"In the first half of this volume gathers what we and the editors at the Brookings Institution Press believe to be the most important legal documents in the Bush-Gore confrontation ... The book begins with the early advisory rulings on the recounts by Florida state officials. It moves on to the intermediate court rulings and ends with the critical decisions in early December by the Florida Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. We have included the dissents in all the major cases ... The second half of the book consists of contemporaneous commentaries on the controversy. These include columns, magazine articles, editorials and also a few news stories that shed important light on the issues at stake"--Page 2.

According to the Constitution (Art. III, §2): "The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;-to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;-to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;-to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;-to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State;-between Citizens of different States;--between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects. "In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." Appellate jurisdiction has been conferred upon the Supreme Court by various statutes, under the authority given Congress by the Constitution. The basic statute effective at this time in conferring and controlling jurisdiction of the Supreme Court may be found in 28 U. S. C. §1251 et seq., and various special statutes.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.