PHILADELPHIA Penn Law Professor Kim Lane Scheppele has been invited by lawyers for Vice President Al Gore to testify as an expert witness on the constitutionality of the Fla. Legislature picking its own slate of electors. The special session will convene on Mon. Dec.11, 2000 provided that the Florida Supreme Court doesn today turn down Gore bid for vote recounts in the state.

Prof. Scheppele was among a group of constitutional law professors who wrote to the Fla. Legislature explaining their arguments against the Legislature selecting a new slate of electors. When the Gore team reviewed the list of names to determine who to invite to testify for them, Prof. Scheppele name was recognized by a team member, who happened to be one of the professor former law students.

Prof. Scheppele believes that it is unconstitutional for the Legislature to pick electors because Fla. currently has a slate of electors duly certified to the National Archives. In fact, Fla. was one of the first states to officially certify its slate of electors. According to Scheppele, Fla. therefore isn in danger of not having a slate of electors representing the state.

She argues that the Constitution specifies that the Fla. Legislature is supposed to determine the manner of selecting electors -- and the Fla. Legislature did just that through passing a state elections law. If the Legislature changes its view now and substitutes its own judgment for the Fla. election law, then it risks a challenge to it electors because the Legislature will have changed the law after the election. The Constitution gives the Fla. Legislature plenary powers to determine how electors are selected, but that doesn't mean that the lawmaker powers are immune to outside checks and balances argues Scheppele.