Bush v. Gore, “The Voldemort of Supreme Court Decisions”

Some federal courts are using the infamous 2000 Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore to fight for a uniform national voting process, despite the Court’s insistence that the ruling was not precedential. Cases in Ohio, New Hampshire, and Montana have all cited Bush v. Gore’s call for a “non-arbitrary treatment of voters” to fight against faulty voting machines. But since the 2000 rulings, whenever the Supreme Court itself has weighed in on the electoral process, “it’s been to subvert voting equality,” writes American University constitutional law professor and Maryland state senator Jamie Raskin in a Los Angeles Times op-ed. “The majority has only followed Bush vs. Gore as a spiritual template for 5-4 interventions that unbalance the democratic process in favor of the powerful,” Raskin says, citing Citzens United and Shelby County vs. Holder as cases that rolled back voters’ rights. Despite the Court’s attempt to ignore its exhortation to enforce equal voting rights, “the rule of law is a pesky and resilient thing and there are many lawyers who refuse to let it go,” says Raskin.