EXCERPT

If necessity is the mother of invention, calamity is not uncommonly the source of legislation. The inspiration for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the bloodshed at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, when the Selma-to-Montgomery marchers were beaten for protesting blacks' exclusion from the registration rolls.

Now it appears possible that the fiasco of the 2000 presidential election, which, as you will recall, was challenged and disputed and litigated for 36 days after the ballots were cast, may produce the most significant piece of federal election law since that Voting Rights Act.

Full text can be found online at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43727-2001Nov16.html