Newspaper Page Text
6A Sunday, December 30, 2018
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
WASHINGTON/POLITICS
Supreme Court lays low after last confirmation
J. SCOn APPLEWHITE I Associated Press
The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court gather for a formal
group portrait at the Supreme Court Building in Washington,
Nov. 30. Seated from left: Associate Justice Stephen Breyer,
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the
United States John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg and Associate Justice Samuel Alito Jr.
Standing behind from left: Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch,
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena
Kagan and Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.
BY MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
Supreme Court began its
term with the tumultuous
confirmation of Justice Brett
Kavanaugh, followed by a
studied avoidance of drama
on the high court bench —
especially anything that
would divide the five con
servatives and four liberals.
The justices have been
unusually solicitous of each
other in the courtroom since
Kavanaugh’s confirmation,
and several have voiced
concern that the public per
ceives the court as merely
a political institution. Chief
Justice John Roberts seems
determined to lead the one
Washington institution that
stays above the political
fray. Even Roberts’ rebuke
of President Donald Trump,
after the president criti
cized a federal judge, was in
defense of an independent,
apolitical judiciary.
The next few weeks will
test whether the calm can
last.
When they gather in pri
vate on Jan. 4 to consider
new cases for arguments in
April and into next term, the
justices will confront a raft
of high-profile appeals.
Abortion restrictions,
workplace discrimination
against LGBT people and
partisan gerrymandering
are on the agenda. Close
behind are appeals from
the Trump administration
seeking to have the court
allow it to end an Obama-era
program that shields young
immigrants from depor
tation and to put in place
restrictive rules for trans
gender troops.
There already are signs
that the conservative jus
tices, apart from Roberts,
are willing to take on contro
versial cases that are likely
to produce the ideological
and partisan divisions that
their colleagues seem eager
to avoid.
In recent weeks, three
conservative justices
accused the court of duck
ing its job of deciding impor
tant cases, especially when
lower courts have disagreed
on the outcome. Their criti
cism, written by Justice
Clarence Thomas and joined
by Justices Samuel Alito and
Neil Gorsuch, came after a
recent decision to avoid a
case involving funding for
Planned Parenthood.
Then, on the Friday
before Christmas, the court
divided 5-4 in refusing to
allow the Trump admin
istration to enforce new
restrictions on asylum seek
ers. Roberts joined the four
liberals. The three conser
vatives who were displeased
by the Planned Parenthood
case outcome again noted
their disagreement, this
time joined by Kavanaugh.
The two votes can’t be
used to draw any firm con
clusions about what may be
happening behind closed
doors at the court, as the
cases arrived in differ
ent circumstances. In the
Planned Parenthood case,
the justices were consider
ing whether to grant full
review, a process that takes
only four votes. The asylum
case was an emergency
appeal from the administra
tion. At least five of the nine
justices would have had to
vote in the administration’s
favor.
But Lawrence Solum, a
professor of constitutional
law at Georgetown Universi
ty’s law school, said Roberts
seems to have two reasons to
limit the court’s involvement
in hot-button cases: his pref
erence for taking small steps
in the law and his concern
for the court’s reputation.
“It’s clear that 5-4 deci
sions will be perceived by
many, many lawyers, many
politicians and large num
bers of the public at large
as ideological decisions,”
Solum said. “So given Rob
erts’ desire to preserve the
legitimacy of the court, he
could be highly motivated to
avoid decisions like that in
the next immediate period
in the history of the court.
Whether that’s one year, or
two years or five years, who
knows?”
The court arrived at this
point after an unusual chain
of events that began with
the death of Justice Antonin
Scalia in February 2016.
Senate Republicans refused
to act on President Barack
Obama’s nomination of
Merrick Garland, allowing
Trump to put Gorsuch on the
court in 2017. To this day,
Democrats say the seat was
stolen from them.
Then, over the sum
mer, Justice Anthony Ken
nedy’s retirement meant
that Trump would also get
to replace the court’s swing
vote with a more reliable
conservative. Kavanaugh’s
track record as an appel
late judge suggested he was
that man, but his confirma
tion was nearly derailed by
allegations of sexual assault,
which Kavanaugh denied.
The accusations against
Kavanaugh turned the con
firmation process into a
national spectacle that cul
minated in a hearing with
Kavanaugh and Christine
Blasey Ford, who accused
him of assault when they
were in high school. Repub
licans said the allegation was
unproven and confirmed
Kavanaugh in a rare Sat
urday session. Spotlighting
how emotional the debate
had become, a crowd of
demonstrators gathered at
the Supreme Court building
after the Kavanaugh vote,
with some climbing the stone
statues that line the steps.
House GOP ends
probe into FBI’s
2016 decisions
BY MARY CLARE JAL0NICK
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — House
Republicans say more inves
tigation is needed into deci
sions made by the FBI and
the Justice Department in
2016 as they brought an
unceremonious end to their
yearlong look at the
department’s han
dling of probes into
Democrat Hillary
Clinton’s emails and
Donald Trump’s ties
to Russia.
In a letter
released Friday
evening, less than
a week before
Republicans cede
the House majority to
Democrats, the chairmen
of two House committees
described what they said
was the “seemingly dispa
rate treatment” the two
probes received during the
presidential election in 2016
and called on the Justice
Department to appoint a
special counsel to investi
gate further.
House Judiciary Chair
man Robert Goodlatte and
Rep. Trey Gowdy, House
Oversight and Government
Reform chairman, both
of whom are retiring next
week, sent a letter to the
Justice Department and
Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell saying
they reviewed thousands of
documents and conducted
interviews that “revealed
troubling facts which exac
erbated our initial questions
and concerns.” Republicans
have said since the election
that they believe Justice
officials were biased against
President Trump when they
started an investigation into
his ties to Russia and cleared
Clinton in a separate probe
into her email use.
The wrapping up of the
congressional investigation,
done in a letter and with
out a full final report, was a
quiet end to a probe that was
conducted mostly behind
closed doors but also in pub
lic as Republican lawmak
ers often criticized interview
subjects afterward and sug
gested they were conspiring
against Trump.
The investigation’s most
public day was a 10-hour
open hearing in July in
which former FBI special
agent Peter Strzok defended
anti-Trump texts he sent
to a colleague as he helped
lead both investigations.
Strzok fought with Repub
lican lawmakers in a rivet
ing spectacle that featured
Strzok reading aloud from
his sometimes-lewd
texts, and Demo
crats and Republi
cans openly yelling
at each other.
Goodlatte and
Gowdy laid out
several concerns
in the letter, many
of them echoing a
report issued this
year by the Justice Depart
ment’s internal watchdog.
That report concluded that
Strzok’s anti-Trump text
messages cast a cloud on
the agency’s handling of the
probe and also that fired
FBI Director James Comey
repeatedly broke from
protocol, including when
he announced his recom
mendation against charging
Clinton. But unlike the con
gressional investigation, the
report also found there was
no evidence that Comey’s or
the department’s final con
clusions were motivated by
political bias toward either
candidate.
Democrats have blasted
the GOP-led congressional
probe, saying it was merely
meant as a distraction from
special counsel Robert
Mueller’s Russia investiga
tion. New York Rep. Jerry
Nadler, the top Democrat
on the judiciary committee,
and Maryland Rep. Elijah
Cummings, top Democrat
on the oversight panel, are
expected to end the inves
tigation when they take
power in January. Nadler
has called it “nonsense.”
California Rep. Adam
Schiff, who does not sit on
either panel but is the top
Democrat on the House
intelligence committee,
tweeted Friday evening that
the Republican investigation
is ending “not with a bang,
but with a Friday, buried-in-
the-holidays whimper, and
one foot out the door.”
The Republicans have
insisted that they were not
trying to undermine the
Mueller probe.
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Boy whose Yemeni mother fought
US travel ban to be with him dies
COUNCIL ON AMERICAN ISLAMIC RELATIONS I Associated Press
In this December photo, Shaima Swileh, of Yemen, holds her dying 2-year old son
Abdullah Hassan at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland, Calif.
BY DAISY NGUYEN
Associated Press
LODI, Calif. — The father of a
2-year-old boy who was separated from
his Yemeni mother until she success
fully fought the Trump administration’s
travel ban to see him in the United
States laid his body to rest Saturday, a
day after the child was taken off life
support at a hospital.
Under a cloudless winter day, Ali
Hassan carried his son’s small body to
bury at an Islamic cemetery in Califor
nia’s Central Valley.
“I’m a U.S. citizen; my son is a U.S.
citizen,” the 22-year-old father told
mourners at a service before burial.
“The Muslim ban kept my wife from
coming to the U.S. for over a year. It
forced me to choose between my son’s
health and keeping our family together.
We are angry, but we know our son did
not die in vain.”
The child’s distraught mother
mourned privately at home.
Abdullah Hassan died Friday at
UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in
Oakland, where his father brought him
in the fall to get treatment for a degen
erative brain condition. He had been
on life support when his 21-year-old
mother, Shaima Swileh, arrived last
week.
Hassan spent his youth in California’s
central valley after his family immi
grated there from Yemen. During a
trip to the warn-torn country in 2016, he
fell in love with Swileh and married her
that same year.
Because she is Yemeni, Swileh was
restricted from traveling to the United
States under the White House travel
ban that’s keeping citizens from Yemen
and four other mostly Muslim countries
from entering the country.
The family stayed in Cairo, Egypt,
while Swileh tried to obtain a waiver to
that ban, which would allow her a visa
to travel with her family to the United
States to receive medical treatment for
the boy. But she was repeatedly denied
travel documents, Hassan said.
When Abdullah’s health worsened,
Hassan went ahead to California in
October to get their son help. As the
couple fought for a waiver, doctors put
Abdullah on life support.
“My wife is calling me every day
wanting to kiss and hold her son for
the one last time,” said Hassan, chok
ing up at a news conference earlier this
month.
He started losing hope and was con
sidering pulling his son off life support
to end his suffering. But then a hospital
social worker reached out to the Coun
cil on American-Islamic Relations,
which sued on Dec. 16, said Basim
Elkarra, executive director of the advo
cacy group in Sacramento.
GAINESVILLE CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION HALL COUNTY
SCHEDULE OF APPROVED LOCAL OPTION SALES TAX PROJECTS
YEAR ENDED JUNE 30. 2018
AMOUNT
AMOUNT
ORIGINAL
CURRENT
EXPENDED
EXPENDED
ESTIMATED
ESTIMATED
ESTIMATED
IN CURRENT
IN PRIOR
Project
COMPLETION
PROJECT
COST (1)
COSTS (2)
YEAR (3)
YEARS (3)
Status
DATE
SPLOST IV
(i). 1 Paying a portion of the purchase payments due on
that certain Installment Sale Agreement between the
Gainesville City School Distnct and the Gainesville
Redevelopment Authonty with a maximum payment
amount of $5,200,000
$ 5.200.000.00
$ 5.187.164.74 $
$ 1.018.708.90
$ 4.168.455.84
Complete
2/1/2018
(ii) 2 acquinng. constructing, and equipping additional
classrooms, instructional, and support facilities, and
physical education facilities,
0.00
6.066.608.98
873.068.00
5.193.540.98
Ongoing
12/31/2018
(ii) 3. remodeling, renovating and equipping existing
classrooms and instructional and support facilities at
existing schools.
1.600.000.00
2.880.983.05
154.101.57
2.726.881.48
Ongoing
12/31/2018
(ii) 4 acquinng land and conducting site preparation
of real estate for school district purposes.
0.00
286.148.00
0.00
286.148.00
Ongoing
12/31/2018
(ii) 5. acquinng furnishings, equipment and fixtures for
new and existing facilities system-wide, and acquiring
technology equipment, text books, teaching software
and school buses
0.00
1.056.982.50
0.00
1.056.982.50
Ongoing
12/31/2018
SPLOST #4 Totals
$ 6.800.000.00 $
15.477.887.27 $
2.045.878.47 $
13.432.008.80
§PL<??T V
(i) 1 Acquinng. constructing and equipping new schools,
fine arts facilities, physical education facilities, student
activity facilities and other school system facilities,
acquinng and conducting site preparation of real estate
for school distnct purposes, constructing and equipping
additional classrooms and instructional and support
space, remodeling, renovating, and equipping
classrooms, instructional and support space and other
school district facilities at existing school system
facilities, and acquiring furnishings, equipment, and
fixtures for new and existing facilites system-wide,
including technology equipment, textbooks, teaching
software and school buses.
$ 42.850.000.00
$ 42.850.000.00
$ 18.914.081.08
$ 21.073.920.70
Ongoing
9/30/2022
(i) 2 payment on any general obligation debt of the
school system issued in conjuction with the imposition
of this tax
19.000.000.00
19.000.000.00
Ongoing
9/30/2022
SPLOST #5 Totals
$ 61.850.000.00 $
61.850.000.00 $
18.914.081.08 $
21.073.920.70
68.650.000.00
77.327.887.27
20.959.959.55
34.505.929.50
(1) The School District's original cost estimate as specified in the resolution calling for the imposition of the Local Option Sales Tax. The SPLOST IV
resolution includes an amount of $34,717,000.00 as the estimated cost of projects which is the maximum amount which could be raised by the sales tax
over the five years of the SPLOST period. Original cost estimate by the School District was $24,700,000.00 for planned projects.
The SPLOST V resolution includes an amount of $42,850,000 as the estimated cost of projects which Is the maximum amount which could be raised by
the sales tax over the five years of the SPLOST period. Original cost estimate by the School District was $42,850,000 for planned projects.
(2) The School District's current estimate of total cost for the projects. Includes all cost from project inception to completion.
(3) The voters of the City of Gainesville approved the imposition of a 1% sales tax to fund the above projects and retire associated debt. Amounts
expended for these projects include sales tax proceeds, state grants, local property taxes and/or other funds over the life of the project.
(4) In addition to the expenditures shown above, the School District has incurred interest to provide advance funding for the above projects as follows:
SPLOST IV
Prior Years
$
2.310.869.00
Current Year
61.750.00
Total
S
2.372.619.00
SPLOST V
Prior Years
$
1.060.833.34
Current Year
475.000.00
Total
s
1.535.833.34
