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Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 1PM Eastern Standard Time

“So when do we get to overturn Roe v. Wade?” the first of the two new nominees said to the Chief Justice.

The Chief Justice simply stared at her.

“Yeah,” the second nominee said. “That’s what we are here for. When does it happen?”

The Chief Justice, sitting behind his desk, leaned forward and rubbed his forehead with both hands. If these are the first two of six new nominees, he thought, what must the other four be like?

“Which of you is the attorney?” he asked.

“I am,” said the woman, proudly.

“And you, sir, you are…”

“I am an orthodontist,” the second nominee said.

“An orthodontist,” the Chief Justice said. “And what caused you to be interested in this job?”

“Is this, like, a job interview?” the woman said. “Because I thought we already, like, had the job.”

The Chief Justice looked at her.

“No, it is not a job interview,” he said. “The President nominates you, and the Senate either approves you or not. I guess any job interview would be with the Senate.”

“Well what is this, exactly, then?” the woman asked.

“This is more of a ‘get to know you’ kind of thing,” the Chief Justice said. “The Attorney General asked if I would show you the ropes, so to speak.”

“Okay,” said the man.

“What kind of law have you practiced?” the Chief Justice asked the woman.

“Mostly doing house closings,” the woman said.

“House closings,” the Chief Justice repeated. “Yes. That is a very useful and honorable profession.”

“I think so,” said the woman. “But I think the real reason we both got nominated is because we are good Christian people.”

“I see,” said the Chief Justice. “Well, we have eight Christians on the Court already. So, this will make ten, I guess.”

“No,” the woman said.

“No?” the Chief Justice said.

“No,” the woman said, brightly. “There are no Christians on the Court at all.”

“Really?” the Chief Justice said. “That is surprising.”

“You have one Jew, and seven Catholics, and one Episcopalian. Catholics and Episcopalians aren’t Christians.”

“They aren’t?” the Chief Justice said.

“Of course not,” the woman said. “They aren’t Christians. They’re…Catholics and Episcopalians. So, we’ll be the only Christians.”

The man nodded happily.

“Well, that will be a surprise to those colleagues, as it is to me,” the Chief Justice said. “But as for Roe v. Wade, you want to know when you can overturn it?”

“Yes,” both nominees said at the same time.

“Well, you understand that we have to wait for cases to come to us, right?”

The two nominees had no response to this.

“You do know that the court must first be appealed to from a lower federal court, and then the members vote on whether to grant certiorari. You have heard of certiorari? What they call ‘granting cert?’”

No glimmer of recognition was to be found within the eyeballs of either nominee.

Eventually the woman said, “But this is the Supreme Court. Surely you can simply announce that the law is illegal, or something.”

“That’s… that’s not how any of this works,” the Chief Justice said. “We are the court of last appeal. People have to appeal lower court rulings to us. We can’t just make or unmake law from the bench.”

“But the liberals have been doing it for decades, haven’t they?” the man said.

“Well, there are those who say they have, to be sure. But that’s sort of a figure of speech. They have not simply declared that certain laws were invalid, without any appeal coming from below.”

The two looked more mystified than ever.

“That doesn’t sound right to me,” the man said. “I’m going to look that up on Webapedia.” He took his phone out.

“And besides, we don’t want to wait for that,” the woman said. “We were told our first job was to repeal Roe v. Wade, and we want to get right to work. Otherwise who knows how many more little babies will die!”

The Chief Justice leaned on his elbows on his desk and put his hands in a praying position.

“I respect your stance, and I do expect that a case will come to us very soon, and you are free to vote to grant cert to it, but I think we will have to respect the way things have been done for 231 years,” he said.

“Well,” said the man, “we are here to shake things up and drain the swamp and do God’s will. We don’t really care how it’s been done for the last two hundred or two thousand years. We will need to get right to work on Roe v. Wade. Where are our offices?”

“Uh, I think you will have to wait until the Senate confirms you to move into those. Have you given any consideration to your staff? Your clerks?”

The man said, “We don’t need clerks. We can do this by ourselves.”

“You do have some acquaintance with Constitutional law and precedent? Even if you want to dive right in on Roe, you probably would need some clerks to look up earlier case law to help you reach a conclusion the other justices could accept.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about the other justices,” the woman said. “All we really have to do is vote, right?”

“You don’t want to write opinions? Argue the cases with the other justices?”

The two nominees looked at each other, then back at the Chief Justice.

“We don’t need to write opinions,” the woman said. “We just need to vote on the cases. We need to get to work restoring this country to the Christian God-fearing basis on which it was founded, with no abortion, prayer in schools, no birth control, no gay marriage, no legal homosexuality, and Jesus recognized as the Founder of the United States.”

The Chief Justice stared at his guests.

“Well,” he said, “I should not detain you if you want to get on with talking to the Senators who will be voting on you. If and when they have talked to you and approved you, then we will set your offices up. I would think about some staff – do you want me to look for some clerks for you? I know some very intelligent law students who would love to work for a Supreme Court justice, and I can tell you that they will be very useful to you in your new jobs.”

The two nominees looked at each other, then back at him.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” the man said. “God will provide. Also, my hygienist will head up my office. That’s my wife,” he said proudly.

“Well… enjoy the Senate,” the Chief Justice said, getting up and extending his hand.

The man took his hand, then the woman.

“See you soon,” the woman said. They turned and left the office.

The Chief Justice watched them leave. He squirted his hands with disinfectant gel and rubbed slowly.

“What hath God wrought,” he said to no one.

© 2020 Nolan O’Brian