After Rejection There’s Honorarium for Bork

Despite former federal Judge Robert H. Bork’s failure to win U.S. Senate approval to the Supreme Court last fall, the notoriety he gained in the bitter confirmation battle has left him with a silver lining of sorts: speaking fees expected to exceed $650,000 this year.

Bork has been a hot commodity on the national lecture circuit since leaving the federal appeals court bench in February. He has already made 20 paid speeches about his confirmation experience, the judiciary and American politics, and has another 35 booked this year, said Bernie Swain, of the Washington Speakers Bureau, which handles Bork’s paid speaking engagements.

Neither Swain nor Bork would disclose the former judge’s speaking fee, but executives at two lecture agencies that have booked Bork’s appearances said Friday that his standard rate is $12,500 a speech.

“The fee is $12,500,” said David Rich, sales director of the Boston-based Lordly and Dame lecture agency. An account executive at another large agency that has handled Bork said $12,500 was “in the medium range” for well-known speakers.

Bork brought his message to Thousand Oaks on Thursday evening where he addressed a $250-a-person fund-raiser for Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks).

McClintock said he paid Bork an honorarium of $12,000. After paying Bork, McClintock said he expected to net $35,000 to $40,000 for his campaign.

Asked about his honorarium after addressing 250 cheering Republicans at McClintock’s dinner Thursday, Bork replied with a smile, “That’s between me and the IRS.”

Book in the Works

Bork, 61, is also a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank in Washington, and is writing a book about the role of the judiciary that is scheduled to be published by Freedom House in the spring of 1989. Noreen O’Connor, the publisher’s assistant on the book, declined to reveal Bork’s advance payment Friday.

The confirmation fight over Bork’s nomination was extraordinarily prolonged and intense. An intellectual leader of the conservative legal movement, he was portrayed by opponents as an extremist whose appointment would jeopardize the civil rights of minorities, women and others.

When he announced his Feb. 5 resignation from the bench, Bork said he wanted to be free to speak out against “the campaign of misinformation and political slogans” that defeated him. In his speeches, Bork describes his rejection as a chapter in a 30-year struggle, largely waged at the nation’s law schools, between those, like himself, who support judicial restraint in interpreting the Constitution, and judicial activists who seek to impose their ultraliberal political views on society through the courts.

Now, following his stint in the national limelight, Bork finds himself in demand. His income this year from speeches alone will be many times the salary he would have received as a member of the court. An associate Supreme Court justice is paid $110,000 a year.

A polished speaker, Bork has traversed the country to address trade associations, corporations, chambers of commerce, universities and Republican groups. The former judge and law school professor has accepted 60 of the 80 invitations he has received and already has five speeches scheduled for 1989, Swain said.

Enthusiastic Reception

In bedrock Republican Ventura County Thursday, Bork was enthusiastically received after McClintock introduced him as “one of the great giants of this decade and incidentally, one who has lived to fight again.”

After his 30-minute lecture, which was punctuated with humorous remarks, Bork was asked by a reporter if he planned to run for public office.

“There are two difficulties with running for political office,” Bork replied. “One is I would surely lose. The other is there’s a bare possibility I might win.”

Responded McClintock, “You would win in this county.”