Carolyn Dimmick Final PDF.indd - Washington Secretary of State

Dimmick: Right.
Hughes: So it’s in Dixy’s last days in office. When you left her office did you get the
impression, “Well I’ve acquitted myself well and I might get the appellate court slot”? And
you wanted to be on the appellate court because—
Dimmick: Well, it’s in Seattle. Who wants to go to Olympia? Been there, done that when I
was young. My roommate burned up the apartment in Olympia and the whole thing.
Hughes: At least this time you might not have to have a roommate.
Dimmick: True.
Hughes: So all of a sudden what happens? You got a call?
Dimmick: I don’t remember if I got a letter or got a call.
Hughes: And were you surprised that you were being named to the Supreme Court as
opposed to the appellate court?
Dimmick: Well, probably not really as surprised as I could have been because it was
common knowledge that Dixy Lee Ray wanted a woman on the Supreme Court and she
was searching around for that. So I can’t say that I was all that surprised.
Hughes: Did the governor ask you any philosophical kinds of questions?
Dimmick: No. She didn’t ask anything political, nothing philosophical. That wasn’t her
mode.
And she knew everything there was to know. She did her homework.
Hughes: If she had done her homework, what conclusion would she have drawn from
Carolyn Dimmick’s jurisprudence?
Dimmick: Probably “law-and-order.” Probably “work hard,” “been around the block,”
“several jobs.”
Hughes: Not a greenhorn, even gone to judges’ school.
Dimmick: That’s right.
Hughes: So, there you were – Jan 2, 1981. You’re the first female member of the
Washington Supreme Court some 90 years after statehood. When I asked Justice Smith
what it felt like to be a trailblazer as the first ethnic minority on the court, he said, “There
was no great sense of occasion. But I hope that I might have been a role model for
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