From his Denver office, Attorney General Phil Weiser asked the court to ensure presidential electors vote for whomever wins the popular vote.
DENVER — When it came time Wednesday for Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser to make his first-ever arguments before the U. S. Supreme Court, he stood up, straightened his suit and tie and launched into legal debate.
But instead of making his remarks before the justices in a Washington, D. C., courtroom, Weiser was in a nondescript conference room in his downtown Denver office building, addressing them over speakerphone in a conference call. He stood at a lectern brought in for the occasion.
Weiser’s arguments before the Supreme Court in Colorado’s effort to prevent how the U. S. elects presidents from being dramatically altered were historic.
The court had not, until the coronavirus crisis, heard case arguments by phone or live-streamed arguments.
Weiser was flanked by his top deputies furiously scribbling notes, but they were each at least 6 feet away, wearing masks and sitting at tables arranged in a long rectangle. One held up a piece of paper warning him of his time limitations.
And Weiser used the odd, coronavirus-driven situation to make himself comfortable: He brought a large Starbucks iced tea and a baseball with phrases from the Constitution and Declaration of Independence written on it. He also had a pocket version of the U. S. Constitution that he referenced several times.
Weiser gestured as he made his arguments, staring out of an eighth-floor window at Denver’s skyline. Sirens from emergency vehicles interrupted the conference call at times. What was he looking at and thinking as he spoke before the nation’s highest court?
“I was sort of Zen,” he said. “Sort of outside of a physical space.”
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser spoke to reporters about a report detailing sexual abuse in Colorado’s Catholic church on Oct.
