FINALLY!

A lot of people are expressing great concern about the credibility of the U.S. Supreme Court, as if the current election crisis were of its own making. Before Al Gore, we never had a presidential candidate who asked the courts to hand him the presidency. Judicial restraint sometimes involves restraining state courts who won't restrain themselves.

--Law Professors James Lindgren and Randy E. Barnett (12/14/2000 on nationalreview.com)

Vice President Al Gore's concession speech was gracious, even humorous, and well delivered. You and I and most other people in the country surely were relieved to hear it. It was just too late by a month--a month of hanging and dimpled chads, of personal attacks on those who stood in the way of a daring "vote- mining" scheme, of endless political spin, and of legal maneuvering that in the end proved to be self-defeating. Let's be plain: there was no need for any of this.

In the end, what was rightfully to happen became official: George W. Bush is the president-elect. And we are glad that it is so.

Repeating a line that he had used on his Republican opponents during the 1992 campaign, Vice President Gore said with a resigned smile, "It's time for me to go." We join him in that sentiment and wish him the best as he leaves office. Indeed, we hope that, relieved from the pressure to profess the radical "pro- choice" orientation that the Democratic Party currently requires from its presidential candidates, Mr. Gore will reflect on what a high price he paid for abandoning the pro-life position he had espoused as a congressman. It is never too late to rediscover the truth and recommit oneself to the right to life. If he does, he will be a better man for it--and help the Democratic Party rediscover its moral center.

To president-elect George W. Bush we offer our support and eager cooperation in the pursuit of pro-life policies. We pray that he will govern wisely and with a steady hand.

In a close election, many can claim to have delivered the winning vote, but it is a plain fact that the mobilization of pro-life voters in support of George W. Bush throughout the whole country made a big difference. (An article by NRL PAC Director Carol Long Tobias on page 6 of this issue of NRL News discusses the impact of pro-life voters.)

This election, more than any other, demonstrated the wisdom of concentrating support on pro-life candidates who actually have a chance to win. If just a few hundred pro-life voters in Florida had refused to support Mr. Bush and voted for third-party candidates, Mr. Gore would now be president-elect--and the members of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League would be delirious. It did not happen because pro-lifers voted smart.

Since the election, a lot of overheated and dishonest rhetoric has been expended claiming that George W. Bush supposedly "has no mandate" because of the closeness of the election. And quite a few pundits and Gore partisans have been wringing their hands, questioning the "legitimacy" of the Bush victory. Nonsense.

As to the "mandate," let's remember that George W. Bush received a significantly higher percentage of the total vote (48%) than Clinton received in the 1992 election (43%) yet none of the " progressive" pundits questioned Bill Clinton's "mandate." As to Al Gore's claim that the presidency should be rightfully his because he received 337,576 more votes out of over 100 million votes cast, there are three things to note. (1) We don't elect presidents by total popular vote but by majority in the Electoral College; that's the federal system. (2) The networks' premature and incorrect "projection" that Al Gore won Florida before polls closed potentially depressed Republican turnout. (3) The counties won by Bush represent 143 million Americans; those won by Al Gore represent only 127 million.

George W. Bush's victory is legitimate because it was won under rules governing our elections. But there were illegitimate attempts to deny Mr. Bush his victory.

Aside from the bizarre move by the Gore forces to disenfranchise voters serving in the military, the most egregiously illegitimate actions in this election were those of the Florida Supreme Court. In a brazen example of legislating from the bench, that court tried to change the law governing elections after the election had taken place. The court not only usurped the prerogatives of the legislature and the executive branch but also acted contrary to federal law and the U.S. Constitution. The court's order gave the Gore forces more time to convert non- votes in selected counties into "votes" for Al Gore--after the election. The U.S. Supreme Court vacated that order in a 9-0 decision (issued per curiam, meaning "for the Court").

After the certification of the Bush victory, the Florida Supreme Court tried again, this time overruling a lower court and ordering a "recount" of selected ballots during the so-called contest phase. By a 7-2 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court declared this recount unconstitutional. Beyond that, a 5-4 majority ruled that the bizarre recount business had to come to an end because there was no reasonable way to accomplish a constitutionally correct recount within the time left. (Ironically, the Florida court's first illegitimate interference in the process had robbed Al Gore of time he would later need for the contest phase provided by Florida law. They were too clever by half.)

Gore supporters in the opinion elite are using that latter 5-4 vote as an excuse to question the "credibility" of the U.S. Supreme Court. Did you hear any of them questioning the " credibility" of the Supreme Court after the 5-4

decisions that expanded Roe v. Wade with an "undue burden" test (Planned Parenthood v. Casey) and declared partial-birth abortion a constitutional right (Stenberg v. Carhart)? Aside from the Bush victory, some other good has come from all this post-election commotion: It should be now clear to everyone that "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench" is a danger to the nation.

Judicial activism is bad at any level. When will the U.S. Supreme Court recognize that it, too, overstepped its bounds and legislated from the bench when seven un-elected justices, in effect, amended the Constitution and imposed on all states the personal "right" to kill the child in the womb? If anything threatens the credibility of the Court it is Roe v. Wade and its progeny, and not Bush v. Gore.