Major Players In Presidential Election To Be Featured At UF Conference

February 20, 2001

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Key participants in Florida’s protracted 2000 Presidential election will participate in a University of Florida conference Feb. 26, examining legal, political and media aspects of the contested balloting.

Among those featured will be attorneys David Boies and Dexter Douglass, who represented then-Vice President Al Gore before the U.S. and Florida Supreme Courts; attorney Joseph Klock Jr., who represented Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris; and representatives of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Florida AFL-CIO, Gov. Jeb Bush’s 2001 Select Task Force on Election Procedures. News media representatives include David Savage, Los Angeles Times Supreme Court reporter, and Tom Fiedler, editorial pages editor for the Miami Herald.

The seminar, “FLORIDA ELECTION 2000: Insiders at the Intersection of Law, Politics and the Media,” is coordinated by Jon Mills, interim dean of the UF Fredric G. Levin College of Law, founding director of the Center for Governmental Responsibility and former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. Sponsors in addition to the law school are UF’s colleges of Journalism and Communications, and Liberal Arts and Sciences.

“We will examine the unique roles of the law, media and politics in the unprecedented, ambiguous situation which dominated world news for more than a month following the November election, “Mills said. “Legal strategies open to both candidates, causes for the close Florida outcome, the structure and impact of state laws, and what steps can be taken to improve the Florida electoral process — all of these issues and many more will be addressed.”

Other participants include Deborah Kearney, general counsel to Harris; Pam Iorio, president of the Florida state association of Supervisors of Elections; state senators Kendrick Meek and Rod Smith; attorney David Cardwell, former director of the Florida Division of Elections; Thom Rumberger, chairman, Collins Center for Public Policy; and Gerald Kogan, former chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court.

Panel moderators in addition to Mills include UF Provost David Colburn, Professor Richard Scher of the UF department of political science, and Terry Hynes, journalism dean.

The conference, open to the public, will begin at 8 a.m. with a welcome by UF President Charles Young. Five panel sessions, with audience participation, are scheduled until conclusion at 5 p.m. WUFT-TV in Gainesville will broadcast the entire session for Internet viewing.