It’s Trump’s first spring as president; hopefully, he will do some “spring cleaning” in Washington. Liberals will name it "Springtime for Hitler,” but there is real work to be done.
It seems every time Democrats try to oppose Trump they end up disappointed. However, Trump must use his honeymoon period judiciously, and not have fights over trivial matters, as he seems prone to do.
What does matter is that Trump will appoint his first Supreme Court justice. I know this will not mean as much to many Americans as when “American Idol” had to appoint a new judge to replace Simon Cowell or Paula Abdul, or “Celebrity Apprentice” appointed Arnold Schwarzenegger to that post, but it’s important.
Like everything Trump does, it gets a lot of press. He narrowed his choices down to two guys and finally gave the rose to Neal Gorsuch, announcing his choice on live TV. It was the first time an episode of “Judge Judy” was interrupted for a judicial announcement.
Chuck Schumer, speaker for an opposition who dramatically ties themselves to the railroad tracks for everything Republicans try to do, said this of nominee Gorsuch in a New York Times op-ed piece: “The judge was clearly very smart, articulate and polite, with superb judicial demeanor.”
This, of course, means, Schumer is against him.
I hope it’s not a contentious vote. In the last 26 years, the narrowest margin in a Senate confirmation for a Supreme Court Justice was Samuel Alito; the vote was 58 for and 42 against. To demonstrate how rancorous the process has become, Reagan nominee Antonin Scalia was confirmed with a 98 to 0 vote.
There are areas of agreement on which we could focus. Libertarians and Democrats can agree with most Republicans that we imprison too many people in the USA. According to Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul, we have 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the prison population. It’s costly and often based on selective prosecution. This is happening against a backdrop of decreasing crime in the last 20 years. As government grows, our freedoms diminish.
We need fewer laws. Who can marry and where they potty in North Carolina should be none of the government’s business. They cannot even plow the streets in Boston and NYC.
Let gay marriage stand; it is not hurting anyone. For a crime, there really needs to be a victim who is actually damaged. Gay marriage is between two willing parties.
If we keep legally tinkering with bathrooms and gay marriage, the next frontier would be a ruling on bisexuality. Which could go either way.
Ron Hart, a libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, is a frequent guest on CNN. Contact him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: On Gorsuch, too many laws and gay marriage