N Sanders Sauls

On the eve of a climactic Florida Supreme Court hearing, state Republican lawmakers Wednesday forged ahead with a special session to short-circuit Democratic legal challenges and ensure George W. Bush the White House. With the tacit approval of Bush's younger brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, legislators scheduled the unprecedented session for Friday.

Text of the decision by Judge N. Sanders Sauls of Leon County Circuit Court on Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore's contest of Florida's certified election results: All right. At this time we call the case of Albert Gore et al vs. Katherine Harris et al. case number 2000-2808. And at this time, an action having been tried, the court at this time will enter its rulings from the bench, due to the exigencies surrounding this case.

In issuing an emergency order to halt the recount of Florida's ballots, the U.S. Supreme Court all but cleared the way for Texas Gov. George W. Bush to win the presidency. But by issuing the critical stay on a 5-4 vote strictly along ideological lines, the court simultaneously placed itself in the center of the partisan battling over the election, both liberal and conservative legal analysts said Saturday.

With the clock urgently ticking, lawyers for Vice President Al Gore are devising a fallback plan for continuing his fight if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds George W. Bush's challenge to Florida's manual vote recount, senior aides said. Even as the Gore camp filed briefs with the high court Tuesday, aides said they now view a negative ruling as more of a political than a legal threat. "The psychological, cultural and political impact [of the Supreme Court's decision] . . .

In an unprecedented lawsuit, attorneys for Al Gore tried to convince a county judge Saturday to throw open the presidential race by resuming the vote counting in Florida and ordering a canvass of thousands of disputed ballots. Lawyers for George W. Bush accused the vice president of acting unlawfully--and put up new hurdles to a swift resolution of the increasingly convoluted case. Even as justices of the U.S.

In a short, unanimous and unsigned decision, the Supreme Court on Monday set aside the Florida state court ruling that extended the time for manual recounts, giving Texas Gov. George W. Bush a technical victory while sparing the ideologically divided justices the need to rule squarely on the presidential election dispute. If nothing else, Monday's decision may allow the justices in Washington to escape the partisan wars with their legal virtue intact.

It's over when we say it's over. On Friday, that is what a majority on the Florida Supreme Court defiantly told Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls, the Florida Legislature and even the U.S. Supreme Court. In the process, the Florida high court resurrected Al Gore's hopes of winning the presidency--and ignited an incendiary political struggle that is likely to burn in federal court, the state Legislature and the U.S. Congress, perhaps for weeks.

Just when the end seemed near, a sharply divided Florida Supreme Court threw the presidential election into turmoil again Friday by ordering a statewide recount of selected ballots and slashing George W. Bush's lead to 154 votes. Bush immediately moved to block the decision, asking the U.S. Supreme Court for a temporary delay in the recount until an appeal can be filed. A separate petition was lodged with the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

A Florida state judge announced Tuesday he will order thousands of ballots driven from South Florida to the state capital here under the tight security of state police--setting up the possible final act in Vice President Al Gore's struggle to capture Florida's electoral votes and wrest the presidency from Texas Gov. George W. Bush. "You want some ballots up here, well bring 'em," said Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls. "Let's just bring 'em."

With the presidency of the United States on the line and five justices already on record against him, Vice President Al Gore will send one of the nation's most celebrated lawyers to the Supreme Court this morning hoping for an upset. But lawyers and law professors who study the high court said Sunday that David Boies will be in a position much like that of a defense lawyer who learns just before closing arguments that the jury already has voted his client guilty.