Colorado Editorial Roundup

The (Colorado Springs) Gazette, Jan. 31, on President Trump nominating Colorado’s Neil Gorsuch for Supreme Court:

Congratulations to President Donald Trump for nominating Boulder resident and 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the void left by deceased U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Opportunities don’t get better than this.

The Denver native’s resume alone ranks Gorsuch among the cream of the top 1 percent of lawyers in the United States. He graduated with honors from Columbia University and Harvard Law School. He furthered his studies at Oxford University, earning a doctorate in legal philosophy.

Gorsuch is the son of Anne Gorsuch Burford, the first woman administrator of the EPA. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and former Supreme Court Justice Byron “Whizzer” White, a Fort Collins native and alumnus of the University of Colorado at Boulder who wrote the dissent in Roe v. Wade.

When Trump met with The Gazette’s editorial board in July, we grilled the aspiring president about his promise to nominate only originalist judges vetted and recommended by the Federalist Society, an organization of legal scholars that opposes judicial activism and constitutional revision. We asked Trump to promise, pledge and make no exceptions. He gave us his word, saying replacement of Scalia could be his most important decision.

We want an originalist, Scalia-like judge because disciplined interpretation of the Constitution has kept this country prosperous and free for 241 years. We cannot afford more modernist “living document” interpretations of principles that should not change to fit political tides or the whims of cultural fashion.

At 49, Gorsuch is the youngest among candidates remaining on Trump’s short list. He could serve for three decades or more.

Adam Feldman, a fellow in empirical study of public law at Columbia Law School, ranked Gorsuch as a “heavy originalist,” after studying a long list of federal judges and analyzing them on a basis of “decisions that demonstrated repeated analyses premised on original understandings of the Constitution.”

Throughout his campaign, Trump promised a Supreme Court appointee “like Scalia.” That led a distinguished group of law professors to research federal judges and determine which were the most like Scalia. They developed the Scalia Index Score, which ranks judges based on how often the judge promotes or practices originalism; how often the judge cites Scalia’s nonjudicial writings containing interpretation of law; and how often the judge writes separately when dissenting from the majority opinion. Gorsuch has the highest Scalia Index Score among remaining contenders.

All research paints Gorsuch as a judge who consistently advocates judicial restraint, challenges judicial deference to federal agencies, and questions over-regulation and excessive criminalization.

He is widely credited, and awarded, as a gifted legal writer. A sample:

“If sometimes the cynic in all of us fails to see our Nation’s successes when it comes to the rule of law maybe it’s because we are like David Foster Wallace’s fish that’s oblivious to the life-giving water in which it swims. Maybe we overlook our Nation’s success in living under the rule of law only because, for all our faults, that success is so obvious it’s sometimes hard to see,” Gorsuch wrote for the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.

Most importantly, Gorsuch understands the First Amendment. He wrote the 10th Circuit’s decision in Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. v. Sebelius. Upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States, the ruling prevents government from forcing “those with sincerely held religious beliefs” to buy contraceptives or participate in that which their religions teach are “gravely wrong.”

Gorsuch wrote the decision in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Burwell, which led to the Supreme Court protecting nuns and others from elements of Obamacare they consider in violation of beliefs.

Without fail, Gorsuch has eloquently protected First Amendment religious protections from perverse interpretations of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

Trump could not have made a better Supreme Court appointment than Gorsuch. He is a defender of liberty and justice and stands the best chance of filling the prodigious void created by Scalia’s death.

Editorial: https://bit.ly/2jB5zmb

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The Vail Daily, Jan. 31, on what a new U.S. attorney general could mean for Colorado:

By the time you read this, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions may be well on his way to becoming the new U.S. attorney general. Among critics’ concerns is one that may hit home in Colorado: Sessions’ stance on marijuana.

Sessions is said to oppose liberalized state marijuana laws. As head of the U.S. Justice Department, that could mean a serious about-face in federal policy, since even the possession of marijuana remains a federal felony.

Over the past eight years, former President Barack Obama appointed two attorneys general who took a mostly hands-off stance as states liberalized their marijuana laws. That led to more liberalization efforts, and there are now 28 states in which marijuana is legal for either medical or recreational use.

Those states include California - long a medical-use state, which legalized recreational marijuana in the November election.

With that many states liberalizing their laws, there may finally be support in Congress for relaxing federal marijuana laws.

Action in the states - including Colorado - was one of the driving forces in repealing alcohol prohibition in the early 1930s. The constitutional amendment prohibiting the sale, production, importation and transportation of alcoholic beverages quickly became a national disaster, and was repealed just 13 years after it was enacted in 1920.

While there’s still a lot of concern about marijuana, we’ve now had a few years to see how legalizing pot has worked in Colorado and Washington. The fears of the most fervid marijuana opponents haven’t materialized, mostly, and pot has grown into a big business in those states.

New federal crackdowns on legal marijuana would needlessly affect thriving and growing businesses, and the people who work for those businesses. Relaxing federal laws - particularly regarding banking - would enable those businesses to continue to grow.

But Congress needs to act for that to happen. There seems to be plenty of popular will across the country, so we’ll see if that translates to federal action.

Until Congress acts, legitimate businesses in more than half the country will be left to wonder about a federal law enforcement system that can either turn a blind eye to those businesses or decide to enforce the letter of federal law, depending on who happens to hold the top job.

Editorial: https://bit.ly/2jTJwdT

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The Durango Herald, Jan. 26, on early education:

Educators universally recognize the importance of early education. The earlier a youngster is exposed to learning skills and content, the better. This applies not only to beginning a second language, where young minds are especially sensitive, but to other areas of learning as well. A youngster who begins first grade with a good vocabulary, knowing numbers and some concepts will be much more successful than a youngster who does not.

In Colorado, kindergarten is funded only at a half-day level. For a school district to cover the cost of a full day of kindergarten, it has to take funds from other years and programs. That is what Durango School District 9-R does, recognizing the importance of that full day. Many other districts stop at a half day.

Last week, members of a state Senate committee voted along party lines to kill a bill that would have asked Colorado voters to begin funding kindergarten at a higher level. Eventually, in 2022, a full day would be fully funded.

There had been testimony before the committee from several educators as to the value of full-day kindergarten.

The opposition claimed that a statewide vote, assuming the question passed, would create a one-size-fits-all scenario, and that individual districts should decide the degree of funding for kindergarten.

That was unfortunate.

Colorado, like many states, has a school funding system that has led to a significant gulf between districts with adequate property assessments to produce school tax revenues, and those without. Generally, metropolitan districts, those with mountain resorts or colleges or universities, do better. Small mountain communities, the eastern plains and south-central Colorado fare worse. The state backfills the less prosperous districts, but insufficiently.

Legislators, particularly Republicans, are very wary of raising taxes. The best that can be done sometimes is to ask voters whether they want to increase taxes, or in this case, to specifically direct funding.

Raising the floor in kindergarten funding so that all Colorado children could benefit from a full day would reflect well on the entire state. Good education means better jobs, and better family lives and community vigor. That should be the goal as much as possible in all parts of the state.

We hope that advocates for full-day kindergarten continue to work to shape legislation that will make it possible to provide the important jump-start for all children entering school. Putting as much as possible into the earliest years makes it much more likely that school success will follow.

Editorial: https://bit.ly/2kbKAeo

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The (Grand Junction) Daily Sentinel, Jan. 29, on a major liquefied natural gas project:

We’ve supported the Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas project largely on the promise of the jobs it will create in western Colorado - a position that seemingly puts us at odds with our oft-stated hope that we can reshape our local economy to be less dependent on an industry that rises and falls with commodity prices.

But Jordan Cove would help stabilize those fluctuations by establishing opportunities to sell Piceance Basin natural gas to overseas buyers at prices that would be locked in over a period of decades.

Opening global markets and reducing tariffs has long been a hallmark of the GOP’s economic freedom agenda, with many Democrats accepting free trade as a pillar of American prosperity.

President Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, however, caps a shift in nearly a century of U.S. economic policy toward freer markets.

Trump isn’t alone in questioning how trade deals impact Americans at home. Hillary Clinton opposed the TPP after initially supporting it - probably because Trump and Bernie Sanders criticized it to great effect.

Now that the TPP is dead, Trump faces a lot of skeptics. Big businesses are concerned that his protectionist stance will undermine their ability to sell to the vast majority of the world’s consumers.

“It’s clear that those of us who believe trade is good for American families have done a terrible job defending trade’s historic successes and celebrating its future potential. We have to make the arguments and we have to start now,” Nebraska’s Republican Sen. Ben Sasse said in a statement.

If Jordan Cove is ever approved - and we’ll get to that in a minute - the TPP would have made it easier to sell natural gas to Pacific Rim nations in the trade pact. Increased trade with Asian countries could have benefited Colorado’s ranchers, too. Japan would have chopped its tariff on American beef from 38.5 percent to 9 percent, helping ranchers become more competitive abroad.

Trump’s aversion to multilateral trade deals is a paradox to western Colorado. On one hand, he’s viewed as a savior of energy development. On the other, he’s creating trade policy uncertainty and limiting, rather than expanding, opportunities for LNG exports.

But before we can worry about how Trump has impacted U.S. companies’ access to the international LNG market, we need an export facility for Piceance gas - Jordan Cove on the Oregon coast.

Trump needs to fill vacancies on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - the agency that oversees the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas and oil. The recent resignation of Norman Bay leaves FERC with just two commissioners - not enough for a quorum.

But Jordan Cove backers see this as a good thing. Trump will select replacements who can prioritize Jordan Cove’s approval.

The commission originally rejected the project saying that backers failed to demonstrate need. Since then, agreements have been made to sell LNG to Japanese utilities that could account for 75 percent of a connector pipeline’s capacity and 50 percent of the terminal’s.

Meanwhile, back in December, Japan struck several energy agreements with Russia to develop a natural gas supply chain. Will this affect demand for U.S. LNG? Or will it speed approval of an export terminal to counter Russia’s influence? Did Trump’s election victory and promise to pull the U.S. out of the TPP force Japan to make a deal it might not have considered otherwise?

These are questions arising from a populist president with an inconsistent policy agenda.

Editorial: https://bit.ly/2keFKuc