ONE morning in early 1974, as the House Committee on the Judiciary was considering filing articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon, Rep. John Conyers Jr. asked permission to speak. The committee had met to debate the constitutional and political ramifications of removing from office the leader of the free world, but the Democrat from Detroit had a more pressing concern. The committee had hired extra personnel to assist with the deliberations. “How many members of the staff are black,” asked Conyers, “and how many are women?”
Whether or not Conyers found the group sufficiently diverse (there were apparently ten blacks and at least two women among the new hires), his question captures the essence of his career: far-left politics combined with a decidedly skewed sense of timing. Twenty-four years later, Judiciary prepares to receive a report from Kenneth Starr, and John Conyers has become the committee’s highest-ranking Democrat.
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