In the frenzied weeks before Election Day, the Supreme Court has been called upon to weigh in on a number of election cases that could affect the outcome of a potentially close race between President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden.
Embedded in one of those cases is a hint that the chaotic 2000 election, when results weren’t known for weeks, may rear its head once again, says Dan Urman, who teaches Constitutional law and the modern U.S. Supreme Court at Northeastern.
“This cycle, it’s like Bush v. Gore is back,” says Urman, who is also director of hybrid and online programs in the School of Law, and director of the Law and Public Policy minor.
In 2000, two up-and-coming lawyers were on the team that helped build a case to decide a razor-thin race between then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Republican nominee, and then-Vice President Al Gore, the Democrat. Those lawyers were Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, who today sit on the high court. And when Bush v. Gore went before the Supreme Court, John Roberts—then a lawyer in private practice, now the chief justice—stepped in to fine-tune the case.
