When Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Doug Marlette signed up with the Tallahassee Democrat last year, folks kept asking him why he was leaving the elitist Northeastern sanctum of culture for redneck Florida.

His answer was that "Florida is the petri dish of the nation," a sly reference to the silliness that pervades the Sunshine State: pregnant pigs, swinging chads, Confederate flags, Bobby Bowden's "Let's roll," Jeb's empty state buildings, Old Sparky, Elian, Janet.

When you think about all the surreal stuff that happens here, it really isn't surprising that an editorial cartoonist would be attracted to Florida. When Marlette was in town last week, I heard him describing Florida as "the new California." But in light of Monday's court ruling, it looks as if California is feeling the heat and Florida has some catching up to do.

While we've been obsessing over terminally boring topics such as medical malpractice and water-sharing agreements with Georgia and Alabama, California has been busy putting the Terminator on the campaign trail, then pulling him off because his chads are pregnant. Is it possible that California is the new Florida?

The decision of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to postpone California's recall election is the perfect embodiment of the rule of unintended consequences.

When the Supreme Court released the opinion in Bush v. Gore, many lawyers here in Tallahassee were scratching their heads wondering how the federal government could possibly order a state to stop its recount, especially under the guise of securing the equal-protection clause of the Constitution. Many cynical observers assumed that the majority opinion in Bush v. Gore used specious logic to justify a Republican victory, a ruling that was highly specific to Election 2000. Even Justice Ginsburg, who dissented from that opinion, said as recently as February that Bush v. Gore was a "one of a kind case," adding: "I doubt it will ever be cited as precedent by the court on anything."

But here it is again rearing its ugly head. Bush v. Gore held for the first time that the Constitution's equal-protection clause, which protects citizens from arbitrarily disparate treatment by state authorities, can be applied to the methods states use to tally votes. Previously, election methods had been the province of state officials. But now, with Election 2000 as a precedent, previous election methods have been called into question and opponents of the recall effort have been able to magically transform Bush v. Gore from a reviled coup into a legitimate weapon. It's like when the Democrats picked up seats in 1998 because Newt Gingrich and the impeachment chorus had become so crazed.

Now the Supreme Court is in a tough position. Will it take up the matter of Bush v. Gore again, trying to explain the tortured logic of 2000's Republican coup? Or will it allow the 9th Circuit's decision, which is viewed by many as a gift to Gov. Gray Davis, to stand?

If the 2000 decision means anything, it's that the Constitution forbids states from arbitrarily counting ballots differently. According to the court's logic, that includes setting up an election in which one technology, the punch-card machines, would subject a sizable percentage of voters (mostly minorities) to a greater risk of having their ballots discounted than other voters.

Here in Florida, we have several kinds of voting technology. One might have thought that after Election 2000, state election officials would have standardized the process so that voters in Tallahassee and West Palm Beach used the same kinds of machines. But, alas, this is the new California.

Meanwhile, voters in the new Florida will await the results of Bush v. Gore II: Chad takes San Francisco.

Mike Pope is the letters editor of the Tallahassee Democrat. He can be reached at (850) 599-2173 or mpope@tallahassee.com.