Bush Prepares for Transition

George W. Bush is designing a transition to the White House, describing himself as ``honored and humbled'' after being certified the winner in Florida's razor-thin presidential election. Al

Monday, November 27th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

George W. Bush is designing a transition to the White House, describing himself as ``honored and humbled'' after being certified the winner in Florida's razor-thin presidential election. Al Gore turned anew to the courts Monday to press his fight.

With weeks missed in preparing for an administration, Bush met Monday with his newly named White House chief of staff, Andy Card, in Austin, Texas.

Card said the Bush team may have to set up its own shop in Washington until the Clinton administration releases the $5.3 million set aside for the presidential transition.

``We may just open our own transition office,'' Card, a former transportation secretary, told reporters. ``We know how important it is to keep moving.'' He said Bush ``is getting ready to be a great president.''

Not so fast, the Democrats insisted, after Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Bush partisan, certified him the winner with a 537-vote margin over Gore out of some 6 million votes cast.

``The integrity of our self-government is too important to cast into doubt,'' said Gore's running mate, Joseph Lieberman, reflecting Democratic objections over the manual recounts in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Nassau counties.

Bush, the Texas governor, said Sunday night that Gore should give up the contest.

``If the vice president chooses to go forward, he is filing a contest to the outcome of the election,'' he said. ``And that is not the best route for America.''

Not so fast, the Democrats insisted, after Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Bush partisan, certified him the winner with a 537-vote margin over Gore out of some 6 million votes cast.

``The integrity of our self-government is too important to cast into doubt,'' said Gore's running mate, Joseph Lieberman, reflecting Democratic objections over the manual recounts in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Nassau counties.

Bush, the Texas governor, said Sunday night that Gore should give up the contest.

``If the vice president chooses to go forward, he is filing a contest to the outcome of the election,'' he said. ``And that is not the best route for America.''

Gore's lawyers were going to court Monday in Tallahassee, the Florida capital, to object formally to the certification, a step known as a ``contest'' under state law. Republicans said Bush aides will aggressively fight Gore's contests, but won't file any of their own outside the counties targeted by the vice president: Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Nassau.

``This is something that's too important to be decided in a partisan environment,'' David Boies, a Gore lawyer, said Monday on NBC's ``Today'' show. ``This is something that ought to be decided by impartial judges.''

Gore was expected to speak on the contest later in the day.

One Democrat said Monday that Gore should probably give up. ``I have great doubts about whether it is wise ... for the vice president to continue to pursue and to contest the results in Florida,'' Robert Reich, former labor secretary, said on ABC's ``Good Morning America.''

Reich had endorsed Gore's rival in the primaries, Bill Bradley.

But Democrats in large measure were putting up a united front.

To lend support to Gore's continuing challenge, the top Democratic congressional leaders, Sen. Tom Daschle and Rep. Dick Gephardt, arranged to fly to Florida to speak on the vice president's behalf.

Bush and Lieberman spoke shortly after Harris awarded the GOP ticket of Bush and Dick Cheney the 25 electoral votes they needed for victory in the race for the White House.

``On behalf of the state elections canvassing commission, and in accordance with the laws of the state of Florida, I hereby declare Governor George W. Bush the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes,'' said Harris.

The remarks touched off a wave of noisy cheering from Bush supporters gathered outside the state government building where Harris and other members of the state canvassing board signed multiple copies of the official certification.

And within minutes, the two campaigns had plunged into a fresh round of maneuvering, as Democrats sought to build public support for continuing the struggle, and Republicans bid to close out the race for the White House.

``This has been a hard-fought election,'' Bush said in the state Capitol in Austin. ``But now that the votes are counted, it is time for the votes to count.''

He said he had asked Cheney to ``work with President Clinton's administration to open a transition office in Washington.'' He also said he had named an aide, Andy Card, to serve as his chief of staff.

It wasn't clear how fast Cheney could get an office up and running, though. Beth Newburger, a spokeswoman for the federal General Services Administration, said that ``as long as there is not an apparent winner, and the outcome is unclear, there's not much we can do.''

Lieberman went before the cameras within moments of Harris' certification. ``What is at issue here is nothing less than every American's simple, sacred right to vote,'' he said.

Referring to the ballots that were uncounted in various manual recounts, or else counted but rejected by Harris, he asked, ``How can we teach our children that every vote counts if we are not willing to make a good-faith effort to count every vote?''

But the Republicans countered that the votes have been counted â€” over and over and over â€” and Bush and Cheney emerged ahead each time.

``At some point, the law must prevail and the lawyers must go home. We have reached that point,'' said former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, speaking on Bush's behalf. Even so, he said Bush will not drop his case before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the validity of manual recounts.

The high court has set arguments in Washington on Friday.

A Washington Post-ABC News Poll taken Sunday night found that 60 percent of those surveyed said Gore should concede the election now that Bush has been certified, and 56 percent expressed at least some confidence the Florida vote count had been accurate. The telephone survey of 607 adults had a four-point margin error, plus or minus.

The manual recounting proved as controversial at its end as it was at its beginning.

In Palm Beach County, members of the local canvassing board wrote Harris without success seeking an extension beyond a 5 p.m. Sunday deadline. They said that with a few more hours work, they could make it all the way through an estimated 10,000 ballots.

``The secretary of state has apparently decided to shut us down with approximately two hours to go,'' said Charles Burton, head of the county canvassing board.

Board members, who had been at work virtually around the clock since Saturday morning, paused briefly in their work to fax incomplete precinct-by-precinct totals to Harris' office. They then returned to their counting, completing the last of the questionable ballots later in the evening.

By then, Harris had rejected the incomplete count, saying they fail to comply with state law. She instead accepted results from the last machine count, on Nov. 14, a decision that deprived Gore of 180 votes he gained in the partial recount.