DC Confidential by Christopher Meyer

Author:Christopher Meyer [Meyer, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780220772
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2011-07-20T22:00:00+00:00

18

Republicans at the Gates

On 11 December 2000 I found myself sitting on a hard wooden bench at the US Supreme Court. The grand, high-ceilinged chamber was packed with Washington’s political elite. There was the buzz of excited conversation. The air crackled with electricity. To my left, along the bench, sat the high command of the Gore campaign. Fatigue and anxiety were etched in equal measure on their faces. This was the climax to over a month of intense legal and political struggle. At stake was the presidency of the United States.

It was a moment of high, historic drama. The nine Justices of the Supreme Court were about to hear arguments from Republican and Democratic counsel on the vexed question of how votes cast in Florida should be counted. The Justices’ ruling would decide whether Bush or Gore became the forty-third President.

I had decided to do something well-nigh unprecedented, so that I could be witness to the moment. The hearing coincided with President Bill Clinton’s farewell visit to Britain. An ambassador is expected to return to London for a presidential visit. It is not just a matter of protocol. It is enormously useful to take part in talks between Prime Minister and President. But on this occasion I thought the Supreme Court hearing more important than a visit by a President in the final weeks of his term.

The presidential election had taken place just over a month previously, on 7 November. It was extraordinarily close. As the night wore on, with Catherine and I and some friends glued to the television, Florida emerged as the decisive state. At one point Gore was on the verge of conceding the race on the basis of television network projections of the Florida result. Then it looked as if he might have won after all. When the final count came in, Bush had more votes than Gore. But the margin of victory was less than half of one per cent. Under Florida law that triggered a recount.

The American electoral system is very different from the British. The President is not directly elected by the people. He is chosen by the majority of members of a body called the Electoral College. The College as such does not exist. It is the collective noun for 538 Electors who are drawn from each state of the Union. Their origins go back to the foundation of the Republic at the end of the eighteenth century, the term ‘Elector’ coming into general use at some point in the early 1800s. A presidential candidate needs the votes of at least 270 Electors to win.

The number of Electors sent by each state is determined by the state’s quota of senators (always two) and of members of the House of Representatives. The latter is a fluctuating figure, which varies according to population as recorded by each census. Florida, being a big state, had twenty-five Electors in 2000. That figure has now risen to twenty-seven as a result of the 2000 census.

The political affiliation

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.