Reply #21: If the Supremes had not given Bush Florida's electoral votes, [View All]

[Yupster]

then the Florida state legislature was prepared to do it.

The Republican legislature was ready to appoint their own slate of Bush electors before the Constitutional deadline, and Bush would have won that way anyway.

The Constitution says (article 2, Section 1) "each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of ..."

The Constitution doesn't even require a popular vote for president, and for many years many states didn't have a popular vote for president. The legislature would just appoint electors and that would be that.

In this particular case, the Florida legislature was ready to step in if the courts went against them.

The next step would have been for a state with a Democratic legislature that voted for Bush to appoint its own slate of electors for Gore. It could have become a much worse mess than it did.

Incidently, the Speaker of the Florida Legislature who said he would have a slate of electors ready to go before deadline if the courts were wrong, has since been elected to congress.

It's hard to remember that state legislatures used to be very important bodies, more important than congress in many ways. They used to wield enormous powers, but they have been largely whittled away over time by courts and congress.