With Gov. Rick Scott still mulling a lawmaker’s request for a law enforcement investigation, supporters of three Florida Supreme Court justices said Thursday no laws were broken when court staff  helped justices file qualifying papers with elections officials.

Attorney Barry Richard, who represented George W. Bush before the court following the 2000 presidential election, submitted a legal opinion to Dan Stengle, legal counsel for Justices Fred Lewis, Peggy Quince and Barbara Pariente.

He denied that justices using court employees to notarize filing papers amounts to what opponents call a criminal misdemeanor. State law prohibits candidates from using the services of a public employee during working hours ” in the furtherance of his or her candidacy.”

“The act of affixing a notary seal to qualifying documents does not indicate that the notary endorses the candidacy of the person filing the documents,” Richard wrote. “It simply certifies that the notary has witnessed the signature and has confirmed the identity of the person signing.”

Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, has asked Scott to order the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to look into the controversy surrounding the justices qualifying.

The issue played out publicly last month. The court took an hourlong recess during arguments in the state Senate redistricting case to allow justices to complete their qualifying papers for merit retention this fall.

With the help of court staff,  the documents were filed with election officials only minutes before the deadline.

Since then, the issue has been seized on by opponents of the three justices, already tarred as a liberal-leaning bloc by a tea party-linked political committee called Restore Justice 2012. The campaign is seeking to make the trio the first Florida justices ever ousted in a merit retention campaign.

Plakon said Thursday that to him, the case was an obvious violation. “Every candidate learns early on, you don’t use your staff for anything political,” Plakon said. “No one should be above the law.”

But Stengle, the justices’ legal counsel, also advanced an additional level of defense. He questioned whether the justices are really candidates.

 “Florida’s district court of appeal judges and Supreme Court Justices are not elected, but appointed through the merit selection process,” Stengle said. “Every six years, they are required by the Florida Constitution to participate in the merit retention process so that citizens of Florida may evaluate their job performance. Any documents that they are required to file by virtue of their positions as appellate judges or justices to qualify for merit retention are part of routine court business.”

Barry Richard, the lawyer who was instrumental in keeping Al Gore out of the White House a decade ago, is hosting a fundraiser for President Obama at his Tallahassee home on Wednesday.

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Congresswoman from South Florida, will be the guest star at the fundraiser (suggested donations are $100) at the home of Richard and his wife Allison Tant. Wasserman Schultz served in both the state House and Senate before going to Washington.

Richard, a silver-haired Democrat, was a key figure in the historic recount legal battle known as “Bush vs. Gore,” arguing on behalf of George W. Bush all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Florida Power & Light Co. appealed in state court today to keep the salaries of employees earning more than $165,000 a year confidential.

The Public Service Commission ordered the Juno Beach-based utility to provide the compensation information as part of its proposed $1.3 billion rate hike. FPL gave the regulatory panel the data but asked that it be kept secret. The PSC ruled that it should be available for anyone to see.

“The Commission has historically had no problem exercising its responsibilities without publicly releasing specific salary data for individual employees so the only reason for this information to be publicly disclosed now is to distract from the important issues in the case that matter to our customers,” FPL spokesman Mayco Villafana said in a statement released late this evening.

The appeal was filed on behalf of 15 FPL employees at the First District Court of Appeals in Tallahassee. Barry Richard and former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Arthur England represent the workers.