I dunno why but I like to imagine Freddie Mercury walking into Apple Corp HQ's and calling John Lennon "Darling" and John being too flabbergasted to reply.
Blue Skies in Camelot: An Alternate 60's and Beyond
- Thread starter President_Lincoln
- Start date
I dunno why but I like to imagine Freddie Mercury walking into Apple Corp HQ's and calling John Lennon "Darling" and John being too flabbergasted to reply.
This is likely how Queen landed their contract with Apple...
The Real question now is who plays John Lennon in this timelines version of Bohemian Rhapsody
In the sections where he’s old John could certainly play himself, although they’ll need to find a different actor for him when he’s younger and knowing John that search might be difficult
Honestly, he’s a natural fit for the Hollywood scene ITTL. It’ll be interesting to see if his career as an actor ever takes off in its own right, but even if it doesn’t he’ll be mingling with that social group.
Speaking of Hollywood...are there any butterflies concerning Scientology ITTL?
Scientology Footnote
In the sections where he’s old John could certainly play himself, although they’ll need to find a different actor for him when he’s younger and knowing John that search might be difficult
Honestly, he’s a natural fit for the Hollywood scene ITTL. It’ll be interesting to see if his career as an actor ever takes off in its own right, but even if it doesn’t he’ll be mingling with that social group.
Speaking of Hollywood...are there any butterflies concerning Scientology ITTL?
You raise an interesting question, @cmakk1012!
Allow me to give an all too brief answer... As per OTL, the FDA began an investigation into the Church of Scientology concerning claims the Church made in regard to their "E-Meters". Per Wikipedia: "On January 4th, 1963, FDA agents raided offices of the Church of Scientology, seizing hundreds of E-meters as illegal medical devices and tons of literature that they accused of making false medical claims. The original suit by the FDA to condemn the literature and E-meters did not succeed, but the Court ordered the Church to label every meter with a disclaimer that it is purely religious artifact,to post a $20,000 bond of compliance, and to pay the FDA's legal expenses."
Also like IOTL, L. Ron Hubbard's defeats in Court led to an increasingly precipitous descent into isolation, despair, and mental illness. ITTL, he would be arrested in 1974 in his apartment in Queens, New York, having been indicted for ties to instances of obstructing justice, burglary of government offices, and theft of documents and government property. Hubbard would fight these charges with every available legal avenue, but would ultimately be defeated in court, resulting in several hefty fines and spending the remainder of his life in prison. Though David Miscavige would rise to take up Hubbard's mantle as leader of the Church, its influence was dramatically reduced as a result of its very public defeats in the legal system. By the turn of the 21st Century, Scientology had largely imploded under its own weight, leaving it with less than 10,000 members around the globe.
I'd also like to just announce a brief change!
The next update (after I shuffled around some material I've been working on over the last few weeks) will cover some events pertaining to the First Family and Congressman Mo Udall's Presidential Campaign, while the following two updates after that will concern recent events in the Middle East (circa 1975). Thank you for your patience as I change things up.
The next update (after I shuffled around some material I've been working on over the last few weeks) will cover some events pertaining to the First Family and Congressman Mo Udall's Presidential Campaign, while the following two updates after that will concern recent events in the Middle East (circa 1975). Thank you for your patience as I change things up.
Chapter 97
Chapter 97: Someone Saved My Life Tonight - SDUSA for Udall, The President, and Hillary Bush
Congressman Ron Dellums of the California 8th (D) sat in his home office, impatiently tapping his foot as he waited for the phone call he knew should be coming at any minute now. He was temporarily home in Oakland to celebrate his son, Erik’s eleventh birthday with friends and family, and really wanted to get back to that, instead of quietly isolating himself from Roscoe and the kids. On his desk, a picture of them beamed up at him, full of love and admiration and support, next to another picture, of he and his beloved uncle and political role model, labor organizer C.L. Dellums. The Congressman smiled faintly, then drummed his fingers on the mahogany table top, a lavish gift he’d received from Dr. King to celebrate his most recent reelection. Over the last several years, Dellums, King, Freedom House election monitor and Democratic congressional candidate for the Pennsylvania 6th Congressional District, Bayard Rustin, and several other acclaimed Civil Rights leaders with left-wing beliefs banded together to form Social Democrats, USA, a political activist group which sought to build labor unions and civil rights groups into a coalition which would transform the Democratic Party into a party for social democracy in the United States. The organization especially championed Rustin’s emphasis on economic equality as the most important issue facing African-Americans after the successful passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968. Rustin, who sat in Dellums’ office with him in Oakland and idly stirred at his mug of Earl Grey tea, had managed to rally together Norman Hill, Tom Kahn, (both of the AFL-CIO), acclaimed labor leader Walter Reuther, and Sandra Feldman and Rachelle Horowitz of the American Federation of Teachers into his new organization, of which Rustin served as National Chairman. They were not planning on stopping anytime soon. The 1976 Election presented a strong opportunity for the Social Democrats to make an impact on the Democratic Party, and they planned on accomplishing as much as they could, hoping to even influence the party’s platform or, better yet, help choose the eventual nominee. Rustin was also quick to encourage the black community, traditionally a strongly Democratic demographic since the days of the New Deal, to reject identity politics, which he believed was a distraction from the larger goals of economic and sociopolitical equality. Dellums considered Rustin to be one of his closest allies and friends, and hoped that he was right about reaching out to Congressman Morris K. Udall (D - AZ), on whose call they now waited.
For months, SDUSA had debated amongst themselves between endorsing the tall, Lincoln-esque Arizona environmentalist or the "new left" New York Congresswoman, Shirley Chisholm. While Chisholm’s candidacy was seen across the country as a major step forward for women and the black community, Udall, a tried and true progressive, endorsed a suite of economic policies which seemed to benefit the working class more concretely than Chisholm’s platform did. With his calls to reign in and break up big business (especially banks), raise the minimum wage, provide for universal health care and full employment, Mo Udall’s candidacy was easily the most progressive in the field, and just the sort of thing the SDUSA needed to bring their beliefs to a larger audience. With both Senators Kennedy tentatively floating similar policy proposals in their own reelection bids in New York and Massachusetts, Congressman Udall’s campaign would also be a strong opportunity to literally bring the movement “coast to coast”. Dellums had misgivings about Udall’s ability to win. Gallup had him polling in third or fourth place nationwide, and though his brother, Stewart, had served as Secretary of Agriculture under President Kennedy, Udall suffered from poor name recognition nationwide, especially when compared to some of his opponents. Nonetheless, Dellums waited with Rustin and stirred only when the telephone finally rang. It wasn’t an aide or even campaign manager Tim Kraft. It was the Congressman himself. Rustin answered and did most of the talking. He nodded every few seconds, and lit a cigarette and pressed the phone into his shoulder for a moment to share something with Dellums.
“He wants to accept our endorsement, and do a joint press appearance with us in Washington.” He said, matter-of-factly. He raised an eyebrow, a silent “that alright with you?”
Dellums nodded his assent. A date was set, and a time. Rustin laughed heartily from his belly at something the Congressman had said, thanked him for the call, then told him that someone from SDUSA would call his campaign and arrange the details in the morning. Over the phone, and from several feet away, Dellums could hear something rolling back into the sensible present from the mythic past of dreams: he heard Udall’s infectious, good natured laugh, hard and hearty and light as a newly breaking sun. Despite all of the cynicism Washington had boiled into him during his five years in the House as head of the fledgling Congressional Black Caucus, Dellums could recall all the times Udall had stood as “the liberal conscience of the House” and fought tooth and nail for the environment, workers, civil rights, and other progressive causes. Mo Udall was not just a man for words. He could be counted on for action as well. Dellums stood and gestured toward his office door. “You mind if I go back to the party for a while? Erik wants to open his presents.”
Rustin grinned, an unspoken “of course not, go have fun.”
Dellums knew that Rustin would win his first election to the House come next November, and he couldn’t help but feel that if Rustin weren’t gay, he would likely be the first black President of the United States. He had a natural leadership about him, an irrepressible energy and zeal about his activism which was magnified by an easy charisma into one of the great personalities of the African-American community. He and Dellums did not agree on every topic or policy. Rustin’s staunchly anti-communist foreign policy and support for “containment” ran counter to Dellums’ pacifist tendencies, for instance, but both men preached the gospel of non-violence in protest, and could agree that a strong, egalitarian America was a possible positive force for good in the world. Dellums could think of few living men he admired as much as he did the party’s National Chairman. Rustin and the SDUSA officially endorsed Udall’s campaign on July 18th, 1975, and Dellums appeared to speak with his fellow Congressman as promised at a much popularized campaign stop in Washington, just before Udall would be off to Iowa, to preach his egalitarian, New Frontier message to the rural, agricultural, and often poor communities of the Hawkeye State. Widely regarded as the first major stump speech of his campaign for President, Congressman Udall’s folksy good-nature, sharp wit, and ability to reason and really connect with people made his speech pay dividends for the Arizonan’s campaign.
Above: National Flag for Social Democracy USA
That afternoon, a simultaneous rally for Udall and the SDUSA was held in Boston, where Senator Ted Kennedy (D - MA) and dark-horse Democratic Nominee in the upcoming Mayoral Election of Burlington, Vermont, Bernie Sanders, spoke vigorously in favor of bringing “social democracy and its messages to the forefront of our embattled political system.” Their rallies attracted mass media attention, fostered thousands of new followers, and gave Udall’s campaign some much needed consciousness with the public. This momentum would only be built upon when Congressman Udall faced off with and trounced Senator Eugene McCarthy (D - MN) in an impromptu debate in front of reporters and college students when both candidates happened to be speaking at UC Berkeley on the same day. By the end of the year, Udall was stealing away supporters from McCarthy, Muskie, and other liberal candidates, and was gaining steam in Iowa. Thanks in large part to his candidacy, social democracy was on the rise in the Democratic Primaries.
This was no mere coincidence. Congressman Udall was more than simply honest, or witty, he had a tremendous heart, and strongly believed in reform and a more hopeful, positive political sphere for moving the country forward. “I am not running for President in order to throw around mud,” he joked at one campaign stop. “I’m running so I can help clean it up.” When asked by reporters if he would embrace the label of “most liberal Democrat in the race”, Udall responded, “I believe that ‘liberal’ is becoming a sort of modern buzz word. I don’t mind answering to it, but by my standards I think it’s more accurate to call me a ‘progressive’ in the tradition of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy.” The Congressman, like Abraham Lincoln a century before him, seemed to have an anecdote or humorous story for every occasion, and took great joy in laughing heartily with his supporters as he told them. He shared what he called “a politician’s prayer” at a campaign stop in Manchester, New Hampshire: “O Lord, give us the wisdom to speak gracious and tender words... for tomorrow we may have to eat them.” He poked fun at himself and his fellow Democratic competitors at a lunch counter in Des Moines: “With such a bumper crop of presidential candidates surfacing, I have concluded that a plague of presidentialitis is sweeping the nation. I must remind myself and all the other worthy contenders that once this dreaded disease - whose symptoms include delusions of grandeur and an urge to make repeated visits to Iowa - gets into a man’s bloodstream, it can only be cured by embalming fluid.” His audiences ate it up. They loved his authenticity, his honesty, and his goodness. Best of all to many on the left, Udall was one of the proudest and most unabashed environmentalists in the nation. A perennial champion against massive oil, mining, and logging companies, Udall was the leading proponent behind the Alaska Lands Act, a proposed bill which if made into law would preserve over 100 million acres of pristine Alaskan wilderness as a new suite of National Parks and Federal preserves. He encountered bitter resistance in Congress, especially from the Alaskan delegation, who wanted to open up their state for “economic development”, but Udall heroically continued to fight for protection of the lands, which he called “the Crown Jewels” of the North American continent. His bill was currently languishing, but he vowed to make environmentalism a top priority if elected President, including - “continuing President Kennedy’s pursuit of a future of alternative means of energy, which are renewable and more friendly to the environment.” Udall’s fights in the House, which had cost him a future leadership position or even Speakership due to their outspoken nature, made him all the more heroic to liberals and progressives across the country. Here was someone who put their money where their mouth was, a humorist hero in the mold of the great Will Rogers. Here was a man they could rally behind for President.
...
The last handful of years had been perhaps the most productive and eventful in the life of young Hillary Rodham Bush. After marrying her war hero sweetheart in 1971, she became part of the First Family less than a year later with her father-in-law’s succession to the Presidency after the assassination of President Romney. The constant media attention and pseudo-celebrity status this afforded was a marked change of pace from her previously quiet life in the Middle Class suburbs outside of Chicago, but Hillary was nothing if not adaptable. She would make it work for her. As a “Youth Ambassador” to young Republicans across the nation, she wrote widely syndicated editorials which appeared in major magazines and newspapers, especially The Boston Globe and Washington Post. In her articles, Hillary called for an end to the ceaseless lurch to the right the Buckley-ites were demanding, and countered that the future of the Republican Party lay in the opposite direction, toward what she called neo-liberalism. Socially liberal, but fiscally conservative, this new ideology seemed the logical next step in the Dewey-Eisenhower-Rockefeller tradition of moderate centrism in the GOP. It was later said by First Lady Barbara Bush to leave a “lasting impression” on Hillary’s father-in-law when she brought it up to him at a family outing in Kennebunkport, Maine over the summer of 1975 and may have played a role in influencing his policy plans going into the 1976 Election. Hillary made sure to advance herself personally as well. She graduated from Yale Law School with a Juris Doctor degree in 1972. Shortly thereafter, Hillary gave birth to twins, Prescott Albert and Robin Chelsea Bush; they were the President’s first grandchildren. Absolutely thrilled to be starting a family of her own, but not wanting to be solely defined by her positions as wife and mother, Hillary informed her husband that she would not be a stay at home mother. As soon as she was able to stand again after her successful pregnancy, she was back on her feet and immediately looking for work. “Dubya”, as deeply devoted to her as ever, made no protests, and insisted they hire a nanny to look after their children while he took up a position as an Executive at Lockheed Martin in Bethesda, Maryland. Hillary meanwhile got a job on the staff of Illinois’s senior U.S. Senator, Charles H. Percy arguably the leading neo-liberal/Rockefeller Republican in the nation. Senator Percy was also considered one of the GOP’s leading minds on business and foreign relations, and had been flouted as a possible Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate in every cycle since 1968, making his office the first one Hillary applied to when looking for a political staffing position. The Senator interviewed her personally, and hired her on the spot, though he refused to let the move be seen as a political one. He wasn’t doing President Bush a favor by giving his daughter-in-law a job; the Senator was simply hiring a very qualified, effective young woman to help him develop his legislative portfolio and work on a more long-term project: reelection in 1978, then becoming the GOP’s Presidential nominee in 1980.
Hillary was able to develop experience as a legislative warrior almost immediately after starting at her new job. Senator Percy had agreed to write and sponsor a bill which would expand benefits under the Assistance for Families Program (AFP) from their original 1968 levels to help working families who were struggling under the “Great Recession”. The House version was being championed by Wilbur Mills (D - AR), the titanic former chairman and ranking Democrat of the House Ways and Means Committee and a candidate for President struggling to get his name out among his more well known competitors. The bill had wide support amongst Mills’ own party, but Speaker Ford (R - MI) and Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott (R - PA) had both sworn off the expansions as “unnecessary spending increases which we can ill afford.” Mills was tempted to have a reliable liberal Democrat like one of the Kennedy brothers or the ailing Hubert Humphrey (D - MN) write the Senate version of the bill, but knew that it would require bipartisan backing in order to make it to the Resolute Desk. President Bush had avoided ruling out signing such an expansion, especially as his approval ratings continued to dip below 40% and Treasury Secretary Friedman’s harsh deflationary measures grew more and more unpopular by the day. Bush gave the impression that all he needed to sign them was an excuse, and Senator Percy hoped to rally liberal Republicans and Democrats alike to give the President the cover he needed. What’s more, such an achievement would demonstrate Percy’s credentials as someone who could work with Congress and get shit done for working families. Who better to help manage the project than the President’s own daughter-in-law? Hillary took to the task with zeal.
The young staffer joined with several other members of Percy’s office and went to town trying to cajole moderate Republicans to change their tune on expanding AFP. House Speaker Ford had both endorsed and voted for the AFP when it was first passed under JFK seven years before, and the young Bush believed that he could be convinced to vote for it again. Hillary and her team also courted Silvio Conte, liberal Republican Senator from Massachusetts who had built a reputation as a bulwark against pork barrel spending, even going so far as to wear a Pig mask to work while a member of the House during the Kennedy years, but whose Catholic faith strongly informed his desire to help those in need. Conte signed on and even agreed to be a co-sponsor of the bill, as he also believed it could be an incentive for young couples to be well off enough to have children and start families of their own. Slowly but surely, the argument on the hill swung in the bill’s favor. Though the increase in government assistance incensed Bill Buckley, Vice President Reagan, and the aging Senator Goldwater and his son in the House, the AFP expansion narrowly passed both Chambers of Congress and was signed by President Bush into law on September 27th, 1975. Considered a major achievement for Senator Percy and the President alike, the bill also helped ease the suffering of millions of working families across the United States. In the depths of the worst economic downturn in more than thirty years, there was finally a bit of light shining through. As he formally announced his candidacy for a second full term as President at the end of the month, George Bush used the bill’s passage as evidence that his administration was demonstrably better for the American people’s economic well-being than anyone else had the potential to be. “I inherited tougher times than anyone could have anticipated.” The President said with a confident grin. “But thanks to our leadership, there is hope that things can and will get better. These are tough times, but Americans are always tougher. It’s time for those of us in government to take charge, and get to work.” Thus, a slogan for the ‘76 campaign was born.
...
Several months before the President met with the leaders of Israel and Egypt to hammer out what would become the Walker’s Point Accords, his support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War had nearly cost him his life. During a campaign stop in Los Angeles, California on October 11th, 1975, the President was walking toward his limousine after an event at the Hollywood Bowl, co-headlined by California's Junior U.S. Senator Shirley Temple Black (R - CA), when a young Palestinian-American horse racing jockey named Sirhan Sirhan approached the Presidential motorcade, pulled a Smith & Wesson Model 27 revolver from his jacket, and opened fire at the President and his bodyguards. As horrified screams rang out from the crowd and the Secret Service split themselves between tackling Sirhan and securing the President’s person from the shots, all involved were relieved when they discovered that Bush had only been hit once, in his lower right leg, and was not severely injured. He even captured the hearts of the nation when he called on his Secret Service protection to “go easy on him [Sirhan]” as they carried the would-be assassin off to be arrested by the LAPD.
It turned out that the President’s plea for mercy was perhaps, not entirely misplaced. Sirhan Sirhan’s life seemed, after the fact, to be an unending train of tragedy and misfortune. As a child growing up on the West Bank of the Jordan River, Sirhan was traumatized by the violence he witnessed in the Arab-Israeli conflict, particularly watching his older brother be run over by a military vehicle that was swerving to escape enemy machine gun fire. The boy and his family immigrated to the United States in 1956, when Sirhan was 12, but he never managed to assimilate or really find his place in his new home. Relatively short at 5’5” tall, and only weighing about 120 pounds, Sirhan managed to transition from work as a stable hand to a professional horse racing jockey. This, together with his membership in the occultist Rosicrucian order, gave Sirhan’s life a shred of meaning at last. Unfortunately, it was not meant to last. Sirhan refused to obtain American citizenship and when the Great Recession hit California in the mid 70’s, he was fired from the racetrack he loved so much. Like Arthur Bremer three years before him, Sirhan Sirhan was motivated to try and assassinate the President as a means of purging his lifetime’s worth of trauma and despair. Unlike Bremer, however, Sirhan added political ideology to his rationale, judging in his confession to the police that “If President Bush hadn’t solely supported the murderous Israeli regime throughout his time in office, then I would not have tried to kill him.” Sirhan would go on to be convicted of the attempted murder and be sentenced to fifteen years in prison, with the chance of parole. An attempt on their life would have been enough to shake up some people, but the President made it an opportunity to reflect on his time in office and life in general up to that point. Bush decided that he would not retire and allow Vice President Reagan to run in his stead in ‘76 as some in the party had recommended. He would not, could not walk away from “the game” until he had made some measurable difference in the world. The assassination attempt gave the President some breathing room in the polls, the impetus to seek peace in the Middle East, and the image of a resolute President Bush on the cover on Time walking to work in the West Wing on crutches became one of the defining images of the decade. Some social historians would even claim that it was the moment the “seesaw seventies” began to swing back in the positive direction once more, though this reading would need to discount several of the horrific events still to come before the decade was through. Sirhan’s shot at the President would, tragically, not be the last act of political violence the decade saw; nor would it be the last one made during the course of the 1976 Presidential Election.
...
The final major domestic political happening of 1975, after the President surviving the attempt on his life, and Congressman Mo Udall rallying American Social Democrats to his cause, was the retirement of Associate Justice William O. Douglas from the Supreme Court, after nearly 37 years on the Bench. Douglas’ tenure was, and to date remains, the longest tenure of any Justice in the history of the Court. First appointed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the unusually young age of 40 back in 1939, Douglas would, over the course of his time on the Court, become the “most doctrinaire and committed civil libertarian ever to sit on the Supreme Court”, according to Time Magazine. An ardent liberal and staunch anti-segregationist, Douglas’ work had been critical to the Civil Rights movement’s progress, as well as myriad other liberal causes. Nicknamed “Wild Bill” by many in the capital because of the widely held perception that Douglas delivered “reckless” or “independent” decisions that turned the Court into some kind of cowboy, vigilante justice, Douglas made many enemies among the country’s more conservative politicians. Several attempts were made to impeach and remove him, most notably in 1970 when future House Speaker Gerald Ford, considered Douglas’ chief political nemesis, hoped to remove the Justice over his private lifestyle - namely, the hefty speaking and publishing fees he charged to supplement his income. Ford’s investigation into Douglas turned up no official wrongdoing, and the Congressional Investigation Committees, headed by prominent Democrats, threw the case out for lack of evidence. Though it pained Douglas to have to retire when he knew that President Bush was likely to appoint a much more conservative justice to take his place, time and age were rapidly catching up with Douglas, and every day he was increasingly forced to reckon with his own mortality. Early in 1975 while on vacation in Florida with his wife, Douglas suffered a massive, debilitating stroke, which nearly took his life. Loathe to walk away from what he considered the defining work of his life, the Justice was nonetheless eventually persuaded by Chief Justice Paul Freund to walk away and try to find some sort of peace with what time he had left. Douglas officially tendered his resignation to the Commander in Chief on November 12th, 1975, while the President’s leg was still recovering from the .357 bullet lodged in it by Sirhan Sirhan.
While his body healed, the President tasked Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Baker, a fierce Bush loyalist and friend from his time in Texas, and Attorney General Ed Brooke, another champion of liberal Republicanism with creating and vetting a shortlist of candidates for Bush to nominate to Douglas’ place on the Court. Because the Senate would need to confirm the President’s nomination, Bush felt intense pressure from both Democrats, who held a slim majority and mostly wanted a liberal justice appointed to replace Douglas, and his fellow Republicans, who wanted a more conservative justice to “balance the court” after years of liberal domination. Knowing he would need to cajole both sides into supporting his eventual choice, the President decided to stick with something of a moderate, and shared this conviction with both Baker and Brooke as they started gathering candidates for their list. Almost immediately the two men faced conflict as the Vice President soon became privy to their search and threw himself into the mix as well. Reagan strongly recommended Robert Bork, U.S. Solicitor General since the beginning of President Romney’s administration, and a strict conservative who favored a strong executive branch and “rollback” of the Civil Rights decisions of the Warren and Freund Courts. Unsurprisingly, Bork was utterly unacceptable to both Brooke (the GOP's leading expert on Civil Rights, not to mention the first African American AG), and Baker, a noted moderate in an increasingly conservative party. The Attorney General and Deputy Chief of Staff instead favored John Paul Stevens, a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. A committed, unabashed Rockefeller Republican, Stevens generally favored much more liberal positions on abortion rights and federalism, which made his possible nomination anathema to Vice President Reagan and his allies. Reagan even privately vowed to go public with his disapproval of Stevens if the President went ahead with his nomination, promising to help Senator Jesse Helms (R - NC) filibuster his confirmation in the Senate. This would galvanize conservative opposition to him and likely lead to Stevens’ defeat, a disaster waiting to happen as Bush needed a victory to head into an election year looking strong and resilient. The President needed another option.
A particularly viable one manifested itself in Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Carla Anderson Hills, who before her current position had served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney General for the Civil Division in the Justice Departments of both the Romney and Bush administrations. Well versed on a variety of judicial subjects and more moderate than either Stevens or Bork, Hills was also quite young at 41, so she would potentially have another long, successful judicial career ahead of her if she were to be confirmed. There was, of course, the added benefit of her being a woman. The President had, for years, been making the case that the GOP was still “the party of women”. Republicans had spearheaded ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, Bush claimed, and he rightfully believed that women would be a critical voting bloc for his party to win if they wanted to hold onto the House and White House in ‘76. Nominating the first female justice to the Supreme Court would go a long way toward putting some positive action behind his claims. Reagan and the Brooke/Baker alliance both preferred their own favorite candidates, and thus were mutually lukewarm on Hills when the President put the idea before them after he had met personally with Hills in early December to go over a HUD report. Brooke liked Hills’ experience in the Civil Division, and admitted that Hills had far exceeded expectations during her time as HUD Secretary. Her experience with being “grilled” by Senators during her confirmation process back in ‘73, and her remarkable ability to answer their charges and verbally win out over them showed that she would be able to vigorously defend herself against anything thrown her way during another round of possible confirmation hearings. Baker agreed with Brooke’s appraisal, and informed the President that if Hills could adequately answer any questions he may have for her about her judicial ideology, Baker and his boss, Chief of Staff Cheney, would back her nomination as well. The President scheduled a meeting with Hills the following week and was thrilled with the thoughtfulness, candor, and articulate nature of her responses to any and all questions he had. Hills’ name was carefully floated on the hill to Minority Leader Hugh Scott (R - PA), who agreed that she would be easier to get confirmed that either Stevens or Bork. The politics, the person, and situation were perfect and the President pulled the trigger. He announced from the Oval Office on December 17th, 1975, that he was nominating Carla Anderson Hills for the open seat on the Supreme Court, and that he hoped the Senate would confirm her forthwith after they reconvened from the Holiday break. The media ate the story up, and some speculated that conservatives would filibuster over disappointment about another moderate on the court. Bush wielded public sympathy from the assassination attempt to quiet those voices of discontent. Shortly after the Senate convened in January of the following year, Ms. Hills was confirmed (after a lengthy and tiring debate process) and became the first female Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, a landmark achievement for Second Wave Feminism, perhaps the greatest capstone to more than a decade of social change and progress for women. Justice Hills became a feminist icon virtually overnight.
Carla Anderson Hills - First Female Justice on the Supreme Court
(Moderate, Bush Appointee)
(Moderate, Bush Appointee)
The Freund Court - As of January, 1976
Chief Justice Paul A. Freund - Kennedy Appointee, since 1968 (Liberal)
Associate Justice Warren Burger - Romney Appointee, since 1972 (Conservative)
Associate Justice Byron White - Kennedy Appointee, since 1962 (Moderate)
Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg - Kennedy Appointee, since 1962 (Liberal)
Associate Justice Carla Anderson Hills - Bush Appointee, since 1975 (Moderate)
Associate Justice William Rehnquist - Romney Appointee, since 1972 (Conservative)
Associate Justice Potter Stewart - Eisenhower Appointee, since 1958 (Moderate)
Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall - Kennedy Appointee, since 1967 (Liberal)
Associate Justice William Brennan - Eisenhower Appointee, since 1956 (Liberal)
The makeup: 4 Liberals - 2 Conservatives - 3 Moderates
Unfortunately for the President, however, Reagan’s silence on Hills’ appointment did not guarantee that the conservative powers that be among both parties in the Senate would likewise acquiesce as he had hoped. Though Justice Hills would eventually be confirmed, it was not as painless a process as Bush had banked on. Only days after word of Hills’ nomination hit the airwaves, Senator Helms was already lining up a platoon of flamethrowers to go after the nominee with everything they had. “How could you agree with the Court’s decision in Doe v. Bolton?” He would ask. “Don’t you believe that human life, in all its forms, is worth protecting?” Meanwhile, in the pages of American Values, in the House of Representatives, and even on the campaign trail for President, socially conservative Democrats like Governor Lloyd Bentsen (D - TX) and Congressman Bob Casey (D - PA) called on their fellow Democrats to “oppose this pro-abortion” justice. Christian Democrats and Social Conservatives believed that they had been underrepresented throughout the 60’s, and wanted the late 70’s to be their chance to be heard across the political spectrum.
This backlash against the 27th Amendment and Doe v. Bolton culminated in one of the most controversial political power plays of the era. In October of 1975, only two months before President Bush would name Justice Hills to the Supreme Court, one of his oldest political adversaries returned to be a thorn in his side once again. While appearing on an episode of Firing Line with William F. Buckley, Congresswoman Phyllis Schlafly (R) of Illinois, the nation’s leading firebrand against all things women’s liberation and a self-proclaimed “anti-feminist” shocked the nation when she told Buckley that “I intend to contest President George Bush in the Republican Primaries. Like Vice President Reagan courageously did four years ago, I plan on standing up to an incumbent President who routinely ignores, defies, and mocks the beliefs of a substantial portion of his own party.” Though few in the Republican Party, let alone the country, expected Schlafly to go far, especially once she was soundly denounced by the party establishment and most significant members of the party (including Vice President Reagan himself), her campaign began to really gain steam in the lead up to Justice Hills’ nomination. Jesse Helms’ endorsement of Schlafly for the nomination, followed by his fierce opposition to Hills, produced enough of a media wave for Schlafly to get coverage, and a small, but dedicated contingent of Republicans to back her candidacy. While the President had been hoping to conduct a “Rose Garden strategy” through much of the early campaign and primaries, allowing the prestige of his office to carry him through, his unpopularity, combined with the still painful economic situation and Secretary Friedman’s austerity measures gave Schlafly enough ground to mount a campaign on. By the time of the Iowa caucus, the Congresswoman was polling at nearly 15% among Republicans nationally, and had won the endorsements of The National Review, Senator Strom Thurmond (R - SC), and Governor Evan Mecham (R - AZ). Summing up her campaign, and why she was running for President, Schlafly shared, “The United States is a giant island of freedom, achievement, wealth, and prosperity in a world hostile to our values. I believe that it ought to be defended properly. The last thing we need is for us to falter and fail because we got soft on those values from within.” President Bush felt like he was caught in a trap, or more aptly, a noose, pulling itself ever tighter around his political neck.
Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: Recent Events in the Middle East
So the Republicans are in flux and Bush is trying the high road.
This is getting exciting!
This is getting exciting!
Hmm...the presidential campaign has suddenly become more interesting. In the Chinese sense of the word. Still, not everything's so dark. Bush survived the assassination attempt, his son now has two kids of his own, and Udall is doing really well (he's one of my favorite characters for TTL). The next few years are surely going to be quite lively.
Only two problem with an otherwise great chapter: I don’t think National Review would endorse a challenge from Schflay as it is unlikely to succeed in any thing and endanger Reagan’s position in the White House. Maybe they’d say “well she’s a good woman to try and push but this is not really a good idea” the most would probably be a proclamation of Neutrality if Hills really did piss them off that much. Also I doubt Reagan would try to push Bork right now, and certainly not go public with opposition to anyone unless it was a flaming radical liberal, he’d want to stay in Bushes good graces for 1980.
Also a few more comments:
Hillary’s Job here looks a lot like
Nepotism and trying to get something from the President..this has the potential to look bad on a political resume which her enemies could attack her for.
The Social Democrats are interesting and I can’t wait to see where they go. One impending crack I see is going to be between Rustin/Reuther (both ferocious anti Communists to the point Rustin supported the South African invasion of Angola) and Dellums and Sanders (a embarrassing record when it comes to the Cuban regime), boy id love to be a fly on the wall when foreign policy is discussed. Their endorsement has the great potential to also weigh down Udall later on, as conservatives will ferociously denounce the economic plan and will sieze on what the Foreign policy aspects to denounce them as Communist Sympathyzers (not helped by some of Dellums and Sanders own comments or indeed actions.)
Looking forward to see more of the Christian Democratic movement grow.
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I wasn't expecting someone from the Republican Party to actually challenge Bush for President. It looks like he and VP Reagan will have a hard fight to get nominated. I also liked Bush's pick for the Supreme Court too even though not everyone did. I'm also glad Bush didn't get assassinated.
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I don’t think it will be hard, Schflay is not to be ignored but she can’t actually win the nomination. More likely she will conduct a gurellia style campaign using her heavy dedication from activists and mailing lists to play on Conservatism. Bush will have to dispatch her, as not to leave himself open to having the conservative base decide to stay home in November but I think he can do that if he decides to effectively crush her in Iowa, adopt Faith and Family Rhetoric (“America needs to be more like the Waltons than the Simpsons” that sort of thing) and throw the Pro Lifers a few bones (say support Hyde)
Yes but as history shows when a sitting President is challengedby someone within their own party they won't get re-elected. In OTL it happened to Ford, Carter and OTL Bush.
True, that’s why he needs to destroy Schflay quickly and address her concerns
Great update. I don't mind you're changing chapters up a bit. An interesting one ehre. Bush is doing well, save Phil-what's her name challenging him. Taht could cause trouble for him and Reagan.
Great update! I sure hope Bush or Udall win this, also I’m really glad that Hills is a member of the SCOTUS. Also I sure don’t like Schflay, Bush needs to deal with her and fast.
So Social Democracy for the USA has started; interesting. And the campaign for president has suddenly gotten more interesting...
Nice to know that Hillary and Dubya are doing OK; I like this Dubya, IMO...
Good to know that Bush survived his assassination attempt, though I am concerned for the future with that quote...
Like that Hills has become a Supreme Court Justice; Schafly needs to be neutralized somehow...
The mid-to-late 1970s will be interesting, to put it mildly...
The song "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" was sung by Elton John (the subject of the recent movie Rocketman) and was released on June 23, 1975, so congrats for continuing the patter, @President_Lincoln, and waiting for more...
Nice to know that Hillary and Dubya are doing OK; I like this Dubya, IMO...
Good to know that Bush survived his assassination attempt, though I am concerned for the future with that quote...
Like that Hills has become a Supreme Court Justice; Schafly needs to be neutralized somehow...
The mid-to-late 1970s will be interesting, to put it mildly...
The song "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" was sung by Elton John (the subject of the recent movie Rocketman) and was released on June 23, 1975, so congrats for continuing the patter, @President_Lincoln, and waiting for more...