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Florida Lawmakers Recommend Special Session to Name Electors
A committee of the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature in the US recommended Thursday, November 30, that a special session be held "as soon as practicable" to appoint electors in the state's contested presidential election.
The committee consisting of eight Republicans and five Democrats voted 8-5 along party lines to hold the session.
The final decision will be made by House Speaker Tom Feeney and Senate President John McKay, both Republicans who have pushed for the legislature to select Florida's 25 electors which will choose the next US president on December 18.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush, brother of George W. Bush, said Thursday that he would sign a bill naming a slate of electors.
The Legislature was acting within its constitutional authority and he had no plans to recuse himself from the issue, he said.
The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore is strongly opposed to holding the session, which was designed to ensure Bush's victory.
Gore's running mate, Senator Joseph Lieberman, said the move was "just wrong and sets a terrible precedent" for legislative meddling in future presidential elections.
"I do think this action by the Florida Legislature really threatens the credibility and legitimacy of the ultimate choice of electors in Florida," he said. "It threatens to put us into a constitutional crisis, which we are not in now by any stretch of the word."
As the committee met in Florida's state capital Tallahassee Thursday, Gore's lawyers filed papers with the US Supreme Court, asking it to block any legislative attempt to appoint electors.
Congress set Election Day as a uniform national date for selection of electors, Gore lawyers wrote in the filings.
However, Bush's lawyers argued to the US Supreme Court that the Florida Legislature has the constitutional power to appoint its own set of presidential electors.
"In this context... the Constitution specifically assigns the power to determine the manner of appointing presidential electors to the state legislature," Bush's lawyers wrote.
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