"Large fans hanging from the high ceilings to break the heat on a July afternoon, light green courtroom walls broken only by faded pictures of county fathers and former circuit court judges. Harry Byrd grimly warning of a grasping federal government."
That's a passage from a 1968 book, "Harry Byrd and the Changing Face of Virginia Politics" by J. Harvie Wilkinson III— perhaps the most important book ever written about the Byrd Machine, says Carl Tobias at the University of Richmond.
"He wrote the book about Harry Byrd, which really captures the Byrd Machine in its heyday and its decline," Tobias says, "but also is a great imprint on the history of Virginia and how influential the Byrds were for so long."
Harry Byrd, Sr. was the influential governor and U. S. senator who's family and political machine ruled Virginia for decades in the mid-20th century.
In legal circles, Wilkinson is known as a conservative stalwart who was almost named to the Supreme Court by President George W. Bush. Dean of the Schar School at George Mason University, Mark Rozell, says President Trump can't accuse Wilkinson of partisanship.
"He cannot say that this is a progressive liberal judge who is just trying to tear down a conservative president's policy agenda," Rozell says. "This is a core conservative who is saying some of the most harshly critical things about the Trump administration's actions."
Wilkinson's opinion concludes that the Trump administration is "asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in a foreign prison without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order."
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
