Gorsuch filibuster a product of Republicans’ political bullying

By the book

While our family was stationed in San Antonio, I had the privilege of being a public school board member. School board members are trained to have certain expectations of the superintendent they hire to operate their school district. One of those is that the superintendent will thoroughly, and without bias, research and consequently present to the board a comprehensive package of information concerning any issue that involves the district, especially new proposals. Regarding “Strained arguments fail to derail charter school” (Our Views, March 31): Norman Superintendent Joe Siano presented a six-page memo to the Norman school board, with just one item concerning the possible conflict of the location of the Le Monde charter school and religion. One can logically assume there were many other items presented in this memo.

Public school superintendents in Oklahoma are hired, not elected. They perform their duties as required by federal statutes, the laws of the state, their local board policy, and by requests made of them by the stakeholders in their district. It’s the responsibility of the elected school board members to take that information, consider what’s best for the district and their community, and then vote. Siano did his job, the Norman school board did what it is elected to do, and the appointed state school board made its decision. Your suggestion that religion played predominately as an obstacle to Siano and the Norman school board is fallacious.

Take off the cuffs

Oklahoma recently lost a 22-year-old police officer. Sadly, when there is an accusation of police misconduct, which isn’t nearly as common as the media would have us to believe, the answer always seems to be the “lack of training.” After spending 40 years in law enforcement, allow me to say the training officers receive today, in the academy and annually, is more than adequate. I went through my initial training in the 1960s. Since then many changes have occurred, such as not shooting at a fleeing felon unless they stop and make an obvious attempt to endanger your life or the lives of others. The felon Officer Justin Terney was pursuing did stop and not only endangered Terney’s life, he took it.

Today, due to the most restrictive policies ever put on law enforcement, these men’s and women’s lives are on the line more so than I can ever remember. The handcuffs are on those in law enforcement and not on the criminal where they should be. Let’s remove the handcuffs. The safety of society depends on it. The thin blue line protecting all of us is getting thinner. The recruiting of police officers is difficult enough without what we see happening on our streets today.

Subtle difference

In “‘We were greedy,’ woman jailed in triple homicide burglar tells media” (News, April 1), it said the young man who shot the intruders in his home could be protected under the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law. In fact,this would fall under “Castle Doctrine.” There is much confusion about the difference, but to make it short, Castle Doctrine is to protect law-abiding citizens in their homes from unjust criminal charges, and Stand Your Ground protects them outside the home in a place they have a legal right to be when they are abiding by the law.

Questions

Regarding “Veterans Center to phase out special needs unit” (News, April 3): Is the bill to move the veterans’ center at Talihina to Poteau truly because of the physical campus and limited staffing? Who stands to gain if the facility is moved, Oklahoma veterans or Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs leadership? What is the root cause of short-staffing? Is the “limited staffing” issue mentioned by Myles Deering truly because there is no one available to work? Or do we again need to look at leadership? hy were Democrats filibustering Judge Neil Gorsuch? Because they’ve had enough with the politics of power grabbing and bullying.

At the root of this fight is a long-term conservative effort to dominate the Supreme Court and turn it to the political objectives of the right.

This is thus about far more than retaliation, however understandable, for the Senate Republicans’ refusal to give even a hearing to Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee for the seat Gorsuch would fill. Behind the current judicial struggle lies a series of highly politicized Supreme Court rulings.

It started with Bush v. Gore, when five conservative justices abruptly halted the recount of Florida’s ballots in the 2000 election and made George W. Bush president.

The unsigned majority opinion unmasked (to use the word of the moment) the unprincipled and unmistakably results-oriented nature of the decision with this lovely little sentence: “Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.”

Translation: Don’t you dare use this case as precedent in any future decisions. We’re just doing this to achieve the outcome we want in this election.

Bush v. Gore had consequences for the court itself, since Bush got to pick two Supreme Court justices. He chose John Roberts as chief justice. Roberts, it’s worth noting, went to Florida as a volunteer lawyer advising then-Gov. Jeb Bush, who had a rather large interest in his brother’s victory. Can we please acknowledge that few court nominees are pristinely above politics?

Later, President Bush filled his second vacancy with Justice Samuel Alito, and he and Roberts were key to two of the most activist decisions in court history on matters central to how our elections work.

In 2010, Roberts and Alito voted with the 5-4 majority in Citizens United that overturned decades of law and precedent to widen the gates to big money in campaigns. Then, in 2013, they were integral to another 5-4 decision, Shelby County, which gutted the Voting Rights Act. Many Republican-controlled states rushed in with new laws, including voter ID requirements, that impeded access to the ballot by blacks and other minorities.

You do not have to believe in conspiracies to see how Shelby County and Citizens United fit together. In tandem, they empowered the most privileged parts of our society and undercut the rights of those who had historically faced discrimination and exclusion. They also tilted the electoral playing field toward Republicans and the right.

So let’s can all of these original sin arguments about who started what and when in our struggles over the judiciary. From Bush v. Gore to Citizens United to Shelby County, it is the right wing that chose to thrust the court into the middle of electoral politics in an entirely unprecedented and hugely damaging way.

And the Republican-led Senate was ready to use any means necessary to hold on to this partisan advantage. When Obama chose Garland for the court, he picked the nominee Republicans themselves had said they could confirm. In 2010, for example, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, called Garland “a consensus nominee” about whom there was “no question” that he would win Senate confirmation. Hatch’s view became inoperative when Garland threatened to break the conservatives’ 5-4 advantage.

Obama took grief from many progressives who saw Garland as moderate. Gorsuch, by contrast, passes all of his side’s litmus tests. During the campaign, Trump added Gorsuch to his roster of potential justices in response to lists from the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. There is nothing “moderate” about Gorsuch except his demeanor. The demand for a 60-vote threshold is really a plea that Republican presidents put forward choices who can win broad support by reflecting Garland-style restraint.

We will hear moans about how terrible filibustering a Supreme Court choice is. Democrats will be dismissed as catering to “their base.” Justified outrage over the blockade against Garland will be reduced to score-settling, as if those who started a fight should be allowed to recast themselves as pious, gentle peace-lovers when the other side dares to strike back.

It’s said that with the odds against them in this fight, progressives would be wise to back off and wait for the next battle. But graciousness and tactical caution have only emboldened the right. It’s past time to have it out. From now on, conservatives must encounter tough resistance as they try to turn the highest court in the land into a cog in their political machine.

WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP