In September 2018, I was in the United Kingdom for several weeks and grabbed The Guardian at a newsagent every morning. My stay fell between the initial phase of the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and the later part involving Christine Blasey Ford. The Guardian published an unsigned opinion about the irregularities of the process, which were legion. The Guardian was on point on the overarching story but didn’t address the underlying dynamic in the lower federal courts, so I sent a note. It was essentially a replay of the details in an earlier letter to The Richmond Times-Dispatch regarding appointments to the US district and appellate courts. The Guardian passed on it.
“It Has Required Multiple Wrongs to Move the Supreme Court Right,” The Guardian, 10 September 2018, journal 2 (www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/09/the-guardian-view-on-the-us-supreme-court-the-wrongs-required-to-move-right).
The “rottenness” driving the GOP’s confirmation of judges to the American bench runs far deeper than President Trump’s appointments to the Supreme Court. The selfsame Senate Judiciary Committee that questioned Brett Kavanaugh last week did all in its power to slow walk and withhold confirmation from President Obama’s nominees to federal district and appellate courts prior to the 2016 election. The scuttling of Merrick Garland’s appointment was merely the high-profile apotheosis of a broader dereliction of senatorial responsibility. As Mr. Obama left office, a trove of judicial vacancies fell into Mr. Trump’s lap. Mr. Trump and a suddenly energized Republican Senate have filled these positions at light speed. Some of Mr. Trump’s nominees are woefully unqualified. Others are ideologues. Many manage to be both. Few have been denied confirmation.
The federal bench is now poised to roll back hard-won individual rights and to remove sensible restraints from corporate interests for a generation. Mr. Kavanaugh is merely the final piece of the puzzle. The Guardian notes correctly that Americans should reject the GOP in November. To hobble the GOP’s assault of the judiciary, the Democrats must win the Senate, a taller hurdle to clear than gaining control of the House. A favorable outcome is by no means assured.
The GOP perhaps realizes that it controls a minority government whose days may be numbered and consequently is determined to ram through whatever it can while it can, damage to the American constitutional system be damned. Such cynicism is a marvel.
Cue the clichés: Third time is the charm. There was no third whiff. Pay dirt was hit.
The context for this letter to the editor was the aftermath of my father-in-law’s passing. After an extended stay in California, I returned to Richmond before New Year’s 2017. I covered The Beloved’s courses for a couple of weeks so that she could spend more time with her mother out west and I reverted to my slovenly bachelor ways. The Better Half discovered that she didn’t have enough of a refrigerated prescription medication, so I jerry-rigged a cold pack for quasi-illegal overnight shipment. I arrived at the Carytown UPS Store too early. Can Can, the nearby French bistro, beckoned. A self-indulgent, decadent breakfast with the newspapers followed.
An unsigned editorial in The Richmond Times-Dispatch disturbed my meal. It contended that President Obama had been successful in elevating nominees to the federal counts despite the Republicans’ glacially slow confirmation of them. It read like an apologia for GOP obstructionism, an aggravating stance against the backdrop of the Merrick Garland kerfuffle. It also seemed off factually. My inner dialogue whispered, “This can’t be accurate.” Its thrust was seemingly to normalize the GOP’s politically larcenous program of fulfilling Lewis Powell’s 1971 clarion call to movement conservatives. The avenue to power according to Mr. Powell lay in wresting control of media, state legislatures, and especially the courts from Democrats. The editorial was displeasing. I did some research, gathered the facts, and concluded that it was misleading. A response was written and submitted.
This was a watershed in learning the letter-to-the-editor ropes and honing a process for putting the bits together. The Richmond Times-Dispatch is due some credit. It’s frequently not to my taste editorially but it is good that it exists and retains a presence in print when so many papers have folded. Its policy on letters is sensible. A liberal maximum length allows for a coherent rebuttal to an editorial. My drafts invariably fracture the limit and are then carved down to the canonical wordcount. The Richmond Times-Dispatch places a sixty-day moratorium on further submissions once a letter reaches print. That too is sensible. Otherwise, I would fire an epistle at the paper weekly because of the silliness of many syndicated columnists.
The letter’s final draft was passed by The Mistress of the House, who offered encouraging words: “They’re never going to print this.” She likely thought it was too polemical and combative. The only reason I’m mentioning this, darlin’, is you’ve been the one banging the drum for me to archive this stuff.
The letter appeared in the paper’s Sunday edition without warning. This was pleasing, because Sunday circulation was then around two-hundred thousand rather than the weekday eighty thousand. The idea was to have the greatest possible opportunity to give a person or two pause to think. I discovered that I was also the correspondent du jour. The paper highlights a single letter each day, which is likely to ensure that more people read it. I learned that comments by readers were permitted online and there was feedback. It was mostly polite and positive, some of it even useful. Negative comments were by and large precious and self-indicting.
The bit, sadly, holds up pretty well, especially in light of subsequent events – Mitch McConnell’s assembly-line filling of judicial vacancies, his encouraging of senior conservative judges to retire and be replaced by barely post-adolescent ideologues, and President Best People’s filling of three Supreme Court vacancies, two more than he should have had. The courts in effect were stacked during the Trump ascendancy.
“The Party of Yes,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch, 4 January 2017, A8 (https://richmond.com/opinion/editorial/editorial—on-the-judiciary-the-gop-played-ball/article_126ee798-fc23-5e5e-a821-b6604d8db307.html).
“GOP Obstruction is Hurting the Courts,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch, 15 January 2017, E2 (https://richmond.com/opinion/letters-to-editor/cod-jan-15-2017-gop-obstruction-is-hurting-courts/article_cebf7255-2df4-5606-9a56-3bcf0d3f521f.html).