The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore, which effectively awarded the presidency to George Bush, was widely predicted to diminish public respect for the United States Supreme Court United. The Court, speaking of political disagreement and the seamless connection between the justices' votes and their supposedly unilateral commitments, raised widespread accusations that the Court undercut a deliberately political decision. The willingness of justices who normally upheld states' rights to impose severe constitutional limits on Florida's election processes made the decision particularly odious to many of the Court's critics. Terrible predictions began among the judges themselves. In his rebellious vision, Justice Stephen Breyer warned that the decision threatened a self-inflicted wound. Justice John Paul Stevens issued a similar threat. Stevens wrote that while we may never know with absolute certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the trust of nations in the judge as an independent guardian of the rule of law. Stevens also worried that the Court's opinion offered credibility only to the most pessimistic assessment of the performance of judges across the country. Hughes referred to the Court's infamous pro-slavery decision in Dred Scott v. Sandyford, its disapproval of paper money in legal tender cases. in 1869 and the reversal of the first peacetime federal income tax in 1895. Hughes's metaphor is remembered primarily in connection with his explanations of Dred Scott, and many courts have predicted that Bush v. Gore will have the same lasting notoriety . Criticism of the Court is almost absent only from the popular media and there... halfway down the page... the Court ordered a statewide audit of votes. The day after the Florida Supreme Court ordered an audit, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a temporary stay in enforcement of the Florida Supreme Court's order. The five justices who voted to suspend were the same five who had moved the Rehnquist Court to the right for more than a decade. The first hearing in Bush v. Gore conveyed to the nation what would happen if the Court took more action in the case. The Court's third and final involvement in the 2000 presidential election came days later. In its unsigned opinion, the Court explained that it voted to stop the recount in Florida. The U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to the Florida Supreme Court, which had no choice but to dismiss it. The 2000 presidential election was decided by the vote of a Supreme Court justice.