Conflicts of interest

[Tobias Barrington Wolff]

The same question occurred to me this morning.  I think that the answer is
yes, on both scores: Jeb Bush should recuse himself, as should Gore and
Lieberman.  (Hillary Clinton can probably get away with voting on the issue.)

It is also the case, is it not (Florida law experts) that the Florida
legislature cannot call itself into special session without either a 2/3
vote (which the Republicans there do not have) or the cooperation of the
governor?  Should Jeb Bush not also recuse himself from that act?

-- TBW

At 09:47 AM 11/30/2000 -0800, you wrote:

>         Prof. Griesel raises an excellent question, but let me highlight
> a related one:  If the choice of whether to seat Republican or Democrat
> electors to seat falls to the House and the Senate, wouldn't Senator
> Lieberman and Vice-President Gore have to recuse themselves given their
> obvious (even more so than Governor Jeb Bush's) conflicts of interest?
>
>         In fact, if they do recuse themselves, and the vote otherwise
> falls along party lines, the vote will be 50-49 for the Republicans in
> the Senate, and also majority Republican in the House -- so Governor Jeb
> Bush's judgment won't need to be solicited.  It is only if Gore and
> Lieberman don't recuse, and the vote in the Senate goes 50-50 with Gore
> breaking the tie in favor of his and Senator Lieberman's electors, that
> Jeb Bush's certification will be the tiebreaker, and the question of Jeb
> Bush's recusal will arise.
>
>Curtis Griesel writes:
>If the selection of Florida electors finally falls to Governor Jeb
>Bush,  wouldn't he have to recuse himself of that role given his obvious
>conflict  of interest?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/private/conlawprof/attachments/20001130/b61a904d/attachment.htm