I just finished my second day of research (and my third day total) in D.C. and while I’ve had a lot of fun, I am so exhausted. The past three days have simultaneously been extremely hectic and rewarding. I didn’t get much sleep Sunday night before the early Monday morning flight to DC, and I was dead on my feet for most of Monday. However, I woke up a bit when we finally got to go to the Library of Congress to get our reader cards. We got to see the Jefferson Reading Room, and was a little sad that we couldn’t actually do our research there, but it was an amazingly cool experience.
After we left the Library of Congress, we finally went to the oft-mentioned “We the Pizza.” Professor Kobylka mentioned that it was the ‘za in D.C, and while I can’t say I’ve had any other pizza in D.C, it certainly lived up to expectations. Once we got back to the luxurious Ballston Comfort Inn, I did some final research on which boxes I’d look at on Tuesday and went to sleep. Tuesday was our first research day in the Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room, and I have to admit I was rather nervous. I had looked at some of Powell’s papers online, but really had no clue how quickly I needed to get through cases and boxes. Thankfully, my first case, Griggs v. Duke Power, only had 1 folder in Blackmun’s papers, and I found I was able to find items of import with relative ease. However, Blackmun’s handwriting is very difficult to read- I unfortunately had to scan most of his writing to read later.
After getting through my second case, I navigated myself to the LOC Subway and took a small break before preparing myself to read what I expected would be a big case in Regents v. Bakke. Bakke was even longer than I expected (22 folders in Blackmun alone!) and I only got through a few folders before the 4:45 alarm went off. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed my research, and was excited to come back, but I was very ready for dinner. Once we got back to the Comfort Inn, I did some work, talked a bit downstairs in the lobby, and prepared myself for Wednesday. Today (Wednesday) we had an extremely packed day. We got on the metro around 8 so we could arrive at the Library of Congress by 8:30 and squeeze in an hour of research before getting a tour of the Supreme Court, as well as a sit-down with the Clerk. Things looked dicey at the Court for a second, but Professor Kobylka used his connections and got us in through the back door. The actual Court is beautiful- I never realized how museum-like it was! I enjoyed taking pictures with all of the justices, and our tour guide was super nice. The highlight of the tour, however, was the conversation we had with the Clerk in the Rehnquist Tea Room (although the brownie I got from the Supreme Court Starbucks came close).
Class photo in front of the Court
Once we got back to the LOC, I resolved to finish all of Bakke in Blackmun’s papers. I still have one or two folders to check out tomorrow, but I am 15almost done with Bakke. It’s been very interesting looking at all of the strategic and interpersonal connections between the justices as they work to get a majority. For example, I just saw a memo from Brennan telling Powell he could join with none of his opinions, only for him to recant days later (with no change to the Powell draft). It seems that all of the justices are willing to make significant compromises to finally come to a consensus. I’m excited to finish looking at correspondence on Bakke and look at cases like Weber, Fullilove, and Wygant tomorrow.
Until next time,