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Tavis Smiley: Good evening from Los Angeles. I'm Tavis Smiley.
First up tonight, a rare look at the inner workings of the United States Supreme Court. Jan Crawford Greenburg covers the court and legal affairs for ABC News. She was granted unprecedented access to the Justices and the court for her new book, "Supreme Conflict."
Also tonight, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, Rickie Lee Jones, is here. Her latest CD is inspired by the real words and ideas of Jesus Christ. Later on, she'll perform a song from "The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard."
We're glad you've joined us. That's all coming up right now.
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Jan Crawford Greenburg: Thank you for having me.
Tavis: Let me start by asking what access you did have. I know that you had unprecedented access, but what does that big word mean?
Greenburg: It means that I was fortunate to be able to talk to nine of the Justices, including Justice O'Connor who had retired. So I talked to all eight of the sitting Justices except one and don't ask me which one. I can't tell you.
Tavis: So which one (laughter)?
Greenburg: (Laughter) I can't tell you.
Tavis: Tell me why it is that they are as stubborn, recalcitrant, private, I don't know, as they are about giving these kinds of conversations?
Greenburg: You know, there are a lot of different reasons. I mean, a lot of the Justices think that they really should just speak through their opinions and, frankly, you know, they don't have television in the courtrooms. They like their anonymity. They like kind of being behind the curtains and they don't come out of the chambers that often, so it's a couple different things.
But I got to tell you too, I mean, I've been covering the court for a pretty good while and they didn't talk to me the first couple of years. You know, it took some time to build those relationships and get that trust. I do feel that it was just very fortunate that they invited me into the chambers and let me sit down and talk to them about obviously this institution that has such an enormous impact on all of our lives.
Tavis: Do you think the American public - before I get into the text itself - do you think the American public is well served, best served by the secrecy that comes with the way our court does our business?
Greenburg: Well, the Justices would say that it's not that secret. They release opinions. They explain, you know, the thinking behind it and the only thing that we don't see is when they sit around a table, all nine of them and no one else, and cast their votes and talk back and forth about how they're going to view the case.
The other thing that people complain about with the court is television. Why can't we have cameras in the courtroom? Let's see the Justices up there during these arguments, throwing questions at the lawyers, going back and forth like they do on the bench because they're pretty lively sometimes. But that's just not going to happen.
I mean, like I said, the Justices like their anonymity. They think they should speak through their opinions. They don't see themselves like the guys across the street in Congress or down Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House. They're not politicians. They're judges and more serious, they think.
Tavis: To your latter point now, is there any debate even amongst the Justices about the television issue? They are unanimous on that?
Greenburg: Justice Souter, who is a very reclusive Justice, said famously that "cameras are going to go in the courtroom when his dead body is coming out." And our new Chief Justice John Roberts, a month or so ago, said when asked about cameras in the courtroom, "Well, probably not. I'd hate to do anything that might hasten Justice Souter's demise." So I don't think that I'll ever see cameras in the courtroom.
Instead, what I think we'll see is they've started releasing audio of the arguments. You know, what we can do on television is show a picture of them. You know, you don't see their mouths moving, but you can hear the sound. So I think that's what we're going to have for the future.
Tavis: Even for a seasoned court reporter and watcher such as yourself, when you got this access and this exposure behind the scenes, what did you find most fascinating even for somebody who's been around as long as you have?
Greenburg: Well, Tavis, so many of the things surprised me. I've been coming to court for twelve years. It's their offices. You know, their offices are all different. You know, each has their own staff, their own law books. It's almost like their own law firm and the way they decorate them really reflects their personalities. Some are more ornate. Some are like Justice O'Connor from Arizona has used like the southwestern theme.
And when they sat down and started talking to me, a lot of the stories that I heard even coming to court, I was just astonished. One of the most interesting things that I heard from Justice O'Connor who talked to me several times on the record was how she came to retire.
Remember Chief Justice Rehnquist announced he was dying of cancer. We kind of watched him die before our eyes that entire year. Everyone thought he was going to step down. O'Connor thought he was going to step down. They'd been old friends. They went to law school fifty years ago out at Stanford.
So she went to see him toward the end of the term just thinking to talk about the future and expecting him to say he was going to retire. Her husband is sick, so she was thinking that she herself would have to retire at some point down the road. Rehnquist shocked her. He said, "I'm not going to retire and we don't need two vacancies." His point was, "If you're going to retire any time soon, you're going to have to wait on me or go now."
So she decided somewhat reluctantly and I think sadly to go ahead and retire so she could be with her husband. Of course, that shocked all of Washington because we were all thinking Rehnquist would go first. Then he died, of course, over the summer giving President Bush two very key vacancies on this Supreme Court.
Tavis: To your latter point now, to say nothing of the juxtaposition between the voting records of O'Connor and Rehnquist, this title could almost be misleading. Is there really a struggle these days for control of the court?
Greenburg: Well, there has been for decades because Republican presidents, you know, back to the early 1970s, have tried to change the direction of the court so that they would walk away from those liberal landmark rulings of the Warren court and they were never able to do it. Even President Reagan couldn't change the direction of the court.
I argue that George Bush has succeeded where all those past Republican presidents failed because his nominees, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, are solid, judicial conservatives. They're not going to drift to the left like some of the Justices have after they've been nominated. So George Bush has definitely changed the direction of the court. History might judge Bush, I think we all know, pretty harshly on any number of fronts, but historians won't be able to say he didn't change the direction of the court.
Tavis: So do we agree on this that there really isn't a struggle right about now? The court is pretty solid?
Greenburg: And it's going to be pretty conservative. It's going to be more conservative in the next years to come. This is a Supreme Court that's going to start looking at things a little differently than it had in the past. Justice O'Connor was always the one in the middle, so her vote would determine abortion, affirmative action, gay rights, presidential power, these huge issues. So with her gone and Sam Alito in her place, the court is poised to take a turn.
Tavis: You cover this court every day, so you know this issue better than I do, but it never is lost on me, to your point earlier, Jan, about the Warren years and the Warren court. Here you had a court then of nine white guys. Nine white males. You now have, arguably for what's worth, the most multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-ethnic court ever. You haven't got a Latino yet. We'll come to that in a moment. But you have a diverse court as compared to the Warren court, yet this court is so much more conservative than those nine white guys were.
Greenburg: Isn't that interesting? You know, you've got some of the Justices now, Clarence Thomas, the most conservative Justice on that Supreme Court, the only African American. He replaced the great liberal icon, Thurgood Marshall, and he is clearly the most conservative Justice up there now.
Tavis: How is he regarded even ten, eleven, twelve years later now? How is he regarded by his fellow Justices?
Greenburg: He's very well liked inside the court. The research on Clarence Thomas for this book was the most startling thing that I found in doing this book. I mean, I would be looking at all these documents that have never been released and I would come across something and I would literally get chills when I'd find it.
The story line on Clarence Thomas, you know, when he joined the Supreme Court in 1991, was that he was following Antonin Scalia. You know, he was walking in Scalia's shoes. Totally false. Thomas came on the court and, from his first week he was on the court, he had these strong, clear, conservative views. That year, if any Justice changed their vote that year, it was Scalia changing his vote to join Thomas. And what else happened that year - and I've got all the documents and stuff to show that - is that it had a very unexpected effect on the court.
Here Thomas comes on, everyone thought the court was going to go to the right because he's replacing Marshall, the great Thurgood Marshall. Instead, that year the court went to the left. They refused to overturn Roe. You know, they refused to allow prayer in school. That year when Thomas came on, Justice O'Connor kind of reacted against his strong views and she went to the left.
Tavis: What's fascinating to me, though, is that oftentimes - you know this better than I do as well - Thomas finds a way to get to the right even of Scalia. It's not just him changing Scalia's mind. He would out-right Scalia.
Greenburg: And some of those cases that I came across during the conferences, he would be the only Justice who would be standing alone to cast a vote, always a dissent, and then he would release that dissent, very strong, conservative dissent, and that's when Scalia would join him because Scalia would start out to the left of him and then move over to the right with him.
Tavis: So the fact that he doesn't say very much in the courtroom is not synonymous with his not being bright.
Greenburg: No, and he's speaking in his opinions. Although, you know, - I mean, people I spoke with are in the book. He feels very strongly. He doesn't want to ask questions. He thinks the lawyers talk too much and he doesn't care how people view him. His friends will beg him, "Just ask a question or two because it looks like you're not interested." He'd say, "I don't care. I don't care what my critics think." You know, the confirmation hearings made him really impervious to criticism.
Tavis: There's so much in here. We're just scratching the surface here. But finally, to my earlier point about a Latino on the court, some thought that instead of Harriet Miers, that horrible mistake that President Bush made -
Greenburg: - which is almost shocking because of the way they backtracked.
Tavis: Yeah, and you say you stuck with it?
Greenburg: And there's a whole good story in that too.
Tavis: He stuck with Harriet Miers like he's stuck with Iraq. That's another issue for another show.
Greenburg: Although he got her out of there a little easier (laughter).
Tavis: Exactly, a lot easier. That said, your thoughts on whether or not there is going to be a Latino? Many thought that Al Gonzalez at the Attorney General's office might be the guy. There were other names, of course, on that list. It didn't happen. It turned out to be Miers and then Alito. What say you about whether or not or when we will have a Latino on the Supreme Court?
Greenburg: I think the next president would clearly love to appoint the first Hispanic Justice to the Supreme Court. We're going to have a woman or a minority candidate nominated. That's very clear. The Bush administration, my sources inside the White House say, if they get another nomination, it will either be a woman or a minority candidate. And Bush has always said that he wanted to nominate the first Latino to the Supreme Court.
We all thought it would be Alberto Gonzalez. Conservatives revolted and that's when we ended up with Miers. The interesting inside story about that, though, there was one person in the White House, a high-ranking official, who tried to talk Bush out of nominating Harriet Miers. It was Alberto Gonzalez.
Tavis: I love that inside story stuff. Those ABC people get the inside scoop. Anyway, she works with ABC News, of course, covering the Supreme Court. Her name is Jan Crawford Greenburg. Her new book is "Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court." Jan, nice to have you here.
Greenburg: It's great to be here, Tavis.
Tavis: My pleasure. Up next, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, Rickie Lee Jones. A conversation and a performance. Stay with us.
Rickie Lee Jones: Thank you so much.
Tavis: I can only imagine that, everywhere you go, people are still after all these years asking you and talking about "Chuck E's in Love."
Jones: "Chuck E's in Love." Yeah, wherever I go. And they still write it when they write my name. You know, after twenty-seven years, they still write that song.
Tavis: Tell me the story behind that song for those who have never heard you talk about it.
Jones: Well, what was, I guess, unique about it was that it was against the disco stuff that was going on and, in the middle of it, it stopped and spoke as in here. I don't know. We also kind of did the first video. We had an eleven-minute video that had me out in the alleyways riding around in cars and it seemed to instantly establish this image that otherwise would have taken a long time. So I'm kind of the first successful video artist. What the record company did was put monitors in the record stores and they played that video over and over again, so "Chuck E's in Love" must have been a kind of mind-bending hit. They still love it.
Tavis: I must tell you, Rickie, anyone who has ever since then worn lace, spandex or gloves owes you some money.
Jones: I believe so (laughter).
Tavis: (Laughter) You put that look out there. Did you know back in the day that you were going to become a fashionista? I mean, you started a pretty serious fashion trend back in the 1980s.
Jones: Well, because I combined things that didn't go together, you know. Like I wore secondhand clothes with expensive shoes or like the spandex thing was totally disco. I was doing poetry and stuff with like part stripper stuff and part spandex and part this, so I was putting stuff together that I liked that nobody had put together before.
Tavis: That's all that fashion is really. Put a bunch of stuff together that nobody else would think makes any sense and, bam, it makes a bunch of money.
Jones: There it was.
Tavis: All right. From spandex to Jesus Christ. How's that for a segue? Tell me about the inspiration, and thank you for this book. Rickie brought me a book. It's called "The Words: Jesus of Nazareth." Tell me about the inspiration for this CD from this book.
Jones: Well, my friend had written this book, "The Words," after a discussion with a friend of his who said, “You know, he never read the Bible and wouldn't go near it,” as so many people are, because of what it seemed to symbolize or how they'd been beaten over the head with it as they're growing up. So he wrote the book just so people could read the words of Christ away from the Bible with no commentary, and that's how he wrote the book.
So ten years later, he was asking friends and strangers if they would just come and read passages. One was bassist, Mike Watts, from the Minutemen, one was me, one was a homeless guy who hangs around where he lives. He's got a wonderful voice. He asked him to come down and read as well. But anyway, when I got there to do the song, this whole song came out cold. I hadn't heard the music yet, so the first thing that was delivered was just free-styling, as they say, "Nobody Knows My Name."
I know that spirit that sang that song. I know him. I'm him and he's also part of all of us, you know. There's ways into this story of Christ that are my story. I know just how to enter that story. I used those stories to go in. So we had a wonderful time drawing pictures with music of the roads and the tribes and who we met along the way and what they said and we brought it back too. So it's kind of one foot here and one foot there because it's also about my life.
Tavis: How did the CD get named? I'm fascinated about this. "The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard."
Jones: Well, the place where we were recording is an artist's loft on Exposition Boulevard, so when it was done, it seemed to me to be another sermon, you know.
Tavis: I never quite thought of - I've read at least that you consider this album - I hope I read this correctly - you consider this album maybe your first rock and roll album?
Jones: Yeah.
Tavis: I never quite thought of the words of Jesus as inspiration for a rock and roll album. That strike you as funny?
Jones: Well, how could it not be inspiration for anything? I mean, the thing is that the Christ thing is used in such a square and specific way. Like you said, how could it ever be rock? Well, how could it be this?
I wanted to try to be part of starting a discussion that would level the playing field so that people who are reasonable people, intelligent people, who won't go near learning anything about what Christ said because of television evangelists or because of how Christians are known to vote or because, when you meet a Christian, it seems like they're going to follow that up with some kind of piece of paper to convert you, you know.
Tavis: (Laughter) Exactly.
Jones: So we're really bruised and not to mention, of course, that I come from the Catholic religion and all the problems there. So I just thought what if we could erase - not erase - but just cast them aside for a moment and find out what the guy said because there could be wonderful wisdom there from this much maligned soul, you know, much maligned by human beings and what they would like you to think it means until you just got to read it for yourself. That's my discussion.
But the music that came out was total rock and roll and, if you didn't know that this was the impetus behind it, I'm not sure that you would know. You would feel that there was a theme, but you might not know. I love this conversation because here's what I was thinking. You got these kinds of people. There are people who believe in God no matter what, and there are people who don't believe in God and they think it's really silly to believe in God and they've got a lot of righteous reasons to think it's silly.
But then so what are you going to do? Is man really going to be what you worship and go home at the end of each night and say, "I hope for the approval of man?" And when I pray, I pray to man, and when I see beauty - you know, to me, I'm always speaking to the invisible world. I call it the invisible world. I don't call it God because what's that? Is that a little old guy with a beard up there, you know, keeping score?
I don't do that. I'm always talking to the invisible world and it's part of me. So one way that you could feel some of this is to call it a name that lets you in the door without fear or hatred. All I was hoping was that people could start to not brace when they hear somebody say “Jesus,” you know. Not to offend the followers of Him.
Tavis: The book that inspired Rickie Lee Jones to do the record is called "The Words: Jesus of Nazareth," and the new CD from Rickie Lee Jones is called "The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard." Thankfully for us, Rickie is here with the band to perform a piece from the new CD. A special performance from Rickie Lee Jones in a moment. Stay with us.
Tavis: From her acclaimed new CD, "The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard," here is Rickie Lee Jones performing "Falling Up." Enjoy, good night from Los Angeles, and keep the faith.
[Performance]
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