Saturday Morning News

Kendall Coffey Discusses the Florida Recount

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, now for some morning coffee. For some Democratic perspective on the events in Florida, we're joined in Miami by Attorney Kendall Coffey, an attorney for the Democratic Party.

Thanks for being with us, sir.

KENDALL COFFEY, DEMOCRATIC PARTY ATTORNEY: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Coffey, the fact that the Supreme Court has decided on Friday to hold this hearing based on the Bush appeal of the Florida Supreme Court, many people would read into that the Bush case has quite a fair amount of merit. How do you read it?

COFFEY: I think it's a real positive for the system. We believe that the U.S. Supreme Court will follow all the existing precedent and validate the role of the State Supreme Court of Florida in determining questions of state law.

But what I think is a real positive for the whole country is that both sides will have their day in court very quickly and that we will have, in effect, the highest court in the land speaking to the issue and I think that will give everyone great comfort and further validation in the outcome.

O'BRIEN: Now, Mr. Coffey, you mentioned precedent. By my read of it, and I'm not a lawyer, but by my read of it there isn't a lot of precedent as it relates to this specific part of the constitution.

COFFEY: Well, I think there's a tremendous recognition throughout our jurisprudence that on questions of state law, the State Supreme Courts are the final voice and we believe the U.S. Supreme Court will continue to respect that precedent. It's essential to our federal system. As we know, when the constitution was conceived, the whole question of how a particular state's electors were to be chosen was specifically entrusted to the state processes themselves.

We believe that that constitutional scheme represents great wisdom and we believe that the U.S. Supreme Court will continue to recognize and validate that basic principle.

O'BRIEN: You're spinning this as a positive event, but wouldn't you have preferred it if the Supreme Court had just recused itself from this whole affair and not held a hearing on this matter? COFFEY: Well, frankly, I think from the standpoint of wanting to get through the process in a way that the American people will be able to accept and will give everyone confidence that there has been complete thoughtful exploration at all the appropriate levels of our judicial system, I think it's a real positive because in the final analysis, what we've seen, especially down here in Dade County, is too many things that take place outside of our court system.

Obviously, the mob scene Wednesday which had the effect here locally of overruling a decision of our own State Supreme Court is the worst kind of legacy to have from these difficult and controversial times. To have the dialogue elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court is the right place to have these questions asked.

O'BRIEN: But that is a debatable point because what the canvassing board says is that they just plumb ran out of time. Now, the question is now that, in essence, the Supreme Court has set up a de facto new deadline, will your camp make a move to get Miami-Dade back to counting?

COFFEY: Well, I certainly hope so. In fact, I think it's our every intention to proceed Monday in the Circuit Court to get the canvassing board to resume the manual recount. We know how significant that manual recount is, that it's a process of validating votes that our machines and our punch card counters simply can't read. Already, there were close to 400 additional votes that were being counted. Those votes have now been thrown in the rubbish heap by the canvassing board in response to a mob scene yelling, pounding, screaming, physical assaults of several Democratic Party functionaries and that's exactly why at eight o'clock in the morning the canvassing board was prepared to proceed with a manual recount certainly of all the votes that the machines had failed to read and a few hours later, after the orchestrated mob scene, they basically caved.

That's wrong and of course we have not only the need but the duty to go to court on Monday. We can't have a mob speaking louder than our courts, not here in Dade County, not in the state.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Coffey, I'm sorry, our time is expiring. I just want to get you on record here. Where, in fact, specifically will the Gore campaign be filing formal contest and does the Supreme Court hearing in any way impact your strategy in that regard?

COFFEY: Not at all. The U.S. Supreme Court is going to speak to a category of federal issues that the Republicans have attempted to raise. Monday we will be in Circuit Court in Leon County (ph) to get the court to recognize what I think is very plain to all of us, a manual recount could well affect the impact of the presidential election and there is an absolute duty under Florida law for the canvassing board to get back on with the manual recount here in Dade County.

O'BRIEN: Kendall Coffey is an attorney with the Gore campaign. Thanks for being with us on CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

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