Fun_People Archive
13 Dec
Supreme Court Logic

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 100 12:44:17 -0800
To: Fun_People
Precedence: bulk
Subject: Supreme Court Logic

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Forwarded-by: Joe Buhler <jpb@msri.org>
[The author is a logician in the math dept at Berkeley. -jpb]

From: Leo Harrington <leo@math.berkeley.edu>

       (My first try at this seemed too vague to everyone who responded)


    The dispute between the US supreme court and Florida is a dispute about
the criterion for handling a manual recount in the various Florida counties.
    The Florida supreme court adopted verbatum the criteria mandated by
the Florida legislature.
    The US supreme court has ordered a new criterion.
    It is not up to the Florida supreme court to make new laws, So:
    The dispute between the US supreme court and Florida is a dispute
between the US supreme court and the Florida legislature.
    The US supreme court has ordered the Florida legislature to adopt a
new criterion.

    The US supreme court has invoked article 2 to justify a violation of
article 2!!

    To summarize the constitutional underpinnings and constitutional
consequences of the US supreme court's reasoning:

    	       	SUPREME COURT LOGIC
    (sentence (3) is the key consequence in the following)

    (1) Up until now, the Florida legislature has adopted a method for
choosing its state's presidential electors, a method including a criterion
for handling manual recounts in its various counties.

    (2) The U.S. Supreme court has recently ruled that this criterion for
handling manual recounts in the various Florida counties is unconstitutional
since its application by the various counties violates the equal protection
provision of the 14th amendment.

    (3) So from now on the Florida legislature must adopt a different method
for choosing its state's presidential electors, a method now including a
different criterion for handling manual recounts in its various counties.
(In particular, the U.S. Supreme court ruling would seem to entail that by
the time of the 2004 presidential election the Florida legislature must
adopt a different method for choosing its state's presidential electors).

    (4) The reason the Florida legislature must make this change is in part
due to article 2 of the constitution which says that a state legislature
has sole responsibility for determining the method for choosing its state's
presidential electors.

    (5) The equal protection provision of the 14th amendment by itself is
not sufficient to make a state legislature change its method of state
elections; but article 2 plus the 14th amendment are sufficient to make a
state legislature change its method for choosing its state's presidential
electors.

    IT IS SO ORDERED

© 2000 Peter Langston