My Life by Bill Clinton

Author:Bill Clinton [Clinton, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
Tags: General, Large type books, History, United States, Historical, Autobiography, Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, Biography, Political, Politics and government, Presidents & Heads of State, 20th Century, Political Science, Presidents, Government, Historical - U.S., Presidents - United States, Biographies & Memoirs, Memoirs, 1946-, U.S. President, Biographies, Bill, Clinton, U.S. Political History, Clinton; Bill, Clinton family, Bill - Family, 1993-2001, U.S. History - 1990s, President Bill, United States - Politics and government - 1993-2001, Clinton; Bill - Family
ISBN: 9780375414572
Publisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
Published: 2004-12-14T09:00:00+00:00

“one man, one vote” because she had supported a system of cumulative voting, under which each voter would get as many votes as there are contested seats on a legislative body, and could cast all the votes for a single candidate. In theory, cumulative voting would dramatically increase the odds of minority candidates being elected.

At first, I didn’t pay too much attention to the rantings of the right, thinking that what they really disliked about Guinier was her long record of successful civil rights fights, and that, as she made the rounds of the Senate, she would win enough votes to be confirmed easily. I was wrong. My friend Senator David Pryor came to see me and urged me to withdraw Lani’s nomination, saying that her interviews with the senators were going poorly, and reminding me that we also had an economic program to pass and not a vote to spare. Majority Leader George Mitchell, who had been a federal judge before he came to the Senate, strongly agreed with David; he said Lani couldn’t be confirmed and we needed to end it as soon as possible. I was informed that Senators Ted Kennedy and Carol Moseley Braun, the Senate’s only African-American member, felt the same way. I decided I had better read Lani’s articles. They made a persuasive case for her position, but were in conflict with my support for affirmative action and opposition to quotas, and seemed to abandon one man, one vote in favor of one man, many votes: spread them out however you like. I asked her to come see me so that we could talk it through. As we discussed the problem in the Oval Office, Lani was understandably offended by the battering she had taken, amazed that anyone would see the academic musings in her articles as a serious obstacle to her confirmation, and dismissive of the difficulties her nomination presented to the senators whose votes she needed, perhaps through several filibusters. My staff had told her we didn’t have the votes to confirm her, but she declined to withdraw, feeling she had a right to be voted on. Finally, I told her that I felt I had to withdraw her nomination, that I hated to do it, but we were going to lose, and though it was cold comfort, her withdrawal would make her a heroine in the civil rights community.

In the aftermath, I was heavily criticized for abandoning a friend in the face of political pressure, mostly by people who didn’t know what was going on in the background. Eventually, I nominated Deval Patrick, another brilliant African-American lawyer with a strong civil rights background, to lead the Civil Rights Division, and he did a fine job. I still admire Lani Guinier, and regret that I lost her friendship.

I spent much of the first two weeks of June picking a Supreme Court justice. A few weeks earlier, Byron

“Whizzer” White had announced his retirement after thirty-one years on the High Court. As I said earlier, I first wanted to appoint Governor Mario Cuomo, but he wasn’t interested.

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