Two Would-Be Supreme Court Justices and Me

How Do You Cope When Two of Your High School Newspaper Friends Show Up on the Short Lists for the Nation’s Highest Court?

The stakes of the presidential election are huge and global. The results may determine the future of public health, the republic, even the planet.

The stakes of the presidential election are also peculiar and personal, especially for me. The results may determine which of two old friends—my fellow editors on our high school newspaper—ends up being the next Californian on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mine is a strange circumstance. I spent my high school years, 1988 through 1991, at Polytechnic, a small (my graduating class had just 85 students) and academically …