I was a newly-hired attorney-advisor (law clerk) to U.S. Department of Labor Office of Administrative Law Judges in Washington, D.C. A dozen of my fellow law clerks and I walked to see a movie -- Tom Cruise and Paul Newman in "The Color of Money," about a pool hustler and his mentor, "Fast Eddie," for which Newman won an Oscar. (Coincidentally, "Fast Eddie" was the nickname lovingly bestowed upon me by Senator Ted Kennedy's staffers, where I interned, as a freshman and sophomore at Georgetown University.)
Federal offices opened again on Monday, October 20, 1986. There have since been seven more "crises" furloughing federal employees, the most recent of which was January 20-22, 2017.
While I was Legal Counsel for Constitutional Rights at the Government Accountability Project, I settled a case that set a precedent for all federal Administrative Law Judges, establishing their pay can't be cut during furloughs.
Then, in private practice, in 1994-1995, during a government shutdown, I found myself waiting around in Knoxville, Tennessee at the Radisson, waiting on environmental whistleblower trial postponed due to the vagaries of dueling drooling ideologies in Washington. I was honored to represent an ethical radiation protection technician, who spoke out in defense of Oak Ridge National Laboratory whistleblower C.D. "Bud" Varnadore. Bud was assigned a "home base" with a desk next to radioactive waste barrels, in an enveloping shroud of retaliation for Bud's blowing the whistle internally about bad management. Bad government and contractor management included assigning a pregnant secretary to carry radioactive waste samples on the seat of a pickup truck, unprotected by any proper container; violation of procedures for analyzing contaminated soil for volatile organic compounds in some of the most contaminated soil in America, taken from those "dark satanic mills" where nuclear weapons and materials were produced and researched.
My client was from Memphis and moved to East Tennessee to save her son from gangs. She started as a janitor and earned promotion to ORNL radiation protection technician. While walking down the hall one day, she saw Bud Varnadore seated by the radioactive waste barrels. She got Bud moved, even though one ORNL manager complained, "We've got pregnant women exposed to more radiation than that." Background: Bud nearly died of colon cancer. ORNL Analytical Chemistry Division Director Dr. Wilbur Dotrey Shults testified, "I always heard that radiation was good for cancer patients." Shults then moved Bud to a room contaminated by mercury and leaking chemical containers. Bud inspired workers everywhere. Bud's 2013 obituary was in The New York Times.
After 1994-1995 government furloughs hurt EPA morale, our late Florida neighbor, then-EPA Regional Administrator John Henry Hankinson, Jr., started a band called "the Nonessentials."
Senator Robert Francis Kennedy said that "government belongs wherever evil needs an adversary or there are people in distress who cannot help themselves." Today, too many government officials are indifferent to suffering. As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt explained, elites "consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob."
Let's stand up to the power of "organized money." Don't let "The Color of Money" poison the well of our democracy, corrupting our governments, from city halls to the St. Johns County Administration Building "Taj Mahal" to Tallahassee to Washington, D.C. Support and encourage intelligent, ethical people to run for office. Remember, "decisions are made by those who show up." It's up to every single one of us.
With kindest regards, I am,
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