OPINION

THE MESA TRIBUNE | JANUARY 30, 2022

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Color alone not the only criterion for Supreme Court

BY DAVID LEIBOWITZ

Tribune Columnist

United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announced his upcoming retirement on a Wednesday morning. Within the hour, reporters, pundits and politicos had settled on a must for the 83-year-old’s successor: The next justice, the 116th in the history of our nation, must be a Black woman.

This certainty dates back to a promise President Biden made during the 2020 primaries. Struggling to get traction, especially with Black voters, Biden went to South Carolina needing a jump start to his campaign. His promise at a February 2020 debate:

“I’m looking forward to making sure there’s a Black woman on the Supreme Court to make sure we in fact get everyone represented.”

The applause was loud. Biden won a seven-way primary with 49 percent of the vote.

I understand we live in a nation where 108 out of 115 members of the highest court in the land have been white men. I understand and see value in diversity, of justices who bring different perspectives and cultures to the court – even if they tend to vote in lockstep with either one of America’s two dominant, disastrous political parties.

But for days I’ve been scouring the news waiting for someone to say what to me seemed abundantly obvious: Shouldn’t the President, a Democrat, nominate the most qualified liberal justice to the court, as opposed to filtering out candidates based on race and gender?

I mean this as no slight to the jurists on the shortlist: Ketanji Brown Jackson, who currently sits on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, considered the second most-important court in the country.

Harvard-educated, a former editor of the Harvard Law Review, Brown Jackson clerked for Breyer early in her career. Also getting serious consideration is Leondra Kruger, who currently sits on the California Supreme Court. Kruger previously clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens and, as an assistant U.S. Solicitor General, she argued a dozen cases before SCOTUS.

If either of these two amazing Black women is the most-qualified choice for the Court, then I celebrate the appointment.

Ironically, next year the Court is scheduled to hear a case on affirmative action in education. The original lawsuits contend that Harvard and the University of North Carolina discriminate against Asian students, who scored higher than other racial cohorts on admission criteria like grades, tests scores and extracurriculars, but were scored down on qualities like courage, kindness, personality and likability.

The end result? A racial quota system that kept the number Asian students artificially low in favor of admitting a more diverse student body.

The concept that every facet of life requires equal representation by skin color is a shaky proposition, easy to turn on its head.

For example, the National Basketball Association in 2020 was about 74 percent African-American, 17 percent white, not quite three percent Latino and Asian, and six percent players of other races. Today, non-Latino Whites comprise 58 percent of the U.S. population. Latinos make up 19 percent, Blacks 12 percent.

Imagine the insanity that would ensue if the NBA mandated that each 15-man seeLEIBOWITZ page 25

Infrastructure growth critical to Maricopa County

BY JACK SELLERS

Tribune Guest Writer

As we enter year three of the COVID-19 crisis, I can’t help but think about what

we’ve lost.

The loss of life, the loss of livelihoods. Those have been devastating. And we must do everything we can to limit the health and financial impacts of the pandemic in the coming months.

But I also think about the loss of time.

Elected leaders and policy makers have focused so much on the here and now that long-term planning has been largely neglected.

There can be no more delays.

It’s time to get to work on assuring a prosperous future for our region.

So, what does that mean?

Above all, we need to invest in critical infrastructure and technology that will make us attractive to individuals and businesses for the next 20 years.

I’ve been saying for years that we must craft a regional transportation plan to replace Prop 400. It needs to assure regional equity and flexibility, and it needs to be something voters across the County can support.

I’m grateful we have a governor who understands the important role infrastructure plays in our economic future. I know there are leaders in cities and towns across Maricopa County who understand this, too.

But I also know what the political environment is like right now. I know that things that used to be non-partisan are now viewed through the lens of Republicans and Democrats, good and evil, winning and losing.

We cannot let politics derail progress. Investments in infrastructure and technology are just good basic government. They should be non-partisan.

Even Congress seems to be getting the message. The federal infrastructure bill passed by both chambers and signed by the President will be good for Maricopa County. I’m confident those dollars can be used to support worthwhile projects.

But to make the most out of taxpayer dollars, we need consensus about our goals. And we need to think through some key questions like: • What projects or investments are going to be needed to maintain or improve our high quality of life? • What framework will best enable the efficient movement of commerce and how do we ensure continuity as transit crosses city or county boundaries? • How will we account for and take advantage of the possibility of autonomous delivery and passenger drones? • What place does fixed rail have in our transportation future?

Crafting and getting voter approval for a new regional transportation plan is probably my biggest priority moving forward. But it’s not my only focus.

Infrastructure means nothing without people.

Right now, we are the #1 ranked county for attracting skilled workers. If we want to retain that distinction, investing in our education system needs to be a priority. Again, politics shouldn’t play a role here. We don’t need to pit one type of school against another. Parents should have many good options about where to send their kids. Our universities and community colleges ought to have our full support in attracting the workforce of the future.

It’s no accident Maricopa County has been the fastest-growing county in the United States for the past several years. Leaders of the past made tough decisions and smart investments that paved the way for individuals, families, and businesses to thrive here.

Now it’s our turn.

Let’s get to work.

Jack Sellers is a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and a former Chandler City Council member. ■

THE MESA TRIBUNE | JANUARY 30, 2022

Kelly joined at Biden’s hip in upcoming race

BY JD HAYWORTH Tribune Columnist

There’s no mistaking Mark Kelly for the late comedian Don Knotts—especially since our junior senator bears an uncanny resemblance to Uncle Fester of “The Addams Family”—but similar themes have emerged in the body of work from both the contemporary legislator and the comedian of a bygone era.

Knotts, who won multiple Emmy Awards for his portrayal of bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on “The Andy Griffith Show,” parlayed that success on the small screen into a five-picture deal with Universal Studios in the mid-1960’s.

Sen. Kelly parlayed his fame from piloting the space shuttle into winning a seat in the Senate. Certainly Kelly’s fund-raising abilities have proven astronomical; his campaign pulled in $9 million in the final three months of last year, giving him an estimated war chest of $22 million as he attempts to win a full six-year term this November.

Of course, $22 million—or more—won’t buy what it used to… not even as recently as the campaign year of 2020.

That’s because of January 20, 2021…the day Joe Biden took up residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Immediately afterward, the politico-economic condition now known as “Bidenflation” took hold.

Ol’ Joe began by revoking authorization for the Keystone XL pipeline in an executive order. In so doing, he killed 10,000 jobs and took $2.2 billion in payroll out of workers’ pockets.

One of the newly unemployed, Neal Crabtree of Fouke, Arkansas, told the “Boston Herald” his concerns extended beyond his family to friends, neighbors, and his fellow countrymen.

“Now we’re seeing rising energy prices,” said Crabtree, a common-sense kind of guy, who was working as a welding foreman before Joe Biden got a new job…and took away his.

Sadly, common-sense is in short supply at the White House and within the Senate Democratic Caucus.

Then again, lots of things are in short supply these days.

A crippled supply line and a predictable decline in domestic energy production prompted a spike in prices.

The result? The worst inflation rate our nation has seen in 40 years.

As costs increased across the board for food, shelter, clothing, and transportation, prices at the pump were especially troubling: a hike of almost 50 percent by December Adding even more fuel to the inflationary fires was the spending spree of the Biden Bunch. Unilaterally enacted by the Democrats, a $1.9 trillion cash infusion actually paid bonuses to some lucky workers to stay off the job, kept the Bureau of Printing and Engraving churning out greenbacks, and further bloated our money supply.

Whether due to economic illiteracy or delusion—perhaps both—Joe Biden then claimed that his horribly misnamed “Build Back Better” initiative would somehow reduce inflation. Left unexplained is the dubious rationale behind the misguided notion that an exponentially more ob-

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scene orgy of spending—$5.5 trillion dollars’ worth—will do anything other than launch inflation to even “greater” heights, and plunge our standard of living to even lower depths.

Thankfully, the “Build Back Bummer” has been scrubbed for now…no thanks to Mark Kelly.

Instead, Kelly has been a dependable vote for Bidenomics and Bidenflation, but Republicans aren’t exactly biding their time in the effort to scrub Mark Kelly’s political mission. This summer’s primary for the Arizona GOP Senate nomination will be crowded and spirited.

The eventual winner will face a cash-infused but performance-imperiled incumbent, joined at the hip to Joe Biden. Mark Kelly’s handlers are doing what they can right now to start a mid-course correction, recently making their man available for an interview with “Yahoo!” which, like most Big Tech media organs, would be more accurately named “Hooray!” when covering Democrat politicians.

Despite the kid-glove “Yahoo!” coverage, Kelly cannot shake his Biden connection. He even mimicked Ol Joe’s attempted blame-shifting to big corporations—the same folks financing the freshman senator’s campaign.

If Kelly remains reluctant to politically separate from Joe Biden, the exastronaut will have a lot of time on his hands a year from now to watch reruns of “The Andy Griffith Show.” Or “The Addams Family.” ■

LEIBOWITZ from page 24

roster needed to proportionally express the racial composition of the U.S.? Who among the Phoenix Suns’ 14 AfricanAmerican players would the team cut in favor of white ballers of presumably lesser talent?

Would the new, perfectly representative squad still sell tickets or perform to NBA Finals levels? Doubtful and doubtful.

It’s long past time for a Black woman to sit as a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. But speaking about some of our nation’s best and brightest primarily through the prism of skin color and gender – with their hard work, qualifications and successes tossed in as a footnote – demeans the process and the judges in it. ■