Editorial Roundup: United States

Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

July 26

The Washington Post on Biden's SCOTUS reform plan

In an Oval Office speech on Wednesday, President Biden announced that he supports reforming the Supreme Court, “because this is critical to our democracy.” But how? There are reforms that would make the institution more politicized — and then there are reforms that would make it less politicized. Encouragingly, Mr. Biden apparently favors some that move in the right direction.

Before Mr. Biden withdrew his candidacy, The Post reported that he had two proposals in mind: First, establish an enforceable ethics code for the justices; second, subject them to term limits. Each idea presents constitutional issues. It is not clear if life tenure for members of the federal judiciary can be changed through ordinary legislation or would require constitutional amendment. Similarly, any effort by Congress to impose a binding ethics code on the Supreme Court could violate the separation of powers. For now, though, it’s enough to consider reform suggestions on their merits, which are real.

We have long supported Supreme Court term limits. In part, this is because they are preferable to a more radical alternative progressives have been trying to push on Mr. Biden since the beginning of his presidency: to increase the court’s size and “pack” it with ideologically friendly appointees. The origins of this movement lie in Democrats’ understandable ire over the recent history of appointments. Senate Republicans managed to solidify a GOP-appointed majority for the foreseeable future by refusing to consider one of President Barack Obama’s nominees months before the 2016 election, then fast-tracking President Donald Trump’s pick under similar circumstances in 2020. The court has frequently ruled the way Republicans wanted, on everything from abortion to federal regulation.

But packing the court would answer Republican politicization with Democratic politicization. The point is to make the judiciary less of a partisan playground. Term limits would help achieve that. One reason Supreme Court nomination battles are so intense is because the stakes are so high. People live a lot longer than they did when the Framers wrote life tenure for judges into the Constitution — to protect the courts against undue influence. Nowadays, a president elected to a single four-year term can influence the judiciary’s course for a generation.

An 18-year term for justices, however, would fit better with the periods their presidential and congressional counterparts serve. If terms on the court were staggered, coming open every four or so years, it would be rarer for a president to install a disproportionate number. Conversely, winning the presidency more often would — appropriately — mean more appointments for a more popular party over time. Justices would feel less pressure to time their retirements based on partisan control of the presidency or Senate. And senators would have less reason to vote against qualified nominees for fear that their choices could doom their legislative agendas for decades.

The idea of an ethics code arises from recent scandals over the failure of the court’s existing self-regulation system. Justice Clarence Thomas took luxury vacations funded by a high-dollar GOP donor without reporting them on financial disclosure forms; Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was also reticent about his travel to an Alaskan fishing lodge on the dime of a hedge fund executive whose firm had business before the court. The involvement of Justice Thomas’s wife in “Stop the Steal” efforts after the 2020 election also raised eyebrows. Neither justice recused from arguably related proceedings, though eventually — begrudgingly — Justice Thomas, without admitting any ethical lapse, produced more forthcoming reports. (Justice Alito insisted in op-eds that he had disclosed everything the rules require.)

This debacle pointed to the need for greater clarity as to the types of gifts that require disclosure, as well as what fundraising activities are appropriate, which the court, belatedly, provided. What’s still lacking is an enforcement mechanism, which could be hard to design without intruding on the judicial branch’s independence. The president’s forthcoming proposal ought to contribute to that debate by suggesting not only a set of standards to which the court ought to be held but also a system for holding them to it that could pass constitutional muster. One possibility is to keep that system within the judicial branch, by giving the job to retired federal judges whom justices could at least consult regarding their ethical responsibilities.

Now that Mr. Biden is no longer a candidate, there is less chance that his proposals can be dismissed as an election-year gambit. Certainly, he should write them as if that’s true; members of the legislative and judicial branches should treat them in the same spirit, too.

ONLINE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/26/biden-supreme-court-term-limits-ethics/

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July 26

The New York Times on debates, transparency in the current election cycle

Vice President Kamala Harris, now the likely Democratic nominee, has the chance to encourage and embrace the kind of close examination that the public so far has had little opportunity to witness during the 2024 race.

Americans deserve a campaign that tests the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates; that highlights their differences and allows scrutiny of their plans; that motivates people to vote by giving them a clear account of how their choice in this election will affect their lives.

Americans deserve the opportunity to ask questions of those who are seeking to lead their government.

There are promising signs in the early days of Ms. Harris’s candidacy. She has bounced onto the campaign trail with a sense of joyful purpose, seizing the opening to reintroduce herself. She has begun to detail the dangers of a second Trump presidency and to delineate her differences with Donald Trump, while describing her vision for a country where people have the support they need to prosper.

But she needs to do more, and she needs to do it quickly. Ms. Harris ought to challenge Mr. Trump to a series of debates or town halls on subjects of national importance, such as the economy, foreign policy, health care and immigration. Mr. Trump claims that he is ready and willing to participate in debates once Democrats have officially selected a nominee. Americans would benefit from comparing the two candidates directly.

Both candidates need to start taking questions from reporters, too. Candidates have abundant opportunities to speak directly to voters, through social media and tightly controlled public appearances, without the mediation of journalists. Most voters, however, will never be able to speak directly with candidates. President Biden has rarely granted the news media permission to ask questions on behalf of the American people, and on the rare occasions he did, his team sometimes sent scripted questions. It left him poorly prepared for the campaign trail and for confronting his opponent. Mr. Trump, too, rarely takes questions. Ms. Harris has the chance to do better.

Engaging with voters is especially important for Ms. Harris because she would be the first major-party presidential candidate in modern times who did not pass through the state primary process, in which voters have a chance to take the measure of candidates and to ask questions about the issues that matter most to their communities.

Ms. Harris’s candidacy does not require legitimation. She is the clear choice of her party. An Ipsos poll this week found that 89 percent of Democrats supported her running as the party’s nominee. But addressing small crowds in small places and answering questions from local reporters are rituals during the primaries for a reason. Unlike large public rallies, they are occasions for encounters on equal footing, and they are an education for the candidate as much as for voters.

With debates and town halls, Ms. Harris would also have an opportunity to draw an even starker contrast with Mr. Trump. Presidential campaigns increasingly are conducted as performances before a sympathetic audience, one that is invited to watch and listen but not to question or respond. The false intimacy of social media gives the impression that candidates are more present than ever in the lives of their supporters, but those relationships are one-way streets. Candidates are seen by the electorate but they do not see; they are heard but they do not hear.

Mr. Trump, who speaks mostly about Mr. Trump, is an extreme example of this tendency — and it is a perfect embodiment of his politics. If Trump campaign officials were reluctant to have their candidate appear at large outside rallies in the wake of the assassination attempt against him, no one would question that fear. His campaign, however, continues to exist primarily as a series of long, winding speeches that offer no insight into how he would end the war in Ukraine or how he would solve the crisis at the border, two of the many goals he has promised to accomplish if re-elected. The former president has barely been pressed on important policy questions or offered any concrete plans.

Both candidates say they are running for office to help ordinary Americans. One way for Americans to judge those claims is by their campaigns. Good leaders speak, and they listen. They welcome scrutiny. They accept responsibility. Ms. Harris now has a chance to demonstrate that she will be the kind of leader who deserves the nation’s support.

ONLINE: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/26/opinion/kamala-harris-donald-trump-debate.html

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July 24

The Wall Street Journal says President Biden owed Americans an honest reason for ducking out of the 2024 election

President Biden explained his abrupt departure from the presidential campaign in a speech to the nation Wednesday evening . . . actually, no he didn’t. He delivered an address from the Oval Office saying it was time to “pass the torch to a new generation.” But why was he all-in for re-election five days ago but all-out now? He didn’t say.

Did he have some sudden health setback that forced the decision? Or was it a gradual recognition of his growing inability to do the job that finally took hold and he was forced to admit? Or, more likely, was he pushed from the race by fellow Democrats who had concluded that he was a sure loser to Donald Trump and had to go, or they would all say so in public? Mr. Biden explained nothing.

“The defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think is more important than any title,” he said, without saying why he could no longer do the defending. He could have reassured Americans that he is still capable of doing the job for another six months, while warning adversaries not to take advantage of his remaining lame-duck period in office.

Americans were left instead to infer the reasons as Mr. Biden said his accomplishments had earned him a second term but he would no longer seek it. His speech will do nothing to dispel the view that this was a coup by Democratic power brokers, and that he and they and his aides had been hiding the truth about his decline from the voters for months, if not years.

We wanted to give Mr. Biden the benefit of the doubt for making the right decision to withdraw, and a gracious farewell would have enhanced that decision. He owed the country more than the self-serving, non-campaign campaign speech he chose to deliver on Wednesday.

ONLINE: https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-ducks-the-farewell-question-69cae97f?mod=editorials_more_article_pos17

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July 25

The Los Angeles Times on abortion

Abortion opponents peddle various myths about the procedure to discredit it and demonize the people who provide or support it. Abortion is healthcare. The earlier it is available, the easier it is for people to make choices about their bodies that will affect the rest of their lives. But during election season, expect to hear some or all of these fallacies as Republicans who oppose abortion inaccurately discuss it.

Abortion can happen after birth

None are as ludicrous as the myth Donald Trump pitched in the presidential debate in June when he said Democrats “will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth — after birth.”

Of course, there is no such thing as abortion after birth. Killing a fetus that emerges alive is infanticide. Abortion involves ending a pregnancy when the fetus is still in the uterus.

In California, abortion is legal up to the point of the fetus’ viability to survive outside the uterus, which is around 24-25 weeks — or later if the abortion is necessary to protect the health or life of the pregnant person. The state is one of 20 where abortion is legal to the point of viability or a couple weeks less. In nine states and the District of Columbia, it is legal for any reason to have an abortion beyond that period.

“I think it’s exceedingly rare to do an abortion past 32 weeks even in states where there are no limits,” says Daniel Grossman, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at University of California, San Francisco and the director of the the research program, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health.

In fact, only about 1% of abortions are performed past 21 weeks of gestation. When they do occur, they are usually done for severe fetal anomalies or to save a woman’s life, health or fertility.

Trump also falsely claimed that a former Democratic governor of Virginia said he was willing to “rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby.” Not true. In fact, he said the opposite. In a 2019 interview, former Gov. Ralph Northam was asked about a Virginia state bill that would remove the requirement for three doctors to agree on whether an abortion was medically necessary in the third trimester. Northam, who is a pediatric neurologist, said that should be a decision left to the woman and her own doctor.

He then talked about a situation where a doctor induces labor to deliver a fetus with a severe health problem not expected to live. He said: “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen — the infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired.” Keeping the baby comfortable without performing aggressive measures is sometimes referred to as perinatal hospice care.

Abortion is never necessary for emergency medical care

Yes, it is. If the amniotic sac ruptures prematurely, especially in the second trimester, that can lead to infection, sepsis, a possible hysterectomy or death. That’s why an abortion is often performed. (If the sac ruptures in the third trimester, labor can often be induced at some point.) A pregnant person who develops a condition where the placenta completely covers the cervix and begins to bleed heavily also may need an abortion.

These kinds of severe complications were at the heart of the case the Supreme Court heard this session on whether the state of Idaho’s extreme abortion law prevented pregnant women from getting the emergency care required in U.S. hospitals that receive federal funding. In Idaho, some women with severe pregnancy complications had to be airlifted to other states to have emergency abortions. The court decided it should not have granted review of the case but did restore a lower court’s order blocking the part of the law requiring women to be near death before getting an emergency abortion.

Medication abortion is dangerous to women

Medication abortion — the most common abortion procedure in the U.S. — is a two-drug regimen that has been prescribed in the United States since 2000. Serious complications occur in less than one-third of 1% of uses. That’s safer than taking Tylenol.

The Supreme Court recently dismissed a case from a group of antiabortion doctors and organizations contending that mifepristone, the first drug in the regimen, had not been studied carefully enough by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — despite the drug being safely in use for two decades. The court said the doctors had no standing to bring the suit since not one of them could identify a case where a doctor was forced, against their conscience, to perform a surgical abortion to deal with complications from a medication abortion.

A majority of Americans support reproductive freedom and have voted to protect abortion access since the Supreme Court abolished that right in 2022. That hasn’t stopped Republicans from trying to use fear and falsehoods to justify their campaign to further whittle down abortion rights across the nation. In an election season filled with rhetoric, a woman’s ability to control her own body should not be obstructed by lies about what that means.

ONLINE: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-07-25/editorial-trump-abortion-myths-that-should-not-fool-you

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July 25

The Philadelphia Daily News/Inquirer on the Trump shooter, mental health resources in schools

“He was bullied almost every day. He was just an outcast.” That observation by a former classmate of the 20-year-old man shot and killed by Secret Service agents after attempting to assassinate Donald Trump should have quelled all the loose talk spewed by the former president’s supporters to persuade voters that the tragic incident was politically motivated.

Profiles of Thomas Matthew Crooks thus far instead resemble those of other young mass shooters going as far back as the 1999 murders of 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado. Since 1980, the median age of a mass shooter in this country has dropped from 39 years old to 22. Most mass shooters of any age are also non-Hispanic white men.

Could Crooks have wanted to leave life in a blaze of glory? A Secret Service sharpshooter fatally shot him within moments after he wounded Trump and shot three other men, one of whom died.

The lack of evidence leading to a specific motive for Crooks may leave that question unanswered forever, but that hasn’t stopped unsubstantiated accusations that he was stirred to action by anti-Trump comments made by President Joe Biden and other Democrats. It’s true that Crooks donated $15 to a Democratic organization on the day Biden was inaugurated in 2021, but later that year he registered to vote as a Republican.

While the search for Crooks’ motivation continues, we should return to a topic that, like the need for better gun laws, our nation has yet to adequately address. America’s overburdened, underfunded mental health system still lacks enough resources to both help people before they become mass shooters and address the neglected needs of the general population.

Our high schools, in particular, where students spend as much as seven hours a day or more, need trained staff members who can provide appropriate counseling before a student hurts themself or others.

“He sat by himself, didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t even try to make conversation,” said another classmate of Crooks. “ He was an odd kid, but nothing about him seemed dangerous.” Figuring out which “odd kid” needs help requires more guidance counselors and advanced mental health professionals at our schools. Instead, many school boards have reduced those positions to save money.

The American School Counselor Association recommends at least one counselor for every 250 students, but only Vermont (186) and New Hampshire (208) meet those criteria. Both Pennsylvania (353) and New Jersey (337) fall under the national average of 444 students per counselor, but their schools also fail to meet the ASCA standard.

That means even when an overburdened school counselor notices a student has issues beyond bad grades or choosing a college, the demands of assisting dozens of other students may give them little time to intervene effectively. Even if time isn’t an issue, most guidance counselors are not specifically trained to help a student who exhibits behavior that may indicate they might commit a violent act.

The National Association of School Psychologists recommends schools have one psychologist on-site for every 500 students, but the national average is only one psychologist for every 1,127 students. In Pennsylvania, the average is one school psychologist for every 1,022 students. New Jersey averages one psychologist for every 663 students, but that doesn’t meet the NASP standard, either.

Most students who need help don’t become a danger to others, but many harm themselves, and some die by suicide. Students’ mental health was further impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which closed schools, limited children’s interaction with peers, and increased their time on social media sites. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared a mental health crisis among children in 2021 and issued another warning last year about social media’s adverse impact on young people.

School districts need more resources to intervene when they recognize a student needs mental health assistance. One avenue may be funding provided through a federal grant program that is part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act signed into law last year by President Biden. It includes $1 billion to be competitively awarded to school districts implementing programs to “prevent and respond to acts of bullying, violence, and hate.”

Urgency, however, should also spur state and local governments and school boards to act beyond stringent security measures.

Schools not only need teachers, administrators, and support staff, they also need enough guidance counselors and mental health professionals on-site to help prevent a school from becoming the scene of an avoidable calamity.

ONLINE: https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/matthew-crooks-motive-mental-health-trump-shooting-20240725.html