Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), is the landmark United States Supreme Court decision that effectively resolved the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. Only eight days earlier, the United States Supreme Court had unanimously decided the closely related case of Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, 531 U.S. 70 (2000), and only three days earlier, had preliminarily halted the recount that was occurring in Florida.

In a per curiam decision, the Court ruled that the Florida Supreme Court's method for recounting ballots was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court also ruled that no alternative method could be established within the time limits set by the State of Florida. Three concurring justices also asserted that the Florida Supreme Court had violated Article II, § 1, cl. 2 of the Constitution, by misinterpreting Florida election law that had been enacted by the Florida Legislature.

The decision allowed Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris's previous certification of George W. Bush as the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes to stand. Florida's votes gave Bush, the Republican candidate, 271 electoral votes, one more than the required 270 electoral votes to win the Electoral College and defeat Democratic candidate Al Gore, who received 266 electoral votes (a District of Columbia elector abstained).

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) served as the 45th Vice President of the United States (1993–2001), under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President and won the popular vote in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

Gore is currently an author and environmental activist. He has founded a number of non-profit organizations, including the Alliance for Climate Protection, and has received a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in climate change activism.

Gore was previously an elected official for 24 years, representing Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives (1977–85), and later in the U.S. Senate (1985–93), and finally becoming Vice President in 1993. In the 2000 presidential election, Gore won the popular vote by a margin of more than 500,000 votes. However, he ultimately lost the Electoral College to Republican George W. Bush when the U.S. Supreme Court settled the legal controversy over the Florida vote recount by ruling 5-4 in favor of Bush. It was the only time in history that the Supreme Court has determined the outcome of a presidential election.

Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930) is a retired United States Supreme Court justice. She served as an Associate Justice from her appointment in 1981 by Ronald Reagan until her retirement from the Court in 2006. She was the first woman to be appointed to the court.

Prior to O'Connor's appointment to the Court, she was an elected official and judge in Arizona. On July 1, 2005, she announced her intention to retire effective upon the confirmation of a successor.Samuel Alito was nominated to take her seat in October 2005, and joined the Court on January 31, 2006.

O'Connor tended to approach each case narrowly without arguing for sweeping precedents. She most frequently sided with the court's conservative bloc. In the latter years of her tenure, she was regarded as having the swing vote in many cases as the court grew more conservative.

O'Connor was Chancellor of The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and currently serves on the board of trustees of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Several publications have named O'Connor among the most powerful women in the world. On August 12, 2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor of the United States, by President Barack Obama.

Jan Crawford, formerly known as Jan Crawford Greenburg, is a television journalist, author, and lawyer. She currently serves as both the political correspondent and chief legal correspondent for CBS News and appears regularly on the CBS Evening News, Face the Nation, CBS This Morning, and CBS News Sunday Morning. She will lead CBS News's coverage of the 2012 Presidential Elections. She is a New York Times bestselling author of Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court and also a member of the New York Bar.

Crawford grew up on a farm in rural Alabama, graduating from Brewer High School, then graduated from the University of Alabama in 1987 and from the University of Chicago Law School in 1993. She was married to Douglas N. Greenburg, a partner at Latham & Watkins, with whom she has four children (Carolyn, Louisa, Jack and Page), and lives in Washington D.C. According to Crawford, the two separated in 2009.

She joined the Chicago Tribune as a reporter in 1987. After graduating from law school, she began covering legal affairs for the Tribune, which put her on the Supreme Court beat in 1994. In 1996, she won the Tribune's top reporting award for her work in a 13-part series on the South a generation after the civil rights movement. In 2001, her work was honored with the Tribune's top reporting award. In his first television interview, Chief Justice Roberts talked to Crawford about the court, his views on the law, and his life since taking office. Justice John Paul Stevens also chose Crawford for his first network television interview, reflecting on his memories of the man who appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1975, former President Gerald R. Ford, on the occasion of Ford's funeral.