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EGACY Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
WEDNESDAYS • Sept. 22, 2020
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The fate of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s successor rests with a handful of Senate Republicans FROM WIRE REPORTS
WASHINGTON — As he relaxed on a white sofa during a public forum in 2018, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina swore up and down that, if there was a Supreme Court vacancy in the last year of President Trump’s term, he would want to wait until after the election to fill it. “Hold the tape,” he said of the event’s video. Then on Saturday, with seven carefully worded tweets, Graham, the powerful Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, reversed himself and fell in line with his party’s effort to quickly install another conservative on the high court in the coming weeks. Buttressed by senators like Graham, President Trump and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said they have every intent of filling the vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg quickly. They are steamrolling past the cries of hypocrisy from Democrats who say the move flouts a standard set by Republicans themselves four years ago when they refused to even take up President Obama’s nominee for an election-year Supreme Court vacancy, declaring that the electorate should weigh in first. On Saturday night, Trump told a rally in Fayetteville, N.C., that he would nominate a woman this
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the longest-serving member of the court’s liberal minority, died Friday night, Sept. 18, after a struggle with pancreatic cancer. week, setting up an acrimonious political battle that could cement a conservative court majority for decades and shape the nation for generations to come. The crowd chanted, “Fill the seat,” and Trump suggested his campaign should
make T-shirts with the slogan. He has vetted picks left over from his last nomination process who are ready to go, including federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett, 48. “I think the process can go very very fast,” Trump told reporters Saturday.
But his success will ultimately depend on whether a handful of Republican senators decide, like Graham, break with their past positions and join the ugly partisan fight in the six weeks before the
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The LEGACY
2 • Sept. 22, 2020
Va. public schools are seeing an early drop in enrollment. It could put state funding at risk Since the start of the school year in August, Radford City Schools have lost around 75 students compared to enrollment counts last May, according to district Superintendent Robert Graham. Across the state in Middlesex County, public schools are down roughly 47 students, said Superintendent Pete Gretz. Attendance at King William County Public Schools has dropped about 150 students, according to Superintendent David White. Those districts are far from alone. An early survey by the Virginia Association of School Superintendents — which captured responses from 113 of the state’s 133 divisions — found that public schools are facing an enrollment loss of 35,000 students so far this year. Collectively, that drop represents a prospective loss of $146 million in basic aid funding from the state, which is based on student attendance counts — known as “average daily membership” — in September and March, said VASS Executive Director Ben Kiser. If the cuts go through, schools say they’ll be forced to make tough decisions on everything from operations to staff. “If we don’t see significant improvement, then that’s a significant loss of potential revenue,” he added. “And if the General Assembly makes budget decisions based on current data, we worry they’ll have long-lasting impacts not only this budget year, but possibly the next biennium.” As schools across Virginia grapple with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the early loss of students is just another challenge in an increasingly dire financial landscape. Kiser said
Goochland public schools opened last month under a fully virtual plan, with only a few students with limited internet access at home reporting to school buildings. PHOTO: Goochland County Public Schools school administrators were already concerned over a projected decline in sales tax revenue — one percent of which flows back to local districts — that could result in a total reduction of $95 million for schools across the state. Earlier this year, legislators also passed budget language setting stricter requirements on how local divisions use state lottery funds — a significant part of their operating budgets. The new mandate requires that at least 40 percent of that funding is used for “nonrecurring” school costs such as construction, renovations, or new technology by the second year of the state’s biennial spending plan. “This was a change from previous years and we feel that schools need maximum flexibility in how Lottery
funds are used during this crisis,” VASS legislative liaison Tom Smith wrote in an email Wednesday. And while more than $214 million in federal CARES Act funding has been directed to Virginia’s public schools — not including the money that went directly to localities — many administrators said most of those funds have been used for new expenses related to the pandemic. “Our first installment, we used that to reimburse for meal distribution in the spring and summer,” White said. “A lot of it went to temperature monitoring devices, personal protective equipment, Wifi access spots, devices for teachers — things like that.” “These are basically one-time funds,” he added. “They’re not going
to supplant anything. They’re not going to be here next year.” That’s left administrators increasingly worried about costs. Kiser said the superintendents’ association is currently advocating for state lawmakers to head off the potential loss of funding, either during the ongoing special session or when the General Assembly reconvenes in January. Keith Perrigan, president of the state’s Coalition of Small and Rural Schools, said one option is using last year’s enrollment counts to calculate state aid if schools continue to see a decline in students this March. Currently, though, there’s no clear path forward. Earlier this month, a Senate committee killed a bill from
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(from page 2) of which chose to fully reopen their Sen. Frank Ruff, R-Mecklenburg, that would have allowed just that during any state of emergency that disrupted in-person learning. A fiscal impact statement from the state’s Department of Planning and Budget said the legislation could “artificially inflat[e]” average daily membership for “school divisions with historically declining enrollment or reduced enrollment for reasons unrelated to the declared state of emergency.” But Kiser said the concern for most districts is that students will re-enroll in public school after the pandemic. Some divisions, like Middlesex, are operating remotely, which makes counting attendance even more of a challenge. Gretz said his district is currently measuring enrollment by tracking how many students are logging onto its online learning platform — an imperfect method for a rural county. “Thirty-nine percent of our students did not have access to broadband before all this started,” he added. “So, there could be some students who we haven’t totally resolved that for.” Graham, in Radford, said his staff have been following up with families who haven’t been attending classes with the school division, which is currently rotating in groups of students for face-to-face instruction several days a week. About 15 students moved out of the district before the start of the school year, but another 30 or 40 are currently homeschooling, he added. Both he and White said part of the enrollment loss was linked to families who didn’t feel comfortable sending their children back to campus. But Graham also said multiple students have transferred to private schools in the area, many
campuses. “Some families want their children to be 100 percent in-person, and private schools — at least the one in our area — have made that promise,” White added. “They’re saying that kids can come to school in-person all five days a week.” But when public schools resume their normal schedules, administrators are expecting many of those students to reenroll — exacerbating existing budget struggles if funding levels are reduced based on attendance counts during the pandemic. White said he’s already emailed school administrators and warned them to stop all discretionary spending, even on items such as paper, which isn’t as much of a necessity this year. “We’re gonna hold off on some of those supplies because we have to be very prudent in our expenditures moving forward,” he said. “We want to get a better idea, come budget season, of where we stand so we can maintain our faculty and staff.” Losing employees has become a very real concern for many districts if state funding decreases. Earlier this week, Graham sent an email to Virginia Superintendent James Lane and his local representatives, Del. Chris Hurst, D-Montgomery, and Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell, urging them to keep considering possible solutions. Kiser said that with 80 to 85 percent of school expenses tied up in staffing, budget cuts often have a direct impact on employees. “We do not want to make reductions,” Graham added. “Our teachers are working their butts off right now, and we cannot send the message that even with all that work, we might have to furlough them.”
Sept. 22, 2020 • 3
Black maternal mortality Congressman A. Donald McEachin (D-4th District), hosted a roundtable with local Virginia leaders and community health advocates to discuss what he calls “Virginia’s Black Maternal Mortality Crisis”. Streamed on Zoom, the virtual event on Sept. 19, featured grief and loss counselor and host of Sisters in Loss podcast Erica McAfee, Dr. Lauren Powell, founder and CEO of The Equitist, LLC and Stephanie Spencer, RN, founder and CEO of Urban Baby Beginnings for an open discussion on maternal health disparities and solutions. “I wanted to host this event... because our country is facing a crisis – Black women are dying from preventable, pregnancyrelated causes at two to three times the rate of white women. This is unacceptable and we have to do something to fix this,” said McEachin. He promised to take the ideas of the expert panel and continue to develop policy in Congress to save
Rep. A. Donald McEachin Black women and babies. McAfee said there was work to do when it comes to individual biases and how people “show up” for Black women. “We must trust Black women, listen to Black women and respect Black women when it comes to their own health,” she said. Spencer said medical providers must work on making sure there is a partnership within the community in hospital and clinical settings.
4 • Sept. 22, 2020
Op/Ed & Letters
The LEGACY
On RBG’s passing
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA Sixty years ago, Ruth Bader Ginsburg applied to be a Supreme Court clerk. She’d studied at two of our finest law schools and had ringing recommendations. But because she was a woman, she was rejected. Ten years later, she sent her first brief to the Supreme Court – which led it to strike down a state law based on gender discrimination The LEGACY NEWSPAPER Vol. 6 No. 38 Mailing Address P.O. Box 12474 Richmond, VA 23241 Office Address 105 1/2 E. Clay St. Richmond, VA 23219 Call: 804-644-1550 Online www.legacynewspaper.com
for the first time. And then, for nearly three decades, as the second woman ever to sit on the highest court in the land, she was a warrior for gender equality – someone who believed that equal justice under law only had meaning if it applied to every single American. Over a long career on both sides of the bench – as a relentless litigator and an incisive jurist – Justice Ginsburg helped us see The LEGACY welcomes all signed letters and all respectful opinions. Letter writers and columnists opinions are their own and endorsements of their views by The LEGACY should be inferred. The LEGACY assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. Annual Subscription Rates Virginia - $50 Other states - $75 Outside U.S.- $100 The Virginia Legacy © 2016
that discrimination on the basis of sex isn’t about an abstract ideal of equality; that it doesn’t only harm women; that it has real consequences for all of us. It’s about who we are – and who we can be. Justice Ginsburg inspired the generations who followed her, from the tiniest trick-or-treaters to law students burning the midnight oil to the most powerful leaders in the land. Michelle and I admired her greatly, we’re profoundly thankful for the legacy she left this country, and we offer our gratitude and our condolences to her children and grandchildren tonight. Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought to the end, through her cancer, with unwavering faith in our democracy and its ideals. That’s how we remember her. But she also left instructions for how she wanted her legacy to be honored. Four and a half years ago, when Republicans refused to hold a hearing or an up-or-down vote on
Merrick Garland, they invented the principle that the Senate shouldn’t fill an open seat on the Supreme Court before a new president was sworn in. A basic principle of the law – and of everyday fairness – is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what’s convenient or advantageous in the moment. The rule of law, the legitimacy of our courts, the fundamental workings of our democracy all depend on that basic principle. As votes are already being cast in this election, Republican Senators are now called to apply that standard. The questions before the Court now and in the coming years – with decisions that will determine whether or not our economy is fair, our society is just, women are treated equally, our planet survives, and our democracy endures – are too consequential to future generations for courts to be filled through anything less than an unimpeachable process.
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Sept. 22, 2020• 5
P.T. Hoffsteader, Esq.
On RBG : Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has left behind a legacy that will be felt for decades to come. She has been a defender and a life-long champion of gender equality. Her most important work as an advocate began as the director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project in the 1970s. She modeled her approach to upending
discriminatory laws based on gender after Thurgood Marshall’s strategy to challenging racially discriminatory laws: one case at a time, one precedent at a time. In order to convince the allmale Supreme Court to overturn discriminatory laws on the basis of sex, Ginsburg’s strategy was to bring forth cases where men had been
discriminated against. While she worked on many important cases she won five of the six cases she argued at the Supreme Court: in the 1970s, just thirteen years after several law firms refused to hire her because of her gender. Not only has she been a powerful force on the Supreme Court through her majority opinions but her dissents are
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equally as powerful and arguably as important, earning her the title of ‘The Notorious RBG.’ She is an icon, advocate, and trailblazer for progressives around the world and she has inspired generations of people in the fight for gender equality. - Jennifer Bowie, University of RIC
6 • Sept. 22, 2020
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(from page 1) election. “There’s no reason why the Senate couldn’t confirm Trump’s nominee in November, December, even January regardless of the outcome of the election,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who worked on Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential run. “The question just becomes: Do they have the votes?” Some Republicans have already signaled they won’t vote to confirm a nominee this year. On Saturday, Maine Senator Susan Collins, who is facing a tough reelection fight, said she believed the next justice should be nominated by the winner of November’s election. Shortly before Ginsburg’s death was announced on Friday, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told a reporter she would not vote to confirm a new justice before the election because voters need to weigh in. That means McConnell can afford to lose only one more Republican senator from his slim majority if he wants to confirm a new justice before Election Day — and he has other members who are facing uphill reelection fights similar to Collins, or who have shown a tendency to buck the party in the past, like Murkowski, to worry about. In a letter to the GOP caucus on Friday night, McConnell urged Republicans who are on the fence to “keep your powder dry” and not announce whether they would vote to confirm a Trump-nominated justice before the end of the year — a sign that he has more work to do. McConnell explained his willingness to confirm a Trump nominee now, but not Obama’s nominee four years ago, federal appellate Judge Merrick Garland, by pointing out that the Senate hasn’t confirmed the nominee of an opposite party’s president during an election year since 1888. Still, McConnell has not specified whether a vote would come before the Nov. 3 election, or after, in the so-called lame duck session before
Sen. Lindsey Graham new senators are seated in early January. The timing could have ramifications for the election, as well as for McConnell’s margin of error, since Mark Kelly, the Arizona Democrat who is favored to beat Republican Senator Martha McSally in a special election on Nov. 3, could be seated as early as Nov. 30 if he wins because he would be filling the rest of a vacated term. If McConnell holds a vote before the election, he might have a better shot at confirming the justice, but he will also be forcing vulnerable Republican senators to take a vote that could endanger their reelection efforts — and his majority with it. “This is a deeply troubling vote to have to take in the final weeks of an election,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist. On Saturday, Democrats were assembling a menu of procedural options to use to slow the proceedings. But they know their only real option lies in persuading colleagues from across the aisle to buck their party’s leaders. “The Senate is split 53-47 — just four senators can stop this latest travesty, and no amount of pressure is too much pressure,” said Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts in an interview. “They need to see it and feel it and hear it every single day before Nov. 3.” The Republicans most likely to feel that pressure are those facing reelection in Democratic or swing states, such as Cory Gardner of Colorado, or senators with a bit of a maverick reputation, like Mitt
Romney of Utah, who was the lone Republican to vote to convict Trump after his impeachment trial. So far, both senators have offered condolences to the Ginsburg family, but no clues as to their positions on replacing her. Gardner could face blowback from more moderate voters if he backs an anti-abortion nominee like Barrett, but rebuffing Trump would likely put him in even more political peril, even though the president is unpopular among Coloradans overall. “They’ve run the math nine different ways and the president’s god-like popularity with the base he just simply cannot distance himself” from, said David Flaherty, a pollster in Colorado for the Republicanleaning Magellan Strategies. “I’m sure Cory Gardner will go along with anybody and support the nominee whoever the president puts out.” That’s likely the calculation made by Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who faces a tight reelection battle in North Carolina, where Trump has also been trailing in the polls. Tillis said in a statement Saturday he would support Trump’s nominee to prevent Democratic nominee Joe Biden from nominating a “liberal activist” instead. Romney has shown concern about the reputation of the Senate, which could make a rushed hearing in the final days before an election less attractive. But he’s also a strong supporter of conservative judges — an issue that binds even Trump’s Republican critics to the president. “I do think that Senator Romney does want to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a conservative justice, the question is: What does he think the process should be?” said Williams, a former aide to Romney’s presidential run. “I don’t know at this point.” The picture for Collins in Maine is entirely different. The moderate, whose office was bombarded by clothes hangers sent from prochoice voters during the 2018 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh,
is seizing on the chance depict herself as independent, since she is down in the polls and many of her constituents are still smarting over her vote to confirm him. “In fairness to the American people, who will either be reelecting the President or selecting a new one, the decision on a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be made by the President who is elected on November 3rd,” Collins said in a statement Saturday. “This position that she’s taking I think it will be very helpful to her because I think it reminds people in Maine what it is that they’ve always liked about her — that she’s not a party stooge by any stretch of the imagination,” said Kevin Raye, who was chief of staff to former Maine senator Olympia Snowe. The battle will likely match the intensity of that over Kavanaugh, when protesters pounded on the doors of the Senate, sent senators hangers to signify back-alley abortions, and chained themselves to office buildings. A liberal group, Demand Justice, has pledged to spend $10 million opposing Trump’s pick, while the conservative Judicial Crisis Network has vowed to match them on the other side. In a private call on Saturday, Senate Democrats vowed to dial up the pressure, linking the Supreme Court — which has long animated Republican voters — to the issues that drove the party’s success in the 2018 midterms, like the future of the Affordable Care Act. The court is set to hear a challenge to Obama’s signature health care law soon after the election. But at least Markey wants to leverage another threat: that, if Democrats win the presidency and the Senate, they will abolish the filibuster and add more justices to the Supreme Court. It’s a threat Biden has not yet embraced. “In the face of Republican hypocrisy and corruption,” Markey said, “we must use all the tools at our disposal.”
Early voting now underway in Virginia Voting for the 2020 general election is underway. Voters across the commonwealth of Virginia, including candidates for Congress, headed to the polls Friday, Sept. 18, to cast early ballots. The Old Dominion has in the past featured large rallies on the eve of Election Day. But in the age of COVID-19, Virginians are being encouraged to take advantage of new early and mail-in voting options. With a limited number of polling places open on Day One, there were reports of long lines in some jurisdictions, though that wasn’t the case here late in the morning when Sen. Mark Warner showed up at the
Alexandria Voter Registration Office in Old Town, not far from his house. “I just exercised my constitutional right, and I strongly encourage all Virginians to take advantage of our new rules, where you can vote early,” the Virginia Democrat, who is seeking a third term, told reporters. “Starting today, for the next 45 days, 9 to 5. We also have seen over 800,000 people who’ve had absentee applications — that’s tripled the amount that we had in 2016.” Warner noted his work on the Senate Intelligence Committee and threats to election security, but said the way to combat those challenges was through voter turnout,
especially in early voting. “The best signal, whether you’re for me or against me, that people are coming out and voting in these kind of numbers on our first day, gives me that faith that we will get through this virus,” he said. “We will get through the misinformation and disinformation, but the most effective way we can do that and show that strength of our democracy is [to] go out and vote.” Other prominent Virginia Democrats who voted on Friday were Sen. Tim Kaine, who voted early morning in Richmond, while Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton arrived early to vote in Leesburg.
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