- guardian.co.uk, Friday December 1 2000 02.27 GMT
Not since the Watergate scandal of the 1970s have the nine members of the US supreme court been so firmly in a presidential minefield.
Back then, by ordering Richard Nixon to hand over his White House tapes, the court made a ruling which eventually drove the president to resign. Now, 26 years later, it may again make history by in effect deciding who will become the 43rd US president.
The issue in Bush v Palm Beach County Canvassing Board is legally narrow but politically vast. At 10am, George W Bush's lawyers will have 35 minutes to say why Florida's supreme court overstepped the constitution on November 21 by permitting manual recounts of the November 7 poll.
Al Gore's lawyers will have 35 minutes to argue why the Florida court was within its rights. At that point, the judges will adjourn to ponder their decision. A decision seems likely early next week.
If the judges reaffirm the Florida supreme court's decision, Mr Gore's efforts to have all the votes counted can continue. If they override the Florida decision, however, the counts are over and Mr Bush is home and dry - unless one of the Florida courts separately overturns the election.
The history of the US supreme court is the history of the balance between the constitution and the states' rights to make their own laws.
Mr Bush's team says that the Florida decision breaches a section of the US code of 1887 which stipulates that controversies about the appointment of members of the electoral college must be made according to "laws enacted prior to" the election. The Florida court also violated the separation of powers between courts and the legislature in article 2 of the US constitution, it argues.
Mr Gore's team says that the Bush case "flatly misreads" the law. The Florida court's ruling, it argues, was in "a state-law case that, despite its importance, does not belong in federal court". In modern time, Democrats have traditionally fought against states' rights in such battles, but not this time.
The nine judges often divide on liberal versus conservative lines, but today's case will be difficult to call in advance because of the states' rights issue. Traditionally, the chief justice, William Rehnquist, heads the conservatives, with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. A more liberal block frequently includes John Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Anthony Kennedy and Sandra O'Connor tend to hold the balance.
Mr Bush's case will be put by Washington lawyer Theodore Olson, who acted for Los Angeles police officers in the 1991 Rodney King beating case. Mr Olson is a close friend of the former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, and is married to Barbara Olson, author of a fanatically hostile 1999 biography of Hillary Clinton.
Mr Gore's lawyer is the Harvard University constitutional law expert Professor Laurence Tribe. He played a key role in the successful 1987 Democratic effort to block Ronald Reagan's nomination of a conservative judge, Robert Bork, to the court.
