Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 27
Congress must serve as a check on the U.S. Supreme Court
Concerned about expansion of executive power? You’d better vote.
A president who wields power like few before him has received a stunning - and disconcerting - affirmation from the U.S. Supreme Court of just how expansive his reach is, at least as regards immigration.
It is a ruling that should put voters on high alert as they approach midterm elections that carry unusually high stakes if this nation is to preserve the system of checks and balances that is the foundation of American democracy.
In its 5-4 decision upholding an executive ban mainly aimed at certain Muslim-majority countries, the court left little doubt that it considers the president to be the supreme authority on matters regarding who enters or exits this nation, how and under what conditions. Its unambiguous language, crafted by Chief Justice John Roberts, forcefully declared that President Donald Trump “lawfully exercised the broad discretion granted to him … to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States.” That law, the justices said, “exudes deference to the President in every clause, and vests him with ’ample power’ to restrict entry.”
The decision gives a solid green light to Trump for his modified travel ban that restricts entry from the nations of Somalia, Iran, Syria, Libya, Yemen, North Korea and, to a lesser extent, Venezuela. The court went to some lengths to state that it was not ruling on the policy itself. “We express no views on the soundness of the policy,” the majority opinion stated.
Justices chose to ignore the fiery anti-Muslim sentiments repeatedly expressed by Trump. Casting aside intent and motive, the ruling instead focused on the language of the ban itself, whose neutral wording allowed the majority to neatly sidestep the religious animus so evident in Trump’s statements.
The Supreme Court is the highest legal authority in this land, but it has made mistakes before and will again. There are decisions that continue to live in infamy. Among the most shameful, Korematsu vs. United States, which affirmed the president’s ability to remove Japanese-American civilians from their homes and imprison them in internment camps during World War II. Stung by the comparison to Korematsu in a scathing dissent written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Roberts ruling finally, after 74 years, fully repudiated that decision. One can only wonder whether Hawaii vs. Trump will someday meet the same ignominious fate.
The nation need not wait as long this time. Voters alarmed by the often harsh and retaliatory reach of this executive branch should be mindful that they have the ability to effect change in November. If the nation is to have a high court that adheres strictly to the text of the law, ignoring animus and giving the greatest possible deference to the executive, a new Congress could - and should - reassert its authority if there is to be any check at all on the presidency.
The news Wednesday of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s impending retirement - in time for Trump to get a nominee through the GOP-dominated Senate - only underscores the urgency of the moment. Although Kennedy sided with the majority on the travel ban and several other major recent decisions, he has in the past been an important swing vote on preserving abortion rights, legalizing same-sex marriage, limiting the death penalty and other issues.
With Kennedy’s departure, Trump has the opportunity to install a more reliable conservative and build a more solid majority on the court for years to come. A democratic form of government, one with robust checks and balances on runaway power, is not a given - not even in the United States of America. It depends on an engaged electorate.
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St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 27
Early voting? But what about late developments?
Day by day this summer in Minnesota, we witness the forces in play in an unpredictable election year.
Last week, it was a presidential rally in a packed arena in Duluth amid the controversy over immigration policies. Earlier in the month, Minnesotans needed a scorecard to keep up with the filing frenzy among their own candidates.
With stakes high and surprises becoming routine, pundits suggest we buckle up and expect the unexpected.
It’s good advice; a lot can happen between now and the state primary election on Aug. 14, and between then and Election Day on Nov. 6. That gives us pause, as we wonder how unforeseen developments - including the potential for 11th-hour surprises - square with Minnesota’s rising trend toward early voting.
And it’s almost time: Absentee voting for the Aug. 14 state primary election begins Friday, June 29.
Ramsey County Elections Manager Joe Mansky estimates that about a quarter of total primary votes will be cast before Primary Day, with most of that activity taking place during the early voting period, Aug. 7 to 13.
It’s clear voters are embracing the convenience of early voting, but what happens if a major campaign development changes a voter’s mind about a ballot that’s been cast?
The website of the Minnesota Secretary of State puts it succinctly: “You can ask to cancel your ballot until the close of business one week before Election Day. After that time, you cannot cancel your ballot.”
Any ballot cast before the Election Day but after the deadline “will be counted as cast,” Mansky wrote in an email. “This would include a ballot submitted by mail, an in-person absentee ballot or an early ballot placed in the ballot counter. So, last seven days - no second chance.”
In theory, the window during which a voter could potentially change his or her mind helps mitigate risk, according to Hamline University professor David Schultz. In practicality, most people won’t go to the trouble of seeking a replacement ballot.
Further, he notes, “we have mixed evidence, at best, that early voting increases turnout.”
Instead, people simply vote over a longer period, the professor suggests, while noting evidence suggesting that early voting has particular appeal to some specific groups, including younger people, people of color and mothers with young children.
An extended voting period also changes the dynamic for candidates, Schultz observes. In the past, elections were “like running a marathon, where you peak on Election Day.” Now candidates must consider “messaging” over many days, a factor that adds complexity to campaigns.
As for power of 11th-hour developments to change an election, examples abound, Schultz notes. Standing out among them is the 2002 death of Sen. Paul Wellstone just 11 days before Election Day.
The professor cites another memorable example involving the late senator, from the 1990 campaign in which he unseated incumbent Republican Rudy Boschwitz. It was the notorious so-called “Jewish letter” the Boschwitz campaign sent during the last weekend of the campaign to leaders of that faith. It criticized Wellstone for raising his children outside the Jewish religion.
“The letter angered voters on all sides, blew a hole in Boschwitz’s support and helped Wellstone win a narrow victory,” Pioneer Press reporters observed in an analysis. The incident “went into the state’s history books as an example of how not to close a political campaign.”
In elections at all levels, people do change their minds. Those who vote early accept a trade-off, opting for convenience and accepting some risk.
The question’s an interesting one in a volatile year in which the unexpected is a sure thing.
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Post Bulletin, June 26
Wilder’s books get a healthy reassessment
“There were no people” on the Minnesota prairie when Laura Ingalls Wilder’s family arrived in the late 19th century.
“There were no people,” Wilder wrote. “Only Indians lived there.”
That’s a line from “Little House on the Prairie,” published in 1935. Many years later, the line was rephrased, but as written, it’s as if the Ojibwe, Dakota, Osage and other indigenous people didn’t exist, other than to cause trouble for white settlers.
You may not have noticed it when you were a kid, but the “Little House” books are chock full of examples of biased language and insensitive attitudes about Native Americans and blacks. For that reason, a division of the American Library Association voted last week to remove Wilder’s name from its award for children’s literature.
Wilder was the first winner of the award in 1954, but times have changed and the library association has taken an important step to correct the record, and help readers rethink what they know about pioneer days on the Great Plains.
“The decision was made in consideration of the fact that Wilder’s legacy, as represented by her body of work, includes expressions of stereotypical attitudes inconsistent with (our) core values of inclusiveness, integrity and respect, and responsiveness,” the organization said. Having her name on the award was no longer “consistent with the intention of the award named for her.”
The organization emphatically said it’s not trying to “prohibit access to Wilder’s work or suppress discussion about them.” The books “are a product of her life, experience and perspective as an individual white woman of her era. Her works reflect mainstream, although certainly not universal, cultural attitudes toward indigenous people and people of color” during her era, “and during the era in which the award was established.”
The “Little House” books and Wilder’s family saga are a core part of Minnesota and Upper Midwest mythology. She was born just across the Mississippi River from the Wabasha area in 1867, and her family zigzagged across the Midwest during those pioneering years, with stops in the Lake City area, South Troy and Spring Valley.
After the “Little House” books came out, Minnesotans claimed her as part of our historical legacy, along the lines of Paul Bunyan and Ole and Lena. Spring Valley has a Wilder display at the local Methodist Church Museum, and U.S. Highway 14 is the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historical Highway. There’s a reconstruction of her family’s log cabin north of Pepin, Wisconsin.
But the past is always up for grabs and in need of reassessment. There’s no doubt that Wilder’s perspective on that era has a “reductive” approach to Native Americans, and to the manifest destiny of whites on what had been native lands.
One line that echoes hauntingly through the books is, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Thus, it was time to remove her name from one of the top awards for children’s books.
That doesn’t mean parents and children should quit reading the “Little House” books, or that you should call the school district to get them out of the library. No one would claim they’re great literature like Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” but there’s value in the stories they tell of pioneer life. With good teachers and new introductions, they may have even more educational value than before. And Michael Landon will keep the franchise going forever on cable TV.
This episode is a reminder that it’s healthy to take a fresh look at the heroes and icons who are part of our culture, and reassess what they have to teach us. That’s not political correctness. As the Rochester Public Library says, that’s “growing in wisdom,” with the knowledge that no generation has a lock on wisdom.
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