Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Presidency 20140901 : vimarsana.c

Turned out to be. When they discovered that we were going to have a long and drawnout scenario as to who actually won this election, the news media as they usually do clapped their hands and said, boy, weve got something going here for a long time. Now all we have to do is get somebody on that Supreme Court who is willing to tell us how the court is going to rule. Thats the florida Supreme Court. Well, obviously they couldnt get that. The next thing was well, lets find somebody who is on the Supreme Court and maybe he or she can help us out. Thats how they got to me and i appeared in about 75 to 80 interviews on tv and on the radio give them my opinions as to what i thought may happen next. And it might surprise you to know that i was on every major network, even on pbs, even on Geraldo Rivera whats his name again . Rivera. Anyhow, i was on his show, which was an experience in and of itself the one night they had me standing by in a tv studio in miami and he was wherever he was conducting it, i think it was on cnbc at the time, and they had two fellows there. One representing the republican party, the other representing the democratic party. And they were arguing and screaming at each other and then he said so me, justice, what do you think of this . I said, before im going to say one word, youre going to have to get those two screamers off that show. Well, i didnt go on that night. They called me the next morning and said, please appear tonight. I said there is no way im going to appear tonight at all because i see the way you carry on the program. And you learn a great deal about Media Coverage of stories like this. And what did i basically learn . That is the Major Networks try the best they can to bring you the news in a true and forthright manner, as best they understand it. The other stations like cnbs, msnbc and fox news, you learn pretty soon that those really arent news shows, theyre entertainment shows for people who are watching those each night and want to be entertained. Thats what those stations are going to do for you. I found that the most intelligent program of all was jim lehrs newshour on pbs because those are folks who had their staff seriously interview all of the speakers for an hours time at least before they came on television and they had intelligent discussions between intelligent peoples instead of people screaming at each other. And one very, very notable thing that happened, two things, the first one was i was on Chris Matthews hardball program one evening and the other person on the program was orrin hatch, who at that time was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee. And the florida Supreme Court had just ruled, and they ruled that there should be a recount in florida. The first thing out of the senators mouth was, judge, isnt that the worst opinion you ever heard of . And i said, well, senator, you know, its only been out about 20 minutes. I havent even read it. He said, but its a terrible opinion. He said, im assuming that you read it. He said, i didnt have to read it to know its a terrible opinion, at which time i said to him, senator, you know, stop being a hypocrite. You dont tell the chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee stop being a hypocrite on national television, but i have never worried about that. I usually call it the way i see it. I said if you dont like something and dont care what the reason fering is behind it, youre just going to be opposed to it. Thats what i mean when i say youre a hypocrite. If you fairly evaluated it and then came up with an opinion, that would be something he is. Right there they cut off the program and switched to the followup guests, who were Jerry Falwell and the honorable Rick Santorum, the junior senator from the state of pennsylvania. And right away falwell starts out and says, what do you expect from that kogan . That florida Supreme Court is the worst Supreme Court in the United States and its known as that. Well, actually, that wasnt true because actually the florida Supreme Court has been for many years one of the leading Supreme Courts in the United States. Then Rick Santorum comes up and says, thank god kogans not on that court now because god knows what would have happened. The happiest day of my life was when he lost for reelection and only served one term as senator. [laughter] i wont make any comment about what hes been doing since that particular period of time. But the most sensible conversation i had on radio was when i got a call from a Radio Station in bogota, colombia and they were going to do a program and i would be speaking in english and theyd be translating it for their audience in spanish and then i would answer it in english and they would translate my answer in spanish. Do you know that that was one of the most sensible programs that i was on during that entire period of time . And i found out that the audience, who were colombians, not only knew more about our election, but understood what was happening better than the socalled experts that the tv stations were putting on. So what does that really tell you . It tells you that sometimes we really lose sight of whats really going on. So as i say, that was my connection to gore vs. Bush. As i said, were going to give you people, all four of them here are persons who have been personally active in that particular moment in time. First speaker you are going to hear from is joe klock, a member of the florida bar. He was the attorney for Kathryn Harris, who was our secretary of state, handled the case for her all the way through the United States Supreme Court. Next we have ben keuhne, who was an attorney for al gore during the same period of time. Then norman ostrow, who was at different times a member of the state elections commission, chairman of the state ethics commission, a member of the state legislature, and at the time that all this was going on was an assistant state attorney in Broward County in charge of looking into what was happening in the year 2000 during this particular campaign. And then, as i said, we get to the ballot box and were very, very honored to have with us Theresa Lepore. Theresa was the person in charge of the Elections Department for the county of palm beach here in dade county and thats where a lot of people said all this started from. So shes here today, and what were going to do is im going to have each of our guests get up and speak for seven minutes each and no questions until all of them have finished. Then we will open it up for your questions. So, joe, why dont you start out for us . Thank you, appreciate it. Go ahead. Its excellent to see Theresa Lepore here because that is where it really all started as far as Kathryn Harris was concerned. When i was 33 i represented a guy who is still around. He is in his 70s, flies his own jet, the c. E. O. Of a Large Public Company and he was involved in a fight for his companys life with victor pozner, one of the most disgusting human beings ever to draw breath in the state of florida. One thing i learned from this man is he said the worst thing that can ever happen to you as a lawyer is to end up in a case where theres more than one lawyer and he said each time you add another lawyer to the mix, it becomes worse. And i always remembered that and it was true in that case. There were like 20 lawyers representing this, that, and the other thing. When i walked into the courtroom in palm beach county, sat in the back because we had a bit role and watched the craziness that went on before now justice of the Supreme Court bruce rogeau, probably one of the finest constitutional scholars in the United States, introduce there making a presentation and you would think everyone would be interested in what bruce had to say, but they really were only interested in what they had to say. It was crazy. So when Kathryn Harris called on us to represent her, harris who has been vilified by a whole bunch of people and is one of the most intelligent clients i ever had, one of the things we went over was do we want to have more than one law firm working on the trial and appellate, da, da, da, da, da . We recommended no. It turned out you could have better control of the case. On al gores side there were lawyers all over the place, very, very fine lawyers, but they had the disadvantage of working for mr. Gore, who was smarter than all of them and had to review every single document. Ben will remember one time we were in front of the judge and the gore people were trying to arrange a sort of aggressive schedule as far as Going Forward with the trial. We had to say, we cant be in front of the Supreme Court and here at the same time. When we started out the case, the first discussion we had was we thought it made sense to have a statewide recount. The team that worked for the secretary was half democrat, half republicans. Im a lifetime democrat. Most of the people in the key roles were democrats and our view it had nothing to do with party but but our idea was it made sense rather than just two four counties, do the whole state. Ben will remember it ended up being very cold that year. Very cold. W had a filing deadline of 3 30 in the morning to file certain petitions. Almost at the last minute we made a decision to amend our petition to ask for a statewide restrictor, which we had asked for but we asked for a stay while that took place. And they went berserk on the other side and that is what started the tone. From that point on we decide were going to do everything by the book. The secretary made a decision as well that she was not going to appear in front of press unless there was a reason for her to do it. Because as chief Justice Kogan pointed out, it was a circus in a lot of ways the we handled everything with the same team of 20 or 21 lawyers, which involved a case in the United States District Court in pensacola, we had a case in tallahassee, two appeals before the Supreme Court of florida, en banc appeal, and various and sundry other activities going on around the state. We had the same 20 or 21 people working on it. Didnt get a lot of sleep, but thats what was going on. The secretary would sit and whenever we had any kind of position we wanted to take, we would present the arguments, she would read the case and make a decision the but the key was controlling the process as best we could do. The Supreme Court of florida, which i have a high regard for as well, every time we had everything that was ruled in our favor, within two hours it was reversed, stayed, dumped, something happened to it. So we had a procedure where we would celebrate immediately, no more than a half hour after we won because we knew it would be taken away from us the but the fact of matter is if you looked at the opinions of the Supreme Court they hand down, the key to it is the concurring opinion of the chief justice, thomas and scalia. Really as word has leaked out on the court, the decision was 54, not 72 but they didnt want to hand down a 54 decision, so they backed into the equal protection argument. What won was a littleknown statute passed in 1874 or 1875. That year there had been a mess in electing a president because they were changing the rules as to how you selected the electors and it was a mess and lasted for months and months. If you recall at that time, they had the election in november but the president didnt take office until march, so it was plenty of time for a mess. Congress passed a statute that said the law in effect on election day controlled the selection of electors. They could change anything they wanted to after but in terms of counting the votes they had to use the law that was in effect on election day. There was a very recent case then in florida where they interpreted the common law with respect to elections and were able to make the argument that thats all great, fine, but that wasnt the law in effect on elections day. The law in effect was this law. A couple comments about the whole process. I see there are several lawyers in here of mature age. Actually ben is, too. He looks 25 but hes not. The most important thing for everyone in the room, as a trial lawyer, is to tell you if someone brings you a case, the most important question is who is the judge . Ok. Who is the judge is sometimes 50 of the case, even before you look at any of the pleadings or anything else. So when we were sitting up there before the Supreme Court, we knew that court because that was the court we knew. The 11th circuit is fascinating. But ive only been before the Supreme Court of the United States twice and the Supreme Court of the United States is a trip. We were in a room that had 750 people in it and they took the counsel table and slid them up against the bench. If you have seen pictures of the Supreme Court, the bench is in a sort of semicircle. So where i sat, Justice Ginsberg was no more than three feet away, just sitting there. And usually when you are in front of an Appellate Court you dont worry about having all of them hot. Some are deceased. But the Supreme Court of the United States, the only respite you have in the Supreme Court of the United States is when either Justice Breyer or suter asked questions because they asked long, detailed questions. But the rest of them were just rattattat all the way through. The lawyers on the other side ive known ben, and david boies, weve had some of the finest lawyers in the country working on this case. I had mentioned to the chief justice i thought it would be more interesting to talk about some of the Strategic Decisions made rather than rehash what went before but the fact is this is titled, bush vs. Gore in retrospect, could it happen again . To which i respond, i hope to god it is not. It is ok maybe to have that kind of test of our system once in 200 years but the idea of having nine individuals on a regular basis decide who is going fob the president is a very, very hairy thing. I remember thinking to myself on december 12, look at this country we have. Gore is the Vice President. He has all kinds of power. The Supreme Court speaks, he shuts it down like that. Where else in the world would that happen . Where else . I guess my response is it was an exciting opportunity to be engaged in and i hope its an exciting opportunity that no one else ever has. [applause] consider its Election Night 2000. Im in the fontainebleu hilton, celebrating the election of the person who is now known and will forever be known as the next president of the United States, al gore and never getting to uphold that title and the news media has Just Announced florida is in the al gore blue column. You see, remember that map and the colors, red and blue . Florida. That was for all of us in the room the signature moment. Al gore was the next president of the United States. And then all of a sudden the tv screen changed. And they take the map off and they say oh, premature. And weve been following the reports, theres nothing premature about this. And then the report comes in saying there are problems with the florida vote. And there is no color on florida. And this seemed remarkable. For those of us who had been toiling in florida for this campaign season. And the news gets worse. Then the commentators talked about well, it seems that its going to be called for bush. And then the commentary about the governor, who had previously said florida was going to carry bush to the white house. And i am at the fontainebleu with Kendall Coffey and the two of us say somethings going on. We immediately get on the phone with somebody all of us know, the attorney general of the state of florida, who happened to be active in the Gore Campaign and we said, weve got a battle. Eight hours later kendall and i are flying up to tallahassee to meet with the secretary of state, warren christopher, bill daley, the Campaign Chair and bob butterworth, to talk about what is happening in the state of florida because we knew, we believed as lawyers, mischief was at hand. And 37 days later we still dont know if it was mischief or not but thats the nature be something that captivated america no, no, captivated the world, for 36 days. And Justice Kogan is right about people in colombia and elsewhere taking attention of this. As a side note, i spent time during the president nixon resignation year in ghana and nigeria, doing rese