Neither Democrats Nor Republicans Can Afford To Be Sheep,Louise Annarino,1-14-2013
“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
Edward R. Murrow
My first foray into political activism began when I read about apartheid in Rhodesia and South Africa. My eight year old mind was stunned at the racism which was stamped “approved” by the Rhodesian government. Even more shocking was its apparent acceptance by the United States. I had heard about boycotts,and their use to end segregation. Thus,I could not understand why we were a willing trade partner spending millions of dollars in Rhodesia. My father suggested I ask his childhood friend and our congressman, Rep.John Ashbrook (R-OH) about this when he held his next week-end office hours. I made an appointment for the following saturday. At 10 a.m. I found myself dressed in my sunday best outside the door to his office at the Licking County Court House, nervous but serious about getting answers.
Congressman Ashbrook respectuflly overlooked my awkward effort to hoist my short self up into a chair placed before his desk. He did not even smile at the picture of my legs sticking straight out,too short to even bend over the edge of the seat. He took my concerns seriously and respectfully explained the realities of global politics. At that time Rhodesia was the largest producer of chromium, which we sorely needed for miltary and defense industries. He explained why we needed it and what we had to overlook to get it. He agreed that it was a deal with the devil and not to be taken lightly. He promised to put pressure on Rhodesia and South Africa to end apartheid, to seek alternative sources of chromium and other trade items with countries practicing apartheid, and to look for other ways to address the issue of racism.
Every time anyone in Congress discussed an issue realted to my concerns or new related legislation was introduced he mailed me copies of the legislation and or discussion printed in the congressional record. Over the years,until his sudden death while running for the U.S. Senate, we corresponded on a variety of issues. Few of which we took similar positions on. By then I had become a registered Democrat,but remained an appreciative constituent of the ultra-conservative John Ashbrook. I was starting to love politics.
When Sen.John F. Kennedy ran for president I was ten years old. All of my friends,and the nuns at school,swooned over his good looks and were thrilled to support a Catholic candidate. Our religion and patriotism was under attack by democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey during the primary,and I decided to set the record straight. I researched American history,looking for Catholics who had served in government as patriots to illustrate the ill-considered attacks made against Sen.Kennedy’s ability to lead the country without allowing Catholism or the papacy guide his decisions. By the time I was finished I had ten pages of Catholic patriots on my list.
I learned that the father of the U.S. Navy John Barry,the first captain commissioned by the Continental Congress refused 100,000 British pounds to dessert the American navy and captain any British ship of his choosing. He was outraged. John Fitzgerald was General George Washington’s private secretary during the Revolutionary War. The treasurer who held and disbursed funds during the revolution was Catholic as well as two signers of the U.S. Constitution one who a signed the Declaration of Independence. Lafayette and Pulaski were Catholic. Page after page I listed individuals entrusted by fellow patriots to serve and protect the cause of revolution and the establishment of the new government. I mailed the list to Sen. Kennedy and asked him to use it to put Humphrey and others in their place when they used Catholicism to cast a cloud over Kennedy’s ability to lead the nation. I still have the letter Sen. Kenndy sent in response,thanking me for the information. Imagine my surprise a year later when he quoted from my list during the general election debate, when Vice-President Richard Nixon brought up the issue. My Republican Dad was cheering on Kennedy and patting me on the back for a job well done. I was hooked on politics.
It was years later,while an intern at the Ohio Attorney General’s Office the summer between my second and third year of law school that I really began to understand the inner workings of political institutions, and the people who run them. I did not expect politics to intercept law so easily. The tension between the two is a strong undercurrent. Fortunately,most individuals handle it deftly,appropriately, and ethically. Those who don’t are called to account. What amazes me is not that some try to manipulate government institutions,including courts,for political and economic gain;but that so few do so. Also, the ready aceptance of bi-partisan cooperation,until recently,has been quite impressive.
I recall a case in which the state of Ohio hoped for an outcome which would protect the state and state coffers. However, Ohio law dictated a different outcome, unless we could find strong precedent which would allow the Ohio Supreme Court to oveturn Ohio law on the issue before it. The Democratic AG and the Republican-led Supreme Court each knew that the failure of the legislature to change the law earlier had brought the state to this unfortunate impasse. Several interns worked around the clock to find a case strong enough for the court to hang its hat on. They succeeded and the state’s interest,and taxpayer’s interest was served by the court’s final decision. Politics and law at a crossroads is an exciting intersection for a legal intern.
What I abhorred was the quiet assumption that government workers would donate to political parties,increasing their chances of retaining their positions. This was not stated outright. No such request was ever made. But one could see that attending political events,fund-raisers and showing party support bolstered one’s professional standing whether democratic or republican. I decided I wanted no part of politics. I just wanted to practice law and rise or fall on my merits,not on my political contributions.
After law school,I worked for the non-profit Legal Aid Society of Columbus where my focus was on my clients and the law,without the subtle pressure of financing candidates or political parties. I continued to volunteer for candidates,make contributions to their campaigns, knock on doors, stuff envelopes,do lit drops etc. But these efforts were unrelated to my practice of law. When I left the Legal Aid Society five years later to become Associate Director Of Legal Affairs at Ohio University I made sure during my interview that the position would not be a political appointment, and that I would never be asked to contribute to a specific candidate or party. I was assured that was the case.
However, when the next Attorney General was elected he realized Ohio law had not been strictly followed by his predecessors and announced he would do so. Ohio law stated that only the Attorney General could represent a state agency or institution in any hearing or court,before any agency or commission. The hiring of each attorney by state universities would require approval by the Attorney General, and each attorney would be appointed his Assistant Attorney General. I was right back where I had started!
When I met with the Attorney General he agreed that no one from his staff would ever request my political participation in,nor contribution to any political event or campaign. And, he never disappointed me. Nor did he allow my failure to attend such events to color his view of my professional performance and standing with his office. Other attorneys were appalled at my unwillingness to mingle politics and my legal practice. But,I refused to be a sheep and follow the flock. It would be too easy to be eaten by the wolves which surely would appear. It only takes a few wolves to decimate a flock.
When I see what is happening in republican political circles I worry about all those republicans who are fair and reasonable,who seek consensus, who prefer bi-partisan discussion, and who understand that legislation can be improved by listening and learning from the other side of the aisle. They have allowed wolves to come among them in sheeps clothing. Democrats are not immune from such an incursion,especially if they act like sheep. We are watching too many republicans being eaten alive not to understand it can happen to democrats as well. No one in either party can afford to act like sheep.
annarino writes 
SPECIAL MASTER
I cannot write carelessly about the Law. I am a retired attorney-at-law, former State Assistant Attorney General and former Associate Director of Legal Affairs for a university. I love the law with a passion. I am dedicated to the protection it affords individuals, my state, my country, my world.
The Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States are foremost in our minds when speaking of the treasure which is our Democratic republic. Brave documents written by men who had had enough of autocratic rule by a king out of touch with his subjects’ concerns an ocean away. Self-rule advanced eons by the declaration and constitutional reign of this nation of laws and not men. But, this new form of governance was at terrible risk of failure as it sought to establish itself among the colonists in the many states of the new nation. In 1789 George Washington signed into law the firs act of the new congress, the Judiciaries Act. The Judiciaries Act established a three-part judiciary made up of district, courts, circuit courts and the Supreme Court, out-lining the duties of each branch. It also defined the role of Attorney General and the Dept. of Justice. It has been amended over the years, but never up-ended. The rights of appeal and the ultimate supremacy of the highest court to assure the constitution and the principles of the newly established republic were upheld in every state of the new union. Cases decided under this new system cemented the Rule of Law as the authority over its citizens. We have no king. We have no prince. We have political parties; but they have been given no authority to rule us. Let me repeat. Political parties have no legal authority over a free people. Only the law does so.
There have always been citizens seeking a king, or a party to undermine the Rule of Law. This is not new. What is new is a party which would be king. What is new are judges on our courts willing to acknowledge that party as king.
A judge by definition must be an independent arbiter, looking to the American law and its principles to guide her decisions. No judge should EVER comment before all parties to a lawsuit have even filed their briefs; nor that she in “inclined” to decide in favor of a party to the suit. No judge should ever place party interest above the rule of law, its principles, and the security of the nation she serves.
Judges, like all public servants, serve the people.
There is a principle at work in legal ethics supported by courts to protect an individual’s conversation with his attorney regarding a legal issue. There is a principle at work supported by courts to not reveal through the normal exercise of court transparency those secrets of the nation which, if exposed, could cause irreparable harm to the very nation and its people’s national security. There is a principle at work supported by courts to protect witnesses and keep them safe.
In this case, an about to be charged criminal who stole the most desperately protected top secret documents, and it appears those likely including nuclear weapons secrets, hid that evidence of his crime amidst personal papers. Thus, we the people represented by the Department of Justice and FBI are faced with trying to sort the evidence of the crime for two reasons: to successfully prosecute a treasonous ex-president, and to protect our own national security and those who act on our behalf to do so every day.
Let me be clear, this case should have been disposed of by summary judgement the first day it was filed by the ex-president. He should have been re-directed to the court which handled the case from its inception, and this argument reviewed by the judge who already was handling the search and its legal issues. Or, it should have been dismissed since he had no standing to contest anything since the papers were seized as evidence of a crime. Not just any crime. A crime that endangers an entire nation, and other nations within our alliance. His criminal act of hiding documents should not then be used to further his and others’ crime. The delays caused the moment this judge accepted, and now continues to delay the efforts to unravel the crime and shut-down the threat to each of these nations, furthers the crime. A Special Master appointment furthers the crime. Justice delayed is Justice denied. The people of this nation deserve justice.
My guess is that the attorney-client communication at issue likely is more evidence of criminal activity affecting the survival of the country, which the attorneys should have reported, not argue should be protected. We are putting the interest of a single criminal over the interest of the continuing existence of the United states of America, and the republics around the world who strive to be equally free of kings, princes, autocrats and thug parties.
Individual interests are sacrosanct within our courts. This situation reminds me of the philosophical question about three people in a life boat with only enough food for one to survive delayed rescue. Who is sacrificed as the danger continues and prompt rescue is unlikely? Do we sacrifice one to save more? Who could decide such case? Judges face difficult situations every day. Solomons are not that rare. I once had a case where the divorcing parties last remaining dispute was who got the parrot. The Judge ordered the parrot split in half unless an agreement was reached in 10 minutes. Opposing counsel and I were thrilled to carry that message since nothing we said had moved either party over months of discussion.
Judges must be decisive. It is implied by their title, right? “Under consideration” is a dodge where the legal issues are is clear as they are here. This judge seems to be looking for a way to satisfy the party which holds her future appointments in their hands. Or, perhaps she was just not so qualified as she needed to be to decide cases at this level, or perhaps she has the nation’s interest at heart. But, if so, is she blind to the cost to the nation by her non-decisive action? Is she struggling to find some way, any way, to defend and support her “inclinations”?
The Rule of Law, the Judiciaries Act, are the cement holding together the foundation of any democratic republic. Our foundation is crumbling before our eyes, Silence is not an option.
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