While Justice Sleeps(67)
“Cooper may be right about his motive, but we can’t stay here forever. The Senate is your baby, not mine. Confirmations are your domain,” DuBose reminded him severely. “As much as I appreciate the man’s help with this, he doesn’t seem to get the bigger picture. My entire caucus is up for reelection, and some of these folks have tight races.”
“Tight races? What the hell do you think the world will look like with a conservative neophyte in Justice Wynn’s place? That jerk is difficult enough to live with. What if the Right Reverend Donaldson from the Eighth Circuit gets called up while we’re off campus? Can you imagine that man with a lifetime appointment? And how excited the president’s base will be in November? Tight races will be the least of your problems.”
The specter chilled the Speaker into silence. With Justice Wynn gone, the fine balance of the Court would tilt dramatically to the right. His constituents would go into paroxysms of terror. “Fuck.”
“Exactly.” The majority leader scanned the area around them, then pitched his voice into a conspiratorial whisper: “We’ve got options, though.”
“Options?”
“According to legal counsel, Justice Wynn can’t be removed unless he dies. If Cooper is right, he’s in one of those comas that go on for decades.”
“My guys call it a constitutional crisis. Four and four. A split court for nearly a generation. I’m sure that’s not what the Framers had in mind.”
“Hell, in the Framers’ day, we didn’t have ventilators and artificial nutrition and living wills.” Ken cast another look around, his voice even softer as he bent low. “But the Framers did vest the Congress with the ability to increase the size of the Court.”
DuBose’s brow soared. “Court packing? That’s your solution?”
“You see a better way? Think about it. We hold hearings to rile up the public, then we offer Stokes a compromise. Expand the Court to eleven. Until Wynn dies, that’s his spot. The president gets to force Donaldson on us, and we add our own man. A thirty-five-year-old wunderkind with a clean bill of health.”
“Sounds nice, but your math sucks. We’re at four and four. Add two, and that leaves us right where we are.”
“Until our guy wins the White House. Bringman is getting up there in years, and he’s hanging on out of sheer cussedness, hoping to overturn Roe v. Wade. By the second year, he’ll give up the ghost, and we can replace him with one of ours. Then we’ve got the edge. Justice Wynn can stay as long as he likes—we’ll have a margin of two, and if the old man does pass away, we’re up by three. It’s genius, DuBose.”
Intrigued, the Speaker asked, “And you’ve got the votes to pass this on your side?”
“Absolutely,” he lied without qualm. His razor-thin margin of fifty-four included a couple of conservative Democrats elected by states sick of Republicans but not yet ready to embrace the liberal elite. But he’d make it work. “I’ll have Judiciary convene hearings, and by the time we’re done, every one of our people will be campaigning on a platform of saving the U.S. Supreme Court. But, DuBose, the House has to do the same and stick around in case Stokes makes a play. You in?”
“I don’t know that hearings are the way to go, Ken. We’ve got firefights all over the map. My guys need to be on the ground campaigning, not hoping to score some points on C-SPAN.” The members of the Senate loved the sound of their own voices, but the House had a different job. They had to actually talk to the people. “I need to send them home. Let them fan the flames. If Justice Wynn is down for the count, we can make this a wedge issue. Then come back early and force a compromise.”
“We leave DC and that son of a bitch is going to do something,” Neighbors insisted. “He’ll get rid of Justice Wynn and do a recess appointment. Then we’re screwed.”
“I’m not sure I can keep them here, but I’ve got some procedural tricks that should hold Stokes off if we need to. Then we’ll come back in and eat Stokes for lunch.”
TWENTY-SIX
Wednesday, June 21
Crawling over the papers she’d fallen asleep reading, Avery stripped off her tank top and shorts on her way to the bathroom, where she ducked beneath the spray of the shower. Hot water sluiced through the fog around her brain, and she quickly dressed. The microwave clock read 6:23 a.m. She shook the remnants of the cereal box into a bowl, snagged milk from the refrigerator. As she ate, the door to the apartment opened, and Ling lurched inside.
A medical bag fell to the floor with a solid thump, followed by keys flopping to the coffee table. Ling kicked the door closed, rubbing wearily at her eyes. “Any chance the reporters camped outside our apartment building will leave anytime soon?”
“I’m sorry about all this. But go to sleep. We’ll talk when you wake up.”
“Not waking up,” Ling said and yawned. “Grab me a Coke and fill me in before I crash.”
Avery handed her the soda, then recounted the events of the past twenty-four hours.
Ling latched on to the story of the attack. “How’s your head?”
“I don’t have a concussion.”
“You sure? Because the day after you’re attacked in the judge’s house, you still intend to serve as his guardian.” Ling huffed out a breath. “I appreciate your loyalty to him, honey, but you don’t owe him your life.”