The Confirmation (26 page)

Majette shook Long's hand and stepped confidently to the podium. Her back straight, shoulders square, chin high, she was a picture of America's possibility. She clearly grasped that her nomination symbolized the twin and tortured destinies of race and gender in the nation's history. Her physicality, striking appearance, and poise spoke preternatural toughness, an inner core shaped by the experience of growing up black in the segregated South. At five feet ten inches in her heels, she stood almost as tall as Long. She was a living metaphor for the old anthem of the civil rights movement: “We Shall Overcome.”

“Mr. President, thank you for the great honor of this nomination. It is a long way from the white clapboard church my father pastored in Montgomery, Alabama, to the White House,” she said as Long smiled proudly. “I stand before you today not only as a judge but also as my father and mother's daughter, a soldier, an educator, and a woman of color whose country has afforded me unimaginable opportunities.” The enraptured press corps gobbled it up. This was no Al Sharpton in pumps. “If anyone doubts that in America anyone can rise as high and as far as their talents will carry them, today is a reminder of the great promise of our country.”

Long began to tear up. Even the normally cynical reporters were moved. Majette was speaking not just for minorities but for all Americans. Her success was
their
success, and her accomplishments were the nation's accomplishments.

“Should I be fortunate enough to be confirmed as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, I will seek to ensure the law embodies that same promise of equality, opportunity, and liberty for all.” She glanced in Long's direction. “Thank you again for your confidence, Mr. President. I look forward to meeting with individual senators and confirmation hearings as soon as they can be arranged.”

Long and Majette stepped gingerly from the podium and walked back to the Oval Office. They took no questions.

All eyes turned to Joe Penneymounter. Doing his best not to look outmaneuvered, he pumped hands, slapped backs, and grasped the arms of senators and congressmen, all for the benefit of the cameras. Would he launch an all-out attack on Majette or take a pass on what was an unquestionably inspired selection, both a minority and a woman? No one knew, least of all him.

NINETEEN

Ross Lombardy was in his hotel room at the airport Radisson in Orlando preparing for a rally and fund-raiser when Long made the announcement in the Rose Garden. As he watched it on television, he was overcome with nausea. It was a total betrayal. Three minutes after the news conference ended, the phone rang. It was Andy, and he was puffed up like a blowfish.

“Brother, Bob Long stabbed us right between the shoulder blades,” said Andy. “He's no better than the Republicans.”

“I'm in a state of shock,” said Ross. “How could the guy be this dumb? We elected him. Now he gives us this?”

“Sin can be forgiven, but stupid is forever. I won't support him for reelection,” Andy said. “I got a call from a friend of mine who pastors one of the biggest churches in the country. He said Long's going to bring God's judgment down on his administration.”

Ross was more interested in whip counts in the U.S. Senate than hell-fire-and-brimstone jeremiads. The evangelicals had already divorced the Grand Old Party. Now Bob Long was leaving them at the altar.

“We can't support Majette,” said Ross. “But I think you need to be careful. Stay above the fray.”

“Stay above the fray!?” bellowed Andy. “We put twenty-two million votes in Long's back pocket, and he has betrayed everything he stood for during the campaign. We have to make an example out of him, just like we did Petty. I'm going to unload on him!”

Andy was in the midst of what vice presidents at New Life Ministries referred to in hushed whispers as one of his “Dennis Hopper moments.” At times like this Ross longed for a tranquilizer gun. “I don't recommend that, sir,” he said.

“Why not?” asked Andy.

“I don't believe in putting the general out on the point where he can get shot,” said Ross.

“Meaning what precisely?”

“Let our friends in the Senate take the lead,” said Ross. “It's time they started earning their keep. If they want our support in the next election, they need to show some guts.”

“The honorables are profiles in cowardice. Who will do it?”

“Tom Reynolds. He's ambitious, and he'll do anything to separate from the pack.”

“Or get on television. The guy is a shameless camera hog.”

“And in this case that works in our favor.”

“Alright,” said Andy, sounding chastened. “But I can't guarantee I won't say something on my radio show. This is the biggest story in the country, and I can't just ignore it.”

“Why don't you book Reynolds on the show and let him say it?”

“Call him and see if he'll come today.”

“Will do, Andy.” He paused. “You want to fly above the battlefield like a blimp. Between Penneymounter on the left and us on the right, we can take down Majette without your becoming a lightning rod in the process.”

“Lightning rod? Are you kidding? I'm the lightning
bolt
.”

Ross hung up the phone and walked out on the balcony, his legs rubbery, his head spinning, watching the cars whizzing by on Interstate 4. He drew in a breath of hot, humid air. It reached his lungs but seemed to carry no oxygen. He was physically sick. Jay Noble shafted him.

THE PRESS JAMMED INTO the office of Senator Preston Smith of Alabama, arch conservative and a junior member of the Judiciary Committee. Beneath his good ole boy charm and country lawyer exterior simmered white-hot ambition. Sheathed in an off-the-rack blue suit with a red-and-blue rep tie and button-down dress shirt, he smiled awkwardly under the television lights, his doughy face and chipmunk cheeks glistening. His pale skin looked bleached, and his high forehead was topped with a wave of jet-black hair. Yolanda Majette sat beside him in a straight-back chair, hands clasped in her lap, legs crossed, a tremulous smile on her face.

“Senator, how concerned are you about the allegations regarding Judge Majette's husband's law practice?”

“I'm looking forward to talking to the judge about her judicial philosophy,” said Smith, his voice a monotone, swatting aside the question.

“Are you going to ask her about her husband's firm making millions off clients with cases on which she ruled?”

Smith just kept right on smiling.

“Judge Majette, Christy Love with Pro-Choice PAC has called for you to withdraw your name from nomination? Any comment?”

Majette's face hardened but she betrayed no emotion.

“Thank you!” shouted a press aide. He spread his arms, gently prodding reporters and photographers out of the room. The door closed. Only four remained: Smith, his chief of staff, Majette, and Don Kottkamp, a former senator turned lobbyist that the White House recruited to escort her to meetings with senators.

“Judge, how are you holding up?” asked Smith.

“I'm pretty immune from the hoopla,” said Majette. “I'm so busy getting ready for the confirmation hearings and meeting with folks like you that I don't pay a lot of attention.”

“Good for you,” said Smith. “Judge, I'm particularly concerned about what I see as an overt hostility toward religion by the courts. Take the war on Christmas. You've got courts pulling down crèches and nativity scenes, or requiring that atheist exhibits be displayed next to Christmas trees. It's total nonsense.”

Majette nodded sympathetically.

“How do you feel about the federal courts driving faith in God out of the public square?”

“I believe there is an appropriate role for the public expression of faith,” said Majette noncommittally. “The jurisprudence in this area is complex. The Supreme Court, as you know, has generally taken a positive view of free speech, including speech with a religious content, such as Bible clubs meeting in public schools. It has taken a dimmer view of official actions by public officials, such as the posting of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse.”

Smith looked bored with the first-year law school lecture. He crossed his legs and frowned. “What's your view of the
Lemon
test?” he asked, referring to the Supreme Court's
Lemon v. Kurtzman
decision in 1971 involving state aid to parochial schools.

“Senator, as one justice has observed, the
Lemon
test is a lemon,” Majette said, as if reading a cue card. The room fell silent. Kottkamp shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“Can you be more specific?”

“I don't know that I can address that with greater specificity,” said Majette haltingly. “The ‘lemon test' has not provided a consistent standard to guide local communities in making decisions involving the establishment clause. But how I would rule on a specific case would depend on the facts.”

“Have you given any thought to what might be a different constitutional standard?” asked Smith helpfully.

“I'm sure there is one,” Majette replied. She looked as if she were reaching for a lifeline. “There is, of course, the . . . the compelling state interest standard.”

“I see,” said Smith. “The
Lemon
test says government can't be excessively entangled with religion. I don't even know what that means. Do you?”

Majette looked sucker punched. “Establishment clause jurisprudence is an area of law replete with vagaries and permutations.” She glanced at Kottkamp, who nodded and smiled.

They chatted amiably for about half an hour. After Majette departed, Smith closed the door and turned to his chief of staff.

“Could you believe that?” asked Smith. “I hate to say it, but she's a quota appointment, pure and simple. She's Souter in pumps.”

“It's scary,” the aide replied.

“If I hadn't been sitting here, I don't know that I would believe it myself,” Smith said. “I tried to help her out, but it was hopeless. Does Long really want to give her a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court?”

Smith walked briskly to his desk and picked up the phone. “Charlie Hector, please. Tell him it's Senator Preston Smith.” He tapped his foot and compulsively rearranged papers on his desk. He knew Hector; they had served together in the House.

Hector came on the line. “Senator, how are you?”

“Charlie, Yolanda Majette just left my office. We talked for thirty minutes. She's a very attractive woman with a compelling personal story. I know this was a courtesy call, but I have to be honest with you, I don't know if I can support her. If I had to decide now, I'd vote no.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, Senator. What can we do to improve her performance?”

“Charlie, it's not her performance that is the problem,” replied Smith. “It's her knowledge of the law. She didn't seem to know what the Lemon test was. Every first-year law student in the country knows that. She's asking to be confirmed as a justice of the Supreme Court for crying out loud.”

“I'm sure she knows what it is.”

“I just asked her! She gave me gobbledygook. Come on, Charlie. Throw me a bone.”

“I'm sorry the meeting did not go well, Preston, but I assure you, she'll know the Lemon test upside down and sideways by the time of her hearings. Don't make a final decision until after the hearings. All I ask is that you keep your powder dry.”

“I will,” said Smith. “But if she's doing as poorly with the other members of the committee as she did with me, I'm gonna be the least of your problems.”

“Thanks for the heads-up. I'm on it.”

Smith hung up the phone and looked at his aide.

“Well?” asked the chief of staff.

“I think I got his attention,” said Smith.

CHARLIE HECTOR SAT IN the back of a nondescript Town Car, or at least as nondescript as a limo could be flying through flashing yellow lights at 5:30 a.m. on Rock Creek Parkway. There was no traffic at this early hour. Under the glow of a reading light, Hector studied the front page of the
Washington Post
like a coroner examining a cadaver. It was going to be a rough day. Dan Dorman served up another one of his head shots: a two-thousand word hit piece on Yolanda Majette's husband, whose law practice catered to clients with cases pending before the California Supreme Court. The eighteen-point headline read: “Majette's husband's firm paid millions by clients with cases before her.”

Hector's heart sank as he read the jump page. It was a toxic journalistic stew: an anonymous source here, blind quote there, the implication of a conflict of interest, and the proverbial goo-goo quote from some mouthpiece at Common Cause claiming that the whole thing raised “troubling questions demanding answers before Majette can be confirmed.” Just great, thought Hector with disgust. It was all part of a deliberate effort by Pro-Choice PAC and liberal groups to slow down Majette's nomination so reporters could dig up more dirt. Dorman was acting as Joe Penneymounter's stenographer.