Douglas Alexander: “I care about this case because I care about the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Many of the Senators know or knew Judge…”

“I care about this case because I care about the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Many of the Senators know or knew Judge John Minor Wisdom. They knew what a great judge he was. They knew what the times were like in the Deep South during the 1960s and 1970s. I remember Judge Wisdom once telling me the Ku Klux Klan had burned a cross in the intersection between his home and that of Congressman Hale Boggs. Judge Wisdom said: They were getting both of us with one cross burning. So I set out some time ago, with my staff, to look through the record of Judge Pickering to see what he has done. All the evidence is that Judge Pickering, like Judge Wisdom, like Judge Tuttle, Judge Rives, and Judge Brown, stuck his neck out for civil rights at a time when it was hardest to do. Mississippians know that. William Winter, with whom I served, a leading former Democrat Governor, a leader for racial justice, strongly supports Judge Pickering. Frank Hunger, who served on that court with me as a law clerk back in the 1960s, President Clinton's Deputy Attorney General, Al Gore's brother-in-law, strongly supports Judge Pickering.”