By Rose Lundy
The Longview Daily News
State Rep. Jim Walsh, who attended the same private high school as Judge Brett Kavanaugh, described the U.S. Supreme Court nominee Thursday as “ambitious” and a “straight shooter.”
Walsh’s all-boys alma mater, Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda, Maryland, was thrust into the limelight recently after Christine Blasey Ford, who attended a nearby all-girls school, accused Kavanaugh of locking her in a room and pinning her to a bed during a high school party in the 1980s.
Both Kavanaugh and Ford testified for the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday during an emotional and at times tense hearing that could decide the fate of Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Kavanaugh was one year behind Walsh in school, and Walsh stressed in a phone interview with The Daily News that he knew the federal judge only “slightly.”
“He was very much a straight shooter. Not a big partying guy. Not a big troublemaker,” said Walsh, an Aberdeen Republican whose district includes Longview, Kelso and all of western Cowlitz County, Wahkiakum County and Pacific County.
On his Facebook page early Friday morning, Walsh wrote, “So I went to high school with Brett Kavanaugh. He was a year behind me. I knew him very slightly. Never saw him engage in any behavior like the recent allegations that have been made. But we weren’t close enough for me to make any heavy pronouncements.”
Walsh attended the small Jesuit private school from 1978 to 1982, and said he was disappointed that news outlets have portrayed Georgetown Prep as a wild school.
“The school is a rigorous school. The idea that it’s a crazy partying school out of “Catcher in the Rye” is not (accurate). It’s unfortunate that that’s something that gossip mongers are talking about,” Walsh said.
Most of his classes were taught by Jesuit priests, he said, and many of the teachers had doctorate degrees. The classes were academically tough and students often failed out, Walsh said.
Many of the students came from upper-middle class and wealthy families, Walsh said.
“I was grateful my parents sacrificed to send me to a top-flight school. I took it seriously and I think most students there took it seriously,” he said. “There were high school parties, like many other schools, but the image being conveyed by some media is not accurate or fair.”
Continued Walsh on his Facebook page Friday, “I don’t believe there’s much meaning in having gone to the same high school as someone who is famous or notorious. Of course, the media sees things differently. I know people in Aberdeen who went to school with Kurt Cobain and are constantly being asked what he was like.”
Walsh said he never met Ford, who is a psychology professor at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She attended Holton-Arms School in Bethesda for high school.
As of Thursday afternoon, Walsh said he hadn’t been closely following the day’s hearings but has been frustrated with the overall judicial confirmation process.
In a July letter sent to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, Ford described her allegations but asked her story to be kept anonymous, the Washington Post reported. Ford decided to come forward publicly after her story was leaked in September.
Walsh said the nature and timing of when the allegations were made public was “unfortunate.”
“Frankly, people are making opinions either in support of Ford or in support of Kavanaugh in a very partisan way,” Walsh said.
Walsh, who is running for re-election in the 19th District State Representative pos. 1, said he would rather be talking about Kavanaugh’s policy positions. He said he generally agrees with Kavanaugh’s stances, but said his views on executive power could be controversial.
“I don’t believe in an executive branch that makes policy,” he said. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. The executive branch is supposed to implement the policy. … We’ve got to rein in an overreaching executive branch. We need to do it here in Washington and we may need to do it in (Washington) D.C.”
Walsh added that he would like to see more U.S. Supreme Court justices come from schools other than Harvard or Yale. The most recent appointee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, also attended Georgetown Prep and got his law degree at Harvard. Kavanaugh got his law degree at Yale.
“We need some people who went to the University of Washington and Berkeley and Michigan and Texas. I’d like to see a more diverse pool of U.S. Supreme Court justices,” he said.
As for Kavanaugh’s nomination, Walsh said the process is ongoing and the “paint isn’t dry.”
“It’s a fraught situation. I don’t want to make it worse. I feel for Dr. Ford. And I feel for Judge Kavanaugh. It’s an ugly situation all around. We just have to wait and see if there’s any good outcome.”
rose.lundy@tdn.com
