DAVIS: Ode to the ‘purple senator’ — Lindsey Graham

OPINION/ANALYSIS:

One of the nine Republicans who voted last Thursday to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court was Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. (The final vote was 68-31, with only Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, unable to make the vote).

Mr. Graham had announced his vote in a Senate floor speech July 22 after, as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearings, he had sharply questioned then-Judge Sotomayor on her “wise Latina” speech and some of her more contentious decisions. It was a politically risky vote.

What made the vote more significant was his explanation of the vote in his speech, which appropriately deserves tribute in a column titled “Purple Nation.”

I got to know then-Rep. Graham some 10-11 years ago under adverse circumstances. I was on TV virtually every night defending President Clinton from efforts by the House Republicans to impeach him; Mr. Graham was, by far, the most effective of all the House floor managers in arguing the case for impeachment, and frequently we would find ourselves in “Green Rooms” (holding rooms) at CNN or MSNBC before we went on-air to debate. And it was hard not to get friendly with him and make small talk — he’s that nice a guy in person.

On one occasion after a TV show, not too long after the Senate trial in which President Clinton was acquitted, he asked me if I wanted to have a beer and compare perspectives on the whole experience. I of course said yes — curious as to how the world looked through his eyes, still thinking of him as a partisan, conservative Republican, driven by dislike of Mr. Clinton.

I was surprised by what I heard and came to know about Mr. Graham. He left me with the impression, without saying in so many words, that in retrospect he wished there had been an alternative to impeachment. He talked about some of the possible lost opportunities to resolve the matter short of impeachment, especially just after the November 1998 midterm congressional elections, when the Democrats had surprised everyone (including themselves) and actually gained seats. But he still strongly believed he had done the right thing by supporting impeachment.

I just as strongly disagreed with him. I still felt deep anger, seeing the impeachment process as being as illegitimate in its naked partisanship as was the attempted impeachment by the “Radical Republicans” of Andrew Johnson in 1868. Nevertheless, I realized partisanship was not the force driving Mr. Graham. I could not help but respect his sincerity and authenticity.

Shortly after Rep. Graham became Sen. Graham in January 2003, our paths crossed in a Senate office building, and I congratulated him on his election to the Senate. I asked him whether he had gotten to know yet the freshman senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton. He said not really, and was a little concerned that she would still be angry with him for the position he had taken regarding the impeachment of her husband.

I told him that the Mrs. Clinton I had known since law school was one of the nicest, warmest, most decent people I had ever met, and — most of all — one of the most pragmatic and focused people on doing public good through public service. In other words, I urged him to get to know her and try to work with her and predicted he would end up liking her a lot and that they would work well together.

Thus, months later, watching a cable news show one night, I was not surprised to see Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Graham standing together at a press conference, announcing the passage of a veterans health care bill they had co-sponsored as members of the Armed Services Committee.

His willingness to work with and accomplish something good with Mrs. Clinton and many other instances of his rising above partisan politics was consistent with the sentiments he expressed in his July 22 Senate floor speech on his vote on the Sotomayor confirmation.

The speech started with his declaring that one important factor in his decision was that “elections matter” — and that, the people having spoken in November 2008, a president should be given some deference and should be entitled to nominate a Supreme Court justice that reflects his political philosophy.

“Having been one of the chief supporters of Sen. McCain and one of the chief opponents of then-Sen. Obama,” he said, “I feel [Mr. Obama] deserves some deference on my part when it comes to his first selection to the Supreme Court.”

Then Mr. Graham did something unusual in the usual world of partisan Washington, where what’s good for the goose is so often not good for the gander. Mr. Graham referred to the “well-qualified” rating that Judge Sotomayor had received from the American Bar Association.

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