I'll bypass the just-so, to me patronizing, comment about not using common sense to assess 'judicial decisions'.

The statement about common sense and the law is not patronizing. The law is derived from centuries old precedents, other/newer precedents determined by which of two advocates make the better argument, special interest consideration when writing the law, etc. I WISH it were common sense, since it would be easier to figure out.

Consider the OJ Simpson trial. Or that property rights originally allowed a large class of people to be slaves. Or that women couldn't vote. Or "separate but equal" could survive for 75 years. Those things defy common sense.

If the State Legislature can decide AFTER the fact to subsistute ITS judgement for the judgment of the voters in re the slate of electors to be sent to the E.C., then the whole notion of the People of the State being Sovereign is a mockery. That elected (and recallable) officials can pass electoral laws, and then after the fact retain the right to substitute THEIR judgement for that of the People violates every principle of republican government imaginable.

On this, you and I disagree, and the Court disagrees with you. Consider that 7 of 9 justices ruled the recounts unconstitutional. Should the legislature stand by and allow federally unconstitutional acts to occur? Or should the SCOTUS permit a state to enact law, by legislation or interpretation thereof, that is unconstitutional? The terrible impact of (perhaps) your view is that a state court could throw out the ballots of black voters (or women voters, or whatever) because it somehow interprets the law so that's OK.

Or should the legislature stand by and allow a candidate to sue repeatedly, delaying, until the voters' elected electors are deprived of their vote? Remember, the voters did elect Bush, and that was certified. Also, if the FLA Court is to discern the intent of the Legislature, and the Legislature is ready to clarify its intent, why favor the Court's interpretation over the Legislature's ability to clarify?

And here's where common sense goes out the window. The Constitution, and how it's been historically been interpreted, clearly gives the legislature the right to choose the electors - AT ANY TIME. But it does not violate any principles of republican government. The Constitution does not grant anyone the right to vote for president, other than the electors (E.C.). In your own view, the voters should throw out the Legislature if they do not work the will of the people.

I had issues, legal process issues, with the decision of the Florida Supreme Court.

My assessment is that the FLA Court screwed up royally. They did rewrite law by changing a date in the statute from Nov. 14 to Nov 26 - and the SCOTUS reversed that for obvious reasons. They also ordered a remedy based upon the flawed assumption that Gore did get more votes than Bush when he clearly did not.

It's easy to be monday morning quarterback here. The FLA Court could have ordered the full statewide recount on Nov. 8th (or when it first heard Gore's appeal) with standards and including all the ballots. This would have maximized the time available for the recounts and permitted a proper challenge phase to the election process. This seems to be consistent with what all 9 SCOTUS justices wrote in the opinion and dissents.

Still, I do not quite understand what the Constitutional basis is for the SCOTUS interfering. I can see oodles of Constitutional ground for the U.S. Congress intervening, but not for the SCOTUS. In my view, the legal rationale put forth by the SCOTUS was LAUGHABLE. In any other circumstance, had a LAWYER made the same arguments, the Justices would have sent him/her packing.

The FLA Court denied equal protection to 75% of the voters in Miami-Dade by allowing a partial recount result to be included. It denied equal protection to the voters who cast overvotes. It denied equal protection to the voters whose ballots were counted by the machines but whose "intent" were not considered by humans. It denied equal protection to voters in different counties by allowing subjective analysis of the ballots by competing political interests that differed from county to county.

If it had been "black" and "white" voters instead of "republican" and "democrat" voters, or instead of Miami-Dade precinct #1 and precinct #30 voters, would you see a constitutional basis?