All posts by Thomas L. Knapp

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SCOTUS: The Nuclear Option is Not Enough

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U.S. Supreme Court building.
U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On January 31,  president Donald Trump nominated federal appellate judge Neil Gorsuch to fill a vacancy on the US Supreme Court created nearly a year before by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia’s death.

More than two months later — nearly 14 months since  Scalia’s passing and after 13 months of Republican stalling and refusal to even consider former president Barack Obama’s nomination of appellate judge Merrick Garland — the US Senate is finally set to vote on Gorsuch’s nomination once it clears a final procedural hurdle (more on that below).

Unlike most politically engaged Americans, I have no strong opinion on the character or qualifications of Neil Gorsuch (or, for that matter, Merrick Garland). Because they’re appointed for life, Supreme Court justices tend to develop minds of their own rather than slavishly fulfilling the wishes of the presidents who nominate them or the parties they claim affiliation with.

I do, however, have strong and very negative opinions on the melodrama attending the whole process.

Chief Justice John Marshall was nominated to his position on January 20, 1801. The Senate stalled, declining to confirm Marshall and pushing president John Adams to substitute someone else. The matter dragged on … for seven whole days before a vote. Marshall took his seat on the court less than two weeks after Adams asked him to serve.

Two weeks in 1801, when news traveled at the speed of horse. Fourteen months in 2016-17, when news travels at the speed of light. What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong with it is that the Senate is a dilatory, time-wasting, procedurally hidebound body that these days walks (at a snail’s pace) every action of significance through multiple hearings in front of various committees before acting.

The final procedural hurdle I mentioned above is called “cloture.” It’s a vote to end debate, wrap the matter up and give Gorsuch the Senate’s final,  for real, thumbs up or (or down).

Under current Senate rules cloture requires 60 votes. Republicans, with a bare majority in the Senate and no hope of winning cloture, are threatening “the nuclear option” — a rules change, which only requires a majority, to make cloture itself a mere majority vote.

I don’t think the “nuclear option” is enough. I’m with MacBeth: “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly.”

Instead of changing the cloture rules, why not change the entire confirmation procedure? Put a hard deadline in the rules: On the tenth day following nomination, the nominee receives an up or down vote of the full Senate, period, no exceptions.  Pre-vote committees get that long, and no longer, to do their jobs.

The Constitution calls for the Senate’s “advice and consent” on presidential appointments, not for months or years of screwing around.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Sanctuary Cities and DoJ Funding: The Hypocrisy of Jeff Sessions

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US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a surprise White House appearance on March 27, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced his intent to make America’s cities less safe and more vulnerable to crime unless he gets his way.

He didn’t say it quite like that, of course. In fact, he asserted the opposite, accusing so-called “sanctuary cities” of “mak[ing] our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on the streets” and conditioning future grants from the US Department of Justice’s Office of Justice on certification by the recipient state and local governments that they are not “sanctuary” jurisdictions.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think the federal government should be handing out money and equipment (especially military equipment) to state and local police departments and court systems in the first place. Such gifts always come with strings attached, as Sessions is demonstrating with this stand. Better to keep local law enforcement locally funded and locally controlled.

That said, Sessions and his department presumably believe that the money in question (recent examples include grants for “Smart Policing,” police body cameras, and sexual assault kits) makes communities safer. That’s why the money gets handed out, at least in theory.

If Sessions does believe that his grants help keep us safe, then he’s essentially threatening to increase the likelihood that you or I will be assaulted, raped, mugged or murdered unless our local, county and state governments bend to his will.

That’s not very nice, Jeff. In fact, it’s the opposite of your job as Attorney General. As is supporting the very idea of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement “detainers.”

I happen to live in a “sanctuary county.” In 2015, Alachua County, Florida Sheriff Sadie Darnell set forth her department’s policy, which seems eminently reasonable: The department will not honor ICE “detainers” unless they’re accompanied by judicial orders or warrants.

Frankly, that should be the bottom line for every law enforcement agency in the country. When it comes to keeping someone in a cage who would otherwise be free to go, “because ICE wants him” isn’t good enough. The US Constitution is clear: “No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

If federal law enforcement officers can’t even be bothered to see a judge and get an arrest warrant, they shouldn’t be asking local law enforcement to hold someone for them, nor should Jeff Sessions be threatening the rest of us over it.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Presidential Golf Breaks: Good for America

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English: President Barack Obama takes a practi...
English: President Barack Obama takes a practice putt with a golf club presented to him by golf legend Arnold Palmer prior to the signing ceremony for H.R. 1243, the Arnold Palmer Congressional Gold Medal Act, in the Oval Office, Sept. 30, 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On March 27, CNN reports, US president Donald Trump left the White House for a day at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, his 13th trip to one of the numerous golf courses he owns. The implication of the media’s mild obsession with his trips is that Trump is wasting time playing cow pasture pool when he should be attending to the duties of his office.

Former president Barack Obama came in for similar criticism from Republicans — including Donald Trump — over the 333 rounds of golf he played as president according to Golf News Net. That averages 41 outings per year, or one every nine days.

Personally, I don’t see the problem. I wish Obama had played more golf, and I’d be happy to see Trump spend seven days a week on the links.

The opposition ruthlessly criticizes every president’s work — every bill, every executive order, every policy proposal, every public gaffe. The harder the president works, the more they complain.

But then that same opposition cries foul when the president stops doing all that bad and stupid stuff and takes a break to spend time knocking a little white  ball around a field, trying to make it roll into a little a hole in the ground.

Make up your minds, folks. If you don’t like the things the president does when he’s working, why complain that he doesn’t work enough?

Speaking of which, many of the critics of presidential time off are members of Congress, who are paid $174,000 per year (more if they are in leadership positions) and get more days off (230 or so) than they work (130 or so). How’s that for standing to critique someone else’s work ethic?

In the meantime, if you’re an average American who gets weekends and federal holidays off and two weeks of vacation, you’re working 240 days a year. About 80 of those work days aren’t for yourself or your family, but to earn the taxes that Congress and the president blow through like drunken sailors, on stuff more expensive and pointless than greens fees.

The question isn’t really whether American politicians should be working more or harder. The question is, how can we get them to work less?

As 19th century jurist Gideon J. Tucker wrote, “no man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” Or when the president is in residence at the White House. Let the man enjoy his golf.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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