Wednesday morning, at the end of class, a woman lunged at me.
50 minutes have passed. I just said I’ll see you all next week. She stood up from her aisle seat in the front row. She rushed forward with a frantic look of displeasure on her face.
I thought, wow, I’ve pissed off this great old friend and veteran Democrat more than I expected. I just criticized the Democratic Party’s modern-day poor excuse for Donald Trump becoming the next president. To be precise, I was blaming its incompetence as much as I was blaming the soul-sacrificing direct enablers of the Republican Party’s modern bad excuses.
This was “Behind the Headlines,” a continuing education class that I have been teaching for a quarter of a century. It reopened after the Obon holiday. The last time we met was on a gloomy Wednesday morning after President Trump was elected.
I started with an updated and more thoughtful election post-mortem than the one I provided that morning. Then I looked at Sarah Sanders’ State of the State address the day before, specifically the law’s pledge to immediately fire university professors who indoctrinate rather than educate.
I remember an anecdote from a long time ago about a teacher at school who had political opinions. It predated the modern snowflake era of right-wing rhetoric promoting the notion that public education should be Sunday school. That’s so our little ones don’t get confused by being exposed to different or broader contexts.
I mentioned that in the late 60’s I had a teacher who enriched my young experience with his opinions and passion. Despite, or perhaps because of, their freely expressed disregard for FDR and, on other occasions, their outright hatred of Richard Nixon and obsessive lamentation over the unfair fate of Edmund Muskie, Even taught me well.
I tried to find the difference between influence and indoctrination. I asked the students in my class if anyone had ever been influenced by their teacher. A hand shot up across the sanctuary. I said, “Thank you.” I said that indoctrination means the imposition of one-sided thinking to the exclusion of all other thinking. I said that the essence of education is having influence to consider the broader context.
It turned out that the hostile figure, who had rushed towards me in a state of mad discomfort, had no reaction to that. She said, “No, no. You were supposed to explain to me about the Arkansas Supreme Court.”
I said, oh, dear, I’m sorry I couldn’t do that.
So this is for her and for all those who have suffered or are suffering from the decline of a functioning, competent and trustworthy judiciary at the United States Supreme Court in Manhattan, and in this case at the Judiciary Building in Little Rock. It belongs to
Most recently, Arkansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Karen Baker said her own staff members told her to stay away from their offices. Yes, that’s the Justice Department staff she heads as chief justice, whom she wanted to fire and replace, but was blocked by a majority of the court’s members, whom she mutually despises.
Mr. Baker recently toured these offices as the next Chief Justice. Staff felt threatened. Now, the staff director has announced some kind of restraining order against his boss.
The staff director’s public declaration was that she could not come near the staff member, and that the staff member was referring her to a committee that oversees judicial conduct.
The underlying feud is a personal, political and political one between Mr. Baker, who had a chip on his shoulder, and five fellow justices who began using the majority to run the Supreme Court as an organ of the state Republican committee. It’s a partisan thing. I heard that Mr. Baker was angry because he believed it was the work of a Republican judge who was trying to bash those who opposed his re-election four years ago.
Baker claims the 80th Amendment to the state constitution makes him boss. The five Republicans instead argue that state law declares that Supreme Court justices and court members jointly decide on hiring and firing of employees and appointments to regulatory commissions.
The five issued an order stating that Mr. Baker could not be fired, hired, or appointed on his own. Mr. Baker issued an order stating that the five cases were invalid. Five people issued orders, saying that her little order was the standard dissent of an imprudent minority.
Now, the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court has hired a well-known and highly regarded attorney, Tom Mars. He plans to defend her against her staff at the Judicial Review Board.
My view is that, regardless of the merits, Mr. Baker has no choice but to concede because ultimately everything will go to the Supreme Court, where Mr. Baker is outnumbered. The judiciary, like the legislative branch, has now become a numbers game between partisans.
However, Mars did very well on the bar exam, winning more times than losing.
Courts have not decided many cases. These people are prolific at just issuing orders telling each other where to go.
Finally, a personal note. If you are expected to cover all the childish aspects of civil service each week in this class, you will need to spend more than 50 minutes.
John Brummett writes a regular column in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and is a member of the Arkansas Writers Hall of Fame. Email jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett feed on X (formerly Twitter).
