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The Florida Supreme Court in the 2000 Presidential Election: Ambiguity, Ideology, and Signaling in a Judicial Hierarchy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2002

Paul Brace
Affiliation:
Clarence L. Carter Professor of Political Science at Rice University and author of State Government and Economic Performance (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). Currently he is co-principal investigator on the State Supreme Court Data Project sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
Laura Langer
Affiliation:
Assistant professor at the University of Arizona. Her book, judical Review in State Supreme Courts: A Comparative Study, is currently in press with the State University of New York Press. She recently received a 5-year career development grant from the National Science Foundation.

Extract

On December 12, 2000, for the first time in America's history a court of law determined the outcome of a presidential election. Before an anxious citizenry, the United States Supreme Court issued the decision that would ultimately give George W. Bush the presidency, if not absolute victory. Remarkably, the U.S. Supreme Court justices were not the only jurists pulled into the fray. In numerous lawsuits, several Florida state courts rendered decisions that figured prominently in the 2000 presidential election.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2001 by the American Political Science Association

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Footnotes

* We would like to thank Bill Mishler and Barb Norrander for comments on an earlier version. We also are grateful to the reviewer and editors for their suggestions.