Last January, a month after the supreme court handed down its hugely controversial decision in Bush v. Gore–ending the month-old election stalemate and turning the White House over to George W. Bush–legal scholars across the country joined in protest. In a full-page ad in The New York Times, 554 law professors accused the high court of “acting as political proponents” for Bush, and “taking power from the voters.” Worse, the ad scolded, “the Supreme Court has tarnished its own legitimacy.”

That criticism has yet to subside. Some nine months into the Bush presidency, the debate over the ruling among legal scholars goes on. Many of the country’s most respected legal minds have weighed in on Bush v. Gore. The critics contend the court should never have taken the case in the first place. It was a matter of state law, and should be left to state courts, as is the tradition, they argue. The majority’s claim that the Florida State Supreme Court’s recount procedures violated the Constitution’s equal-protection clause is both novel and out of whack with conservative doctrine, they add. And they smirk at the justices’ suggestion that their legal analysis should not carry the power of precedent.

The attacks are framed in unusually unflattering terms. Here’s a sample. Yale Law School’s Bruce Ackerman: “A blatantly partisan act, without any legal basis whatsoever.” Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz: “The single most corrupt decision in Supreme Court history.” American University’s Jamin Raskin: “Bandits in black robes.”

Long after George W. Bush takes office, the 2000 election will continue to cast a shadow over the Supreme Court. Democrats are seething at what they consider a blatantly political, conservative activist decision by five Republican-appointed justices to end all recounts in Florida and hand the presidency to Bush. Many conservative Republicans, who have long fought against liberal judicial activism, are equally uncomfortable with the activist aura of the court’s decision–no matter how pleased they may be with the outcome. They are now counting on Bush to fill any vacancies on the court with reliable conservatives who would move the law to the right. With speculation that both 76-year-old conservative Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and 70-year-old centrist Justice Sandra Day O’Connor may retire in the next year or two, Washington is already bracing itself for what could be the nastiest confirmation battles since Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. "Whoever gets it is going to go through hell," predicts one Republican leader.

Yet some good could still come from the lingering bitterness over Bush v. Gore. Skepticism about liberal and conservative activism, combined with the near-even Democratic-Republican split in the Senate, could create the strongest movement in memory to fill court vacancies with moderate justices who are genuinely committed to that old conservative motto, "judicial self-restraint."

The crowd outside the Supreme Court last Friday was the perfect picture of America in the days since the election–loud, bawdy and rude. A scrappy throng of Bush and Gore supporters, kept carefully at bay by a team of uniformed officers, waved their signs–sore loserman!–and shouted their slogans–"G.W.B., how many votes did you steal from me?" Inside the muted, high-ceilinged marble temple, the scene was more like opening night at the Kennedy Center. In the days before the hearing, all of elite Washington had gently elbowed for scarce tickets to the hottest show in town. Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg chatted with her uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, who mingled with legal lion Lloyd Cutler and Sen. Orrin Hatch. Al Gore’s children were there, taking it in from the good seats.

At a few seconds before 10, the cocktail-party chatter was quickly hushed, and soon forgotten, as the nine justices appeared on the elevated bench and the arguments began. Ninety long, combative minutes later, the early predictions that the court would bring quick finality to the election mess seemed unlikely indeed. So did the confident assertions by the Gore camp and so many legal "experts" that the justices would slap down Bush’s case and side overwhelmingly with the Florida Supreme Court–paving the way for more recounts that might put the vice president over the top. Once again this case reminded us of the immutable truth about the court: Predict at Your Peril.

For the argument’s first 45 minutes, the justices–including the more conservative ones–seemed to have Bush lawyer Theodore B. Olson and his colleagues on the ropes, asking tough, skeptical questions. It appeared to many that Gore would coast to a smashing victory. But that abruptly changed in the 45 minutes that followed. While the four m…