalty Regime. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A stunning collection of real-world legal rustications that consider the meaty issues behind and released by the Gore/Bush electoral debacle, assembled with a niftily guiding hand by Yale law professor Ackerman (The Stakeholder Society, 1999, etc.). Most of the legal thinkers here, conservative and progressive alike, from Berkeley to Yale, from court of appeals judge to ex-solicitor general or representative to the Council of Europe, consider the machinery of government to have misfired when it came to the presidential election of 2000. Some writers try to argue that the outcome was the best in an imperfect world and that the ad hoc response of the Supreme Court was appropriate. But the more compelling arguments suggest that the Court's actions cast a pall over the presidency and over itself by playing partisan politics and wielding arbitrary power, robbing Congress of its constitutional role in electoral disputes and making palpable a new interventionism on the part of the Supreme Court. The greatest lasting damage-beyond a cynicism about the legal process-lies in the Court's trumping of the rule of law: The problem was not a crisis (no matter what CNN said), and it in no way condoned the beaching of judicial norms and legal principles. The fallout will be far-reaching, including a new lack of confidence in the Court's accountability, if not its very legitimacy. No one thinks this denigration of the legitimacy of democratic resolution will cripple the Constitution-live and learn, but for heaven's sake learn-though it's scary to think that the Senate may be the only institution capable of controlling what has become a rogue Court. No chilly legal-think here, but impassioned and piquinginterpretations of law and its application or misapplication in the presidential election of 2000.