Democrats: Gore to Bow Out if Justices Deal a Defeat

After 34 days of rock-solid support, senior Democratic leaders signaled Sunday that Vice President Al Gore is likely to concede defeat--and quickly--to Texas Gov. George W. Bush if the U.S. Supreme Court terminates all recounting of Florida’s presidential ballots.

Their comments offered the most dramatic evidence that the end of the tumultuous postelection race for the White House may finally be looming after nearly five grueling weeks of ballot recounts, court battles and spectacular uncertainty.

With a court ruling expected soon after oral arguments are presented this morning, key Democrats in Congress and Gore’s own chief lawyer reluctantly said the vice president would face an insurmountable obstacle if the decision goes against him. Attorneys for the two camps filed 50-page briefs before the court on Sunday.

“If somehow Florida is told, ‘Don’t count the votes that were cast,’ I think that’s the end of the road in terms of contesting the election,” said David Boies, who will argue the case for Gore. Boies made those comments on Fox’s “News Sunday” program.

Democrats appealed for national unity, whichever way the court rules. They urged Americans to accept the high court’s order and to move beyond the often-bitter debate that has roiled the nation, and further sharpened partisan lines in Washington, since election day.

House Democratic leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri said he thought Gore would concede if a majority of the nine Supreme Court justices agree that no further ballot recounts are warranted in Florida, as Bush has argued.

“I believe [Gore] will, and I think George Bush would do the same thing if it were the other way around,” the House minority leader said on ABC’s “This Week” program.

“If this is concluded in the next 48 hours, the person who is on the losing side . . . should go and meet with the winner,” said Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.)

“They should make an appearance together. There should be an immediate call for national unity, and for accepting the results of this election, getting about the country’s business.”

Gore remains several hundred votes behind Bush in Florida’s certified vote tallies. He and his supporters have fervently insisted that machine tabulations failed to detect numerous votes, however, and that manual recounts thus were required.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled Friday to allow hand recounts of 43,000 disputed ballots across the state. But in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an immediate stay Saturday to halt the counts pending their review of the state court’s decision. Canvassing boards across the state abruptly halted without posting additional votes for either candidate.

Here in Tallahassee, many of the high-power lawyers and political operatives from the Gore and Bush camps, as well as many members of the media, immediately left town after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

A quiet but dismal Sunday of sodden gray clouds and cold rain only underscored the sudden emptiness of a capital that has served as ground zero of the political world.

The prospect of a high court ruling in Washington in favor of Bush also lowered political temperatures here.

Some Republican leaders in the Florida Legislature said they would prefer to avoid a special session to directly appoint electors loyal to Bush to ensure that he is declared the winner of the state’s pivotal 25 electoral votes.

Senior Democratic leaders, as well as Gore’s legal team, used the Sunday public affairs TV shows to prepare supporters for what they fear is the inevitable: that the U.S. Supreme Court will rule for Bush.

“I think you’ve got five justices there that have decided there is a substantial probability that Gov. Bush is right on this issue,” Boies said on the CBS program, “Face the Nation.”

He dutifully insisted that the justices have not made up their minds on the merits of the case.

“We have to go in and try to show them . . . that we are right and that those votes ought to be counted, and that the United States Supreme Court should not in effect become a ‘super-court’ to decide Florida election law,” Boies said.

The sense that the Supreme Court would bring finality to the contest was echoed by Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

“I think we have to live with the results and go on,” Daschle said, stressing that he disagrees with the Supreme Court order to stop counting, “but I respect it.”

Gephardt also urged supporters to accept the ruling.

“We have a court system, we have a rule of law in this country, and I’ve said from the beginning we’ve got to stick with it,” Gephardt said.

Later, Gephardt spokeswoman Laura Nichols said that her boss was not trying to pressure Gore. “I think if the vice president thought he had other legal options open to him, we’d defer to his judgment,” she said.

An NBC poll showed that by a margin of 51% to 40%, Americans now believe Bush won the election. However, some Democrats in the liberal wing of the party said such an outcome would be of doubtful legitimacy unless Florida’s disputed votes are counted.

“An election is not over until all the votes are counted,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said in a statement Sunday. “If the U.S. Supreme Court does not come down on the side of this most revered principle of democracy, then this presidential election will be forever tainted.”

On the Republican side, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said “there’s an important responsibility for the loser to lose with grace.”

Other senior Republicans tried to use the talk shows to cool off the hot-tempered rhetoric that has come from their more fiery colleagues.

On Friday, for example, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) accused Florida’s Supreme Court of “judicial aggression” for ordering a recount that day in a split decision.

“You haven’t heard those comments from me,” former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, Bush’s key advisor in Florida, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“My criticism has rested on legal grounds.”

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) warned his colleagues on both sides of the divide against overheated reactions.

“I think it would be advisable . . . to keep the rhetoric calm,” Lott said. “I don’t know that it adds anything positive to this process.”

As lawyers in the two camps prepared to square off for what may be the last time, both sides filed detailed legal briefs with the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling Friday that launched the latest round of ballot recounting.

The Gore team argued that federal law did not “foreclose” the Florida court from ordering the hand recounts.

The Gore lawyers also said that for the U.S. Supreme Court to become involved now, “such intervention would run an impermissible risk of tainting the result of the election in Florida--and thereby the nation.”

But the Bush team complained that no uniform standard has been used to decide what is a bona fide vote.

“This case is the quintessential illustration of what will inevitably occur in a close election where the rules for tabulating ballots and resolving controversies are thrown aside,” they said.

Bush returned to Austin, Texas, on Sunday afternoon after spending time at his ranch in Crawford. He and his wife, Laura, hosted a holiday party at the mansion Sunday night for his campaign and state staffs.

The vice president and his wife, Tipper, went to church near Washington early Sunday, where the sermon dealt with “spiritual preparation.” They later hosted two holiday parties for Secret Service agents and their families.

However the U.S. Supreme Court rules, Bush still enjoys support from the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature, where House and Senate committees will convene today to continue a special session.

The state House is scheduled to approve a joint resolution Tuesday approving the slate of electors, and the Senate is expected to follow suit Wednesday. Republicans lead both chambers by comfortable margins.

The special session is designed to give Florida’s 25 electoral college votes to Bush, even if Gore prevails in court.

Florida Republicans say they have the constitutional right, and perhaps the obligation, to name their own slate of electors if there is a chance that court battles might keep Florida’s vote from being counted in the nation’s electoral college.

But GOP leaders are hoping the U.S. Supreme Court delivers the Texas governor such a powerful victory that Gore is forced to concede--and that they can disband the special session before taking a final vote.

“Would we love the U.S. Supreme Court to solve it? Absolutely,” said state Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican.

But Diaz-Balart and other Republican leaders said there are too many variables beyond the U.S. Supreme Court. Several lawmakers pointed to the legal appeals of two lawsuits claiming that election supervisors in Martin and Seminole counties colluded with the state Republican Party to correct defective absentee ballot applications.

Those cases, which seek to give Gore as much as an 8,000-vote swing by throwing out 25,000 absentee votes, were rejected late last week by two Leon County Circuit Court judges. They have been appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, and attorneys on both sides are to file legal briefs today.

Although the cases are still considered longshots by legal experts, legislators want to ensure that they have a “safety net,” state lawmaker Diaz-Balart said.

“We have to be ready,” Diaz-Balart said. “We have to proceed.”

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Times staff writers Megan Garvey in Austin, James Gerstenzang in Washington and Scott Gold in Tallahassee contributed to this report.