Two Judges Exemplify the Choice
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
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Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
Trump Faces in a Supreme Court Pick
By Adam Liptak
WASHINGTON — One is a creature of Washington with two Yale degrees, a ticket-punching résumé that includes stints in the Justice Department, the Bush White House and a federal appeals court, where he has written some 300 opinions.
The other, a former law professor, has been a judge for less than a year but could become the first woman named to the Supreme Court by a Republican president since 1981 — thanks in large part to a memorable exchange with Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, over her religious beliefs.
The fight over who should replace Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the Supreme Court is far from over, and there are still a half-dozen plausible candidates in the mix. But the stark contrast between two of the leading contenders — Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and Judge Amy Coney Barrett — reflects the division on the right between the conservative legal establishment, which is hostile to government regulation and the administrative state, and social conservatives, who are focused on issues like abortion and religious freedom.
Other candidates, notably Judges Raymond M. Kethledge and Amul R. Thapar, both of the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, have had cordial meetings with President Trump, and a White House spokesman said Mr. Trump interviewed three more possible choices on Tuesday.
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But according to a person close to the president, Judge Kavanaugh, who has served 12 years on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, is the leading candidate in the president’s mind, followed by Judge Barrett and then Judge Kethledge. Mr. Trump believes Judge Kavanaugh has been on the bench long enough to give the president a sense of where he stands on various issues and that Judge Barrett is fairly young and could use more judicial experience. The administration might want to keep her in reserve should Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 85, leave the court.
The person close to the president cautioned that Mr. Trump could still change his mind between now and Monday, when the White House has said the choice will be announced.
That will be the end of an unusually raw rift in the conservative legal movement, one in which Judges Kavanaugh and Barrett have come to exemplify the clashing values and priorities of the Trump administration and its supporters.
“A lot of social conservatives have coalesced around Amy,” said Jonathan H. Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, who said he knows and admires both judges. “The business folks and the D.C. folks tend to pull for Brett a little more.”
While Judge Kavanaugh, 53, has long been thought to be the front-runner and a favorite of Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, he has in recent days faced mounting opposition from social conservatives for aspects of his résumé.
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His work in the George W. Bush administration; the perception that his opposition in his judicial opinions to abortion and Obamacare was insufficiently adamant; and even a 1991 clerkship with Judge Alex Kozinski, a former federal Ninth Circuit judge who retired last year after accusations of sexual misconduct, have all come into question.
At the other end of the spectrum is Judge Barrett, 46, who has emerged as a favorite candidate of many conservative Christian leaders — both evangelicals and Catholics — who have championed her cause.
During her confirmation hearing for the appeals court position, Ms. Feinstein questioned Judge Barrett about her public statements. “You have a long history of believing that your religious beliefs should prevail,” Ms. Feinstein told her. “The dogma lives loudly within you.”
That phrase is now a slogan in the culture wars, and it appears on T-shirts, tote bags and coffee mugs, and some social conservatives hope a Barrett confirmation battle would energize and unite the president’s base before November’s midterm elections.
Social conservatives have told Mr. Trump that nominating Judge Barrett would lead to a fight worth having, even at the cost of a failed nomination.
“It is better to have a vacancy until next year than to fill the seat with a weak nominee who will betray your legacy and the Constitution for the next 40 years,” leaders of the American Family Association, the American Principles Project and the Judicial Action Group wrote in a letter last week.
Terry Schilling, the executive director of the American Principles Project, said Judge Barrett was the more solid choice, likening her to Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom she served as a law clerk, and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who replaced Justice Scalia after his death in 2016.
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