Crowd Gathers Outside Supreme Court

© 2000 By John Heilprin Associated Press Writer Friday, Dec. 1, 2000; 10:12 a.m. EST

WASHINGTON –– People camped out in near-freezing temperatures as if waiting for tickets to a rock concert. Church singers sang "worship music" to ask God's guidance for the nation's high court.

People were dressed as Uncle Sam, and another was dressed as a Roman soldier, carrying the sign: "Liberty is something you have to fight for." Someone in Darth Vader attire carried a sign: "Keep counting until the dark side wins."

It wasn't your usual scene at the Supreme Court.

As the temperatures dipped toward freezing early Friday, 200 or so people hoping to witness history in the making hunkered down against a chilly December wind outside the floodlighted marble court.

"I think the ramifications are significant," said Bernard Reese Jr. a 75-year-old lawyer who flew into Washington from Rockford, Ill., and stood in line throughout the night for the opportunity to watch the hearing. "Chaos is reigning right now and they better figure out a way to put it to rest."

Susan Lynch, a Justice Department attorney from Washington, said: "It's very historic and I wanted to see the best lawyers in the country argue."

J. Paul Oetken, an official from the White House, waited in the lawyers line outside the Supreme Court.

"People are very anxious, but cautiously optimistic that the court will provide some legitimacy to the process," he said of his White House colleagues. "I think they're mixed about whether it's a good thing."

In addition to the tourists interested in soaking up a piece of history, supporters of Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush, marched around the building carrying campaign-style placards bearing their candidates' names.

One man brought a folding cot, and several had foam-rubber and air mattresses or sleeping bags. Two camping tents were pitched, one on a grass median between the sidewalk and the street, another on the sidewalk. A vendor sold gloves, scarves and hats. People ate pizza, ordered by cellphone. They played chess and Trivial Pursuit.

Everywhere they talked of the extraordinary hearing about to take place, when the Supreme Court enters the legal impasse over the Florida presidential election.

"Money can't buy this. Money can't buy history," said John Fucetola, a 20-year-old political science major at George Washington University was first in line at 3:57 a.m. Thursday to get a ticket for the hearing. "This is something we'll be telling our grandchildren."

Fucetola and two other relatively early arrivals engineered a self-regulating system of an hourly roll call to help keep tabs of who was in line and who was among the few who had dropped out.

Only the first 50 people will be seated throughout the hearing. Plans were to show in the others for three-minute intervals to get a feel of the court.

There was a brief stir when the Rev. Jesse Jackson appeared briefly on a street corner early Friday, holding court with reporters on the events of the day.

The justices are hearing an appeal by Bush, the Republican presidential nominee certified by Florida as winner of the state's election but contested by Gore, the Democratic candidate. Bush wants the high court to declare invalid a ruling by Florida's Supreme Court upholding the validity of hand counting of votes; Gore wants the justices to rule that choosing presidential electors is the business of the states and not of the federal courts.

C-SPAN and others requested permission to mount the first television broadcast for the monumental case. The justices said no. Instead, they will distribute an audiotape of the hearing.

Not everybody was so sanguine about the history ready to be made.

A man driving by the milling crowd in the early morning chill yelled out his car window: "No president. We don't need no president."

© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2000

Answers

At least DeLay didn't send his staffers over to throw bricks and terrorize people.

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2000