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4A THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020 Baker City, Oregon Write a letter news@bakercityherald.com EDITORIAL COVID-19 staging a comeback Baker County bucked the statewide and national trends of rising COVID-19 infections for a couple weeks. But no more. After reporting just three new cases of the virus from Oct. 10-23 — a period when Oregon set a record for the most new cases in one day, and rates were increasing in most states — Baker County has had 19 cases in four days. That tally includes 10 cases on Tuesday, the county’s highest one-day total ever. The new cases include at least two students at Haines Elementary School. Those students and some others (offi cials haven’t given an exact number) have been asked to quarantine at home. Nor is the situation confi ned to the Baker School District. On Monday afternoon the Pine Eagle Charter School in Halfway announced that “numerous” stu- dents had been in contact with a local resident who tested positive for COVID-19. Those students were asked to stay at home for 14 days. Both schools remain open, as the county has met the thresholds for case totals established by the Or- egon Department of Education for in-person classes. Baker County’s experience during the pandemic has been moderate, as compared with Oregon’s 35 other counties. The county’s case rate of 743.3 per 100,000 people ranks 17th among counties. Baker County has had only one outbreak — 27 cases at Meadowbrook Place in August, an outbreak that ended several weeks ago — and has avoided the large numbers of cases at workplaces that have plagued many counties. The Powder River Correctional Facil- ity in Baker City has not had any inmates infected, while state prisons in Ontario and Pendleton have had almost 850 between them. But we ought not be complacent. Three county residents who contracted COVID-19 have died. And as the new case totals this week show, the virus continues to lurk. To be sure, we don’t have enough information to say whether any of these recent cases happened because someone failed to take simple precautions, such as wearing a face covering and maintaining social distancing. And neither of those tactics is foolproof, in any case. But masks and distancing and frequent use of hand sanitizer absolutely reduce the risk of spreading CO- VID-19 (as well as other communicable respiratory illnesses, including colds and infl uenza). It’s reasonable to believe that if we heed those rec- ommendations we can continue to keep this virus at relatively low levels in our county, and still maintain a semblance of normality, with events such as the trick- or-treating Saturday in the Sunridge Inn parking lot. This isn’t a purely personal issue. In protecting ourselves we are also helping not only to reduce the risk to our friends, families and neigh- bors, but we’re contributing to keeping students in classrooms and, potentially, businesses operating. — Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor If Supreme Court makes voting harder, it must explain why By Michael McGough During Senate confi rmation hear- ings for Amy Coney Barrett, Democrats argued that, if confi rmed to the Su- preme Court, she should recuse herself from cases related to the presidential election. The issue of Barrett’s participation became more important late Friday, Oct. 23, when Republicans in Pennsyl- vania asked the court to take another look at a decision by Pennsylvania’s Su- preme Court allowing election offi cials to count mail ballots that arrive up to three days after Election Day. On Oct. 19, by a 4-4 vote, the justices refused to disturb that ruling, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., a George W. Bush appointee, joining the court’s three remaining Democratic ap- pointees. But the addition to the court of Barrett could give the Republicans the chance of a favorable ruling. The Democrats were right. Barrett should recuse herself from this and other election-related cases, given President Donald Trump’s comments about needing a ninth justice to resolve a potential disputed election. But even if she does so, the court will face a cred- ibility crisis if it makes it harder for Americans to vote during the coronavi- rus pandemic but doesn’t explain why. In voting not to disturb the Pennsyl- vania Supreme Court’s decision, the two groups of justices didn’t provide explanations for their respective votes. That’s not unusual. It’s common for the court not to issue opinions in the emergency appeals that constitute its so-called “shadow docket.” Two days later, by a 5-3 vote, the court blocked a ruling by a federal judge holding that counties in Alabama could offer curbside voting to make it easier for disabled people to cast their ballots. All fi ve justices appointed by Letters to the editor • We welcome letters on any issue of public interest. Customer complaints about specifi c businesses will not be printed. Republicans were in the majority, and the justices appointed by Democratic presidents were in the minority. The justices in the majority didn’t explain their action. But the dissenters did have their say. In an opinion joined by fellow Demo- cratic appointees Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, Justice Sonia Sotomayor offered a powerful argument for mak- ing curbside voting available, noting that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recommended that states consider that option. She called a federal district court’s ruling, which was based on the Americans With Dis- abilities Act, a “reasonable accommoda- tion” during the pandemic. Sotomayor ended her opinion with a poignant reference to plaintiff Howard Porter Jr., a Black man in his 70s with asthma and Parkinson’s disease who told the district court: “(S)o many of my (ancestors) even died to vote. And while I don’t mind dying to vote, I think we’re past that — we’re past that time.’” Sotomayor, joined by Kagan and the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, also wrote a dissenting opinion in July, when the court refused to revive a dis- trict court ruling that would have made it easier for former inmates convicted of felonies to vote in Florida’s primary election. There were no opinions from justices on the other side. Justices who would make voting harder haven’t been as vocal, though earlier this month Justice Brett Kava- naugh wrote a brief opinion explain- ing why he agreed with the court’s action reinstating South Carolina’s requirement for witness signatures for absentee ballots. Sotomayor and the other liberal justices seem to be operating on the assumption that the court should err on the side of making it easier for people to vote, especially during a health emergency. That’s a defensible approach, but it doesn’t follow that the conservative justices who voted the other way are antidemocratic or trying to throw the election to Trump. Nev- ertheless, their silence in the Alabama case encouraged such speculation. Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at UC Irvine, wrote on his Elec- tion Law Blog that “the conservative justices believe that it is up to states, rather than federal courts, to decide how to best balance health concerns related to voting during the pandemic with burdens on voting rights.” Hasen added that the conservative justices also have adopted a strong view of the so-called Purcell Principle enunciated in a 2006 election decision that warns against changes in voting rules by courts close to the election. (Kavanaugh cited that principle in his opinion in the South Carolina case.) Finally, Hasen saw a common de- nominator in Roberts’ differing votes in the Pennsylvania and Alabama cases: In both matters he was deferring to states or state courts. Hasen may be right, but it would have been helpful if the justices in the majority in the Alabama case had spelled out their legal reasoning rather than leaving it for academics or jour- nalists to fi gure out. The pandemic has changed much about American life — including the way the court hears oral arguments. It also calls for more transparency about how cases on the “shadow docket” are handled. Every action by the court that makes it harder to vote should come with a full explanation. • The Baker City Herald will not knowingly print false or misleading claims. However, we cannot verify the accuracy of all statements in letters to the editor. • Letters will be edited for brevity, grammar, taste and legal reasons. Mail: To the Editor, Baker City Herald, P.O. Box 807, Baker City, OR 97814 Email: news@bakercityherald.com Michael McGough is the Los Angeles Times’ senior editorial writer, based in Washington, D.C. GUEST EDITORIAL Editorial from The Dallas Morning News: To read some of the accounts of Amy Coney Barrett’s confi rmation process would be to believe his- tory had been turned on its head because her nomination, hearing and advancement from the Senate Judiciary Committee happened over the course of a few weeks. The better question might be why this is not the routine of judicial confi rmation for plainly qualifi ed nominees who have already been thoroughly vetted (thoroughly vetted in the present age meaning scraped across the hot coals of Washington’s partisan furnace). One might well disagree with Barrett’s originalist philosophy. One might be bothered by the speeches she has given to the con- servative Federalist Society (some- thing judges and justices of every stripe have done). One might even dislike that she frequently taught a seminar in her area of expertise to law students who openly practice and proclaim their Christian faith. We don’t fi nd any of those matters concerning. But even if we did, it would be important to acknowledge they don’t diminish her obvious qualifi cation to sit on the Supreme Court. We had hoped that when Presi- dent Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland, he, too, would get a fair hearing and a vote. In a more functional political world, Garland would be on the Supreme Court today, because he was clearly quali- fi ed for the job. The farcical theater around judicial appointments today is a terrible political problem, and it is one created by a political system that more often than not refuses to do its job. Congress is all but incapable of even passing a budget — never mind one that is balanced. The body is wholly incapable of facing harder legislative priorities over questions of great importance to the American people. So the Supreme Court becomes the battlefi eld. And judges are selected by both sides for political rather than legal ends. Who can be surprised that we now face a ques- tion of court-packing, something that would represent a terrible new chapter in the politicization of the courts. And it would be equally destructive if court packing was a step Republicans took as a way to recast the court. At some point, we need to preserve institutions and allow them to function as designed. Barrett deserves to be confi rmed because she is the president’s nom- inee and she is qualifi ed. Elections have consequences, and subverting nominees through procedure and for nakedly political reasons is cheap whoever does it. Some will celebrate her confi r- mation as a political victory. They should be careful. When it is up to the courts to solve a democracy’s political problems, that democracy is in a bad way.
