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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, APRIL 10, 2017
Gorsuch prepares to join the Supreme Court
By SAM HANANEL
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Sur-
rounded by family and his
soon-to-be Supreme Court col-
leagues, Neil Gorsuch took the
fi rst of two oaths today as he
prepared to take his seat on the
court and restore its conserva-
tive majority.
The 49-year-old appeals
court judge from Colorado is
being sworn in after a bruis-
ing fi ght that saw Republicans
change the rules for approving
high court picks — over the
fi erce objection of Democrats.
The fi rst ceremony took
place privately in the Justices’
Conference Room, with Chief
Justice John Roberts adminis-
tering the oath required by the
Constitution. Gorsuch placed
his hand on the family Bible
held by his wife, Louise. His
two daughters watched, along
with all eight of the current jus-
tices and most of their spouses.
Also in attendance was
Maureen Scalia, widow of
the late Justice Antonin Sca-
lia, and her eldest son Eugene,
said court spokeswoman
Kathy Arberg.
Later, Gorsuch will appear
at a public White House cere-
mony, where Justice Anthony
Kennedy is to administer a
second oath in which Gor-
such will pledge to adminis-
ter justice impartially and “do
equal right to the poor and to
the rich.” Gorsuch, who once
clerked for Kennedy, will be
the fi rst member of the court
to serve alongside his former
boss.
Gorsuch will fi ll the nearly
14-month-old vacancy created
after the death of Scalia, who
anchored the court’s conser-
vative wing for nearly three
decades before he died unex-
pectedly in February 2016.
In nominating Gorsuch, Pres-
ident Donald Trump said he
fulfi lled a campaign pledge to
pick someone in the mold of
Scalia.
During 11 years on the
federal appeals court in Den-
ver, Gorsuch mirrored Scal-
ia’s originalist approach to the
law, interpreting the Consti-
tution according to the mean-
ing understood by those who
drafted it. Like Scalia, he is
a gifted writer with a fl air
for turning legal jargon into
plain language people can
understand.
Gorsuch will be seated just
in time to hear one of the big-
gest cases of the term: a reli-
gious rights dispute over a Mis-
souri law that bars churches
from receiving public funds
for general aid programs.
His 66-day confi rmation
process was swift, but bit-
terly divisive. It saw Sen-
ate Republicans trigger the
“nuclear option” to eliminate
the 60-vote fi libuster threshold
for all future high court nomi-
nees. The change allowed the
Senate to hold a fi nal vote with
a simple majority.
Most Democrats refused to
support Gorsuch because they
were still seething over the
Republican blockade last year
of President Barack Obama’s
pick for the same seat, Mer-
rick Garland. Senate Repub-
licans refused to even hold a
hearing for Garland, saying a
high court replacement should
be up to the next president.
The White House swear-
ing-in ceremony is a departure
from recent history. Justices
Sonia Sotomayor and Elena
Kagan were both sworn in
publicly at the Supreme Court.
Former Justice John Paul Ste-
vens has argued that holding
the public ceremony at the
court helps drive home the jus-
tice’s independence from the
White House.
IN THE KNOW
Some interesting facts about
Gorsuch and the court:
• He is the youngest
nominee since Clarence
Thomas, who was 43 when
confirmed in 1991.
• The Colorado native
went to high school in
Washington, D.C., while
his mother served as EPA
administrator in the Reagan
administration.
• He’s the sixth member of
the court who attended
Harvard Law School; the
other three got their law
degrees from Yale.
• Gorsuch credits a nun with
teaching him how to write.
He and his family attend an
Episcopal church in Boulder,
though he was raised Catholic
and attended Catholic schools
as a child. He joins a court
that has five Catholics and
three Jews.
• As an associate justice,
Gorsuch will earn $251,800
a year — more than 15
percent higher than his
$217,600 salary as an
appellate judge.
• Gorsuch joins the ranks
of justices who are million-
aires. He reported financial
assets in 2015 worth at least
$3.2 million, according to his
latest financial disclosure
report.
Then-Supreme Court
Justice nominee Judge
Neil Gorsuch is seen on
Capitol Hill in Washington
in February.
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
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Opponents aaid visitors have RV options at nearby parks and campgrounds, including
Bud’s on U.S. Highway 101 in Gearhart.
Gearhart: Sewage, waste from
trailers was another concern
Continued from Page 1A
“My preference is not to
have 20 trailers or 40 or 50
hotel units for 96 hours or
whatever, if we go visiting
we stay in a hotel, and people
can do that as well,” resident
Jeanne Mark said at the hear-
ing. “They can go to an RV
park and set up camp and visit
their friends,”
R esident Lisa Cerveny
said she came from a “fam-
ily of RV ers ” but opposed the
amendment to maintain the
city’s low population density
and protect the town’s “quiet
ambiance.”
Sewage and waste from
trailers was another concern of
opponents .
City Councilors Dan Jesse,
Sue Lorain and Kerry Smith
supported the measure.
“I don’t see a problem with
occasionally grandpa going
out and sleeping in the RV
with his kids, and I don’t see
an enforcement issue if the
permit is posted on the RV on
the person’s property,” Lorain
said.
“I think it’s happening
more than many of us know
or imagine,” Jesse said. “I’d
rather have people do it legally
rather than illegally, so I’d like
to give people the opportunity
to do the right thing and get the
permit.”
Lone vote
Mayor Matt Brown was the
lone vote against the revision .
“I’ve got some problems
with it,” Brown said. “I just
feel it doesn’t go within the
residential nature of Gearhart
and the comprehensive plan,
and it’s hard to prove there’s a
public need for it.”
Brown said he liked the
ordinance “how it is” and saw
a potential downside as a result
of the code change.
“I don’t know how wide-
spread, but there could be neg-
ative impact,” he said.
A separate ordinance lim-
iting RV public areas will be
presented to the City C ouncil
at a future session, driven by a
suggestion by Chief Bowman,
who said at a winter coun-
cil meeting he hopes to make
the “no sleeping” portion of
the
city’s
ordinance
enforceable.
Bowman proposed lan-
guage
prohibiting
RVs
“parked or standing on blocks,
leveling supports, pop-outs
displayed or open,” to enable
enforcement.
Armory: Friends are holding off on a loan
to purchase the building until after cleanup
Continued from Page 1A
from former shooting ranges
at armories statewide. The
upstairs, where most events
are held, was not affected by
the basement, because there is
no forced-air circulation sys-
tem to distribute lead dust.
Davies said the Friends
have made contact with a
lead-certifi ed painting com-
pany to use abrasion machines
to remove the existing coat on
the basement fl oor, which he
added was likely dating back
to a former shooting range.
“It appears that’s where the
lead dust is coming from,” he
said of the fl oor.
Davies said the Armory
hopes to get a bid on the
removal in the coming week,
and to have the work done and
the area cleaned this month.
The Friends are holding off
on a $500,000 loan to pur-
chase the building from cur-
rent owner Craft3 until after
the cleanup. The loan will also
help modernize the Armory,
which used to hold events with
several thousand people but
currently has an occupancy of
750.
Davies said the volunteers
fi xing up the Armory some-
times have to laugh at all the
issues and surprises they’ve
had to deal with in the build-
ing, whether it was cleaning
buried oil tanks and removing
asbestos or cleaning lead con-
tamination and repairing storm
damage. “We’re hoping that
once we get the lead done, we
don’t get a swarm of locusts,”
he said.
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