A partisan, Republican district attorney from Carbon County opined in these pages on Nov. 29, 2000, that "since the governor, the secretary of state and the majority of the Legislature in Florida are Republicans, however, they have the right to make decisions that affect the outcome of this [presidential] election, even though those decisions may be partisan. They were elected by the people of the state and given that power, and they, not the judges, represent the 'will of the people' until they are replaced."
Counselor, the final arbiters of all things constitutional, whether federal or state, remain invested in the respective supreme courts, not in the federal or state legislatures.
Chief Justice John Marshall, along with the dramatic increase of the veto by the presidents and state governors after 1830, put to rest the overweaning puffery that the legislatures, in and of themselves, are the sole repositories of the "public will."
The public will is revealed only through the vote, and that is what we are having a problem with: the intent of that vote in Florida. The supreme courts will appropriately determine, and enforce if necessary, the proper resolution of that issue, not the legislatures.
Joseph Schneider
Salt Lake City