OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
OUR VIEW
E
ach week we recognize those people and organizations
in the community deserving of public praise for the good
things they do to make the North Coast a better place to
live, and also those who should be called out for their actions.
SHOUTOUTS
Karma, precedent and
the nuclear option
SOLVE
Debris collected off the beach at Seaside.
• Volunteers, organizers and sponsors of the annual SOLVE
Spring Oregon Beach Cleanup, which resulted in the removal of
56,000 pounds — 28 tons — of litter and marine debris along the
North Coast last weekend. Nearly 5,000 volunteers helped clean
the coastline at 45 locations from Fort Stevens State Park south to
Brookings. SOLVE CEO Maureen Fisher said the nonprofit has
been organizing biannual cleanups along the coast since 1984, and
in that time more than 260,000 volunteers have removed an esti-
mated 3.5 million pounds of debris.
• The late Michael Foster’s family, who established a memo-
rial fund to honor his memory as a founding board member
of the Astoria Music Festival and as a longtime arts advocate.
Foster died in December and his family established the memorial
fund through a $20,000 leadership gift, which has already been
matched by pledges. Deac Guidi, the music festival’s new board
president, said the fund will provide continued support for the
music festival as a memorial to Foster’s deep commitment to art
and music. The Astoria Music Festival will commemorate its 15th
season with the Michael Foster Memorial Concert on June 17 at
the Liberty Theater.
• The Astoria Warming Center, which served more than 200
people during the cold nights of the past 3 1/2 months. According
to the nonprofit’s operational report, the center took in 148 men
and 64 women from Nov. 15 to Feb. 28, and on average 30 peo-
ple slept there a night, equaling 3,126 overnight stays. The center,
which is run in the basement of the First United Methodist Church
on Franklin Avenue, was founded in 2014 and is one of several
local shelters that serve the county’s growing homeless popula-
tion. In addition to a small paid staff, dozens of volunteers put in
a total of 2,620 volunteer hours, which does not include the work
they did outside of the hours of the center’s operation.
• Rocky Smith, organizer of last weekend’s sixth annual
Ghost Conference, which was conducted at the Seaside Civic and
Convention Center. The three-day event attracted about 800 peo-
ple from around the country who came to listen to paranormal lec-
tures, share ghost stories and even do a ghost investigation in the
Bridge Tender on Broadway.
CALLOUTS
• Purveyors of “fake news,” designed to intentionally mis-
lead others with cultivated falsehoods under the pretense of com-
ing from a trusted news source. David Chavern, president and
CEO of the national News Media Alliance, says fake news is not
a new thing. “For more than 150 years, newspapers have been in
the ‘anti-fake news’ business,” he said. “There have always been
lies and ridiculous conspiracy theories, but they used to be deliv-
ered to you across the dinner table and not in your news source.”
Today, about half of Americans get news of some form from
social media, which has given a new rise to fake news, even here
in Astoria and the North Coast. Consumers need to be aware of
who is creating that news, what motivation they have for it and
whether there are real reporters and editors standing behind the
stories. In real journalism those doing the reporting and editing
stand behind their brand, and while the stories may be colorful, the
news is black and white.
Suggestions?
Do you have a Shoutout or Callout you think we should know about? Let
us know at news@dailyastorian.com and we’ll make sure to take a look.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky signals a thumbs-up as he leaves the Senate
chamber on Capitol Hill Thursday after he led the GOP majority to change Senate rules and lower the
vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees from 60 votes to a simple majority in order to advance Neil
Gorsuch to a confirmation vote.
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
W
ASHINGTON — For
euphemism, dissim-
ulation and outright
hypocrisy, there is nothing quite as
entertaining as the
periodic Senate
dust-ups over
Supreme Court
appointments and
the filibuster. The
arguments for
and against the filibuster are so
well-known to both parties as to be
practically memorized. Both none-
theless argue their case with great
shows of passion and conviction.
Then shamelessly switch sides —
and scripts — depending on the
ideology of the nominee.
Everyone appeals to high
principle, when everyone knows
these fights are about raw power.
When Democrat Harry Reid had
the majority in the Senate and
Barack Obama in the White House,
he abolished the filibuster in 2013
for sub-Supreme Court judicial
appointments in order to pack three
liberal judges onto the D.C. Circuit
Court of Appeals.
Bad karma, bad precedent, he
was warned. Republicans would
one day be in charge. That day is
here and Republicans have just
stopped a Democratic filibuster
of Neil Gorsuch by extending the
Reid Rule to the Supreme Court.
To be sure, there are reasoned
arguments to be offered on both
sides of the filibuster question. It is
true that the need for a supermajor-
ity does encourage compromise and
coalition building. But given the
contemporary state of hyperpolar-
ization — the liberal Republicans
and conservative Democrats of
40 years ago are long gone — the
supermajority requirement today
merely guarantees inaction, which,
in turn, amplifies the current
popular disgust with politics in
general and Congress in particular.
In my view, that makes paring back
the vastly overused filibuster, on
balance, a good thing.
Moreover, killing the filibuster
for Supreme Court nominations
(the so-called nuclear option)
yields two gratifications: It allows
a superb young conservative jurist
to ascend to the seat once held by
Antonin Scalia. And it constitutes
condign punishment for the
reckless arrogance of Reid and his
erstwhile Democratic majority.
A major reason these fights over
Supreme Court nominations have
become so bitter and unseemly is
the stakes — the political stakes.
The Supreme Court has become
more than ever a superlegislature.
From abortion to gay marriage, it
has appropriated to itself the final
word. It rules — and the normal
democratic impulses, expressed
through the elected branches, are
henceforth stifled.
Wait for
the next
nomination.
Having
gratuitously
forfeited the
filibuster,
Democrats
will be facing
the loss of
the court for a
generation.
Why have we had almost half a
century of massive street demon-
strations over abortion? Because
the ballot box is not available. The
court has spoken, and the question
is supposedly settled for all time.
This transfer of legislative
authority has suited American
liberalism rather well. When you
command the allegiance of 20 to 25
percent of the population (as mea-
sured by Gallup), you know that
whatever control you will have of
the elected branches will be fleeting
(2009-2010, for example). So how
do you turn the political order in
your direction? Capture the courts.
They are what banks were to
Willie Sutton. They are where you
go for the right political outcomes.
Note how practically every argu-
ment at the Gorsuch hearings was
about political outcomes. Where
would he come out on abortion?
Gay marriage? The Democrats
pretended this was about principle,
e.g. the sanctity of precedent.
But everyone knows which prec-
edents they selectively cherish:
Roe v. Wade and, more recently,
Obergefell v. Hodges.
Liberalism does not want to
admit that the court has become
its last reliable instrument for
achieving its political objectives.
So liberals have created a great
philosophical superstructure to
justify their freewheeling, freestyle
constitutional interpretation. They
present themselves as defenders of
a “living Constitution” under which
the role of the court is to reflect the
evolving norms of society. With its
finger on the pulse of the people,
the court turns contemporary cul-
ture into constitutional law.
But this is nonsense. In a
democracy, what better embodi-
ment of evolving norms can there
be than elected representatives?
By what logic are the norms of a
vast and variegated people better
reflected in nine appointed lawyers
produced by exactly three law
schools? If anything, the purpose
of a constitutional court such as
ours is to enforce old norms that
have preserved both our vitality
and our liberty for 230 years. How?
By providing a rugged reliable
frame within which the political
churnings of each generation take
place.
The Gorsuch nomination is a
bitter setback to the liberal project
of using the courts to ratchet left-
ward the law and society. However,
Gorsuch’s appointment simply
preserves the court’s ideological
balance of power. Wait for the next
nomination. Having gratuitously
forfeited the filibuster, Democrats
will be facing the loss of the court
for a generation.
Condign punishment indeed.