Readers Write: Kamala Harris, Supreme Court gerrymandering decision

Before people get too enthusiastic about U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, I would like to point out a terrible decision she made as California attorney general. A prisoner who has been on death row for 35 years as a result of very dubious police actions requested a DNA test to prove his innocence. (Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times has followed this story extensively.) Attorney General Harris and "liberal" Gov. Jerry Brown refused to order it (although he did in his last weeks in office, and she later called for it as well). Current Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded the order when he came into office, although the results aren't yet known.

This could not have happened in Minnesota, because of a law (Minnesota Statute 590.01) that I authored giving convicts the right to demand DNA testing (and because Minnesota does not have the death penalty). This is a serious denial of a correct use of science in our criminal justice system. It is particularly important because of reports of executions of innocents throughout the country.

Phyllis Kahn, Minneapolis

The writer is a former member of the Minnesota House.

GERRYMANDERING

Your vote, rendered meaningless

The U.S. Supreme Court conservative majority just further undermined democracy by ruling that federal courts cannot remedy gerrymandering designed to effectively nullify a citizen's vote in her or his legislative district ("Gerrymander green light," front page, June 28). They said drawing such districts for the purpose of nullifying votes for partisan advantage is a "political question." The opinion not only will cause even more damage to democracy than Citizens United (which effectively legalized corporate ownership of elected officials), but it also makes absolutely no logical sense. Here is what the conservative majority of the court asserts: The only remedy for having your vote so diluted that it is meaningless is to vote the people who took your vote away out of office.

Mrs. McGuinty was my fifth-grade writing teacher. Her cardinal rule was even if you misspell words or use poor punctuation, at least make sure what you write makes sense. These five guys on the Supreme Court are supposedly among the sharpest folks in America, and they might not pass that test.

Kelly Dahl, Linden Grove Township, Minn.

• • •

As the fish is last to know it swims in water, the headline and subhead "Gerrymander green light" and "Conservative justices say the federal courts have no say on rigged districts" reflect the undercurrent liberal bias permeating the Star Tribune.

The decision by the SCOTUS did not "green light" gerrymandering; it established that judges "are not entitled to second-guess lawmakers' judgments," as stated in third paragraph of the article. That's a big difference between the headline and content, and one that is obviously biased.

To make sure readers clearly "understand" the decision, the subhead piles on with these word choices: "Conservative judges" and "rigged districts." Readers who swim in your waters may not be sensitive to the assumptions behind this word selection. Readers looking for information and enlightenment may be very disappointed and confused.

Indeed, this Supreme Court decision is something to be celebrated, not for green-lighting rigged districts, but for recognizing the roles of the states and elected representatives to decide what's best for their region. This is a curtailment of power of courts to meddle in local affairs. A reader would not get to this conclusion based on the headlines.

This is quite shameful behavior on the part of the Star Tribune, and one that casts a line of doubt on its reporting. Is the paper serving its readers, or its bias?

James Drennen, Lino Lakes

CONGRESS

Rep. Phillips is not courageous

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips ran against former U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen last year by saying things like, "I believe our Constitution anticipated a president like Donald Trump. I do not believe our Constitution anticipated a Congress that would lack the courage to unite, drop its partisan posturing, and speak truth to power."

As a congressman, Phillips exemplifies that lack of courage. When faced with the opportunity to challenge power in D.C., he shies away. He opposes opening an impeachment inquiry into the various counts of obstruction of justice by Trump detailed in the Mueller report. When the foreign policy establishment launched bad-faith attacks on U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar for her statements on the Israel lobby's influence, Phillips, who ran against the pernicious influence of money on politics, joined the pile-on. And Phillips voted for Sen. Mitch McConnell's border bill, cutting a blank check to agencies responsible for horrific detention practices at the border and in the interior of this country. We voted for a candidate preaching about courage; we ended up with another cowardly congressman.

Chris Evans, Maple Grove

CLIMATE CHANGE

Near-daily warnings and no action

Many an article has been written about climate change, many a book. Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" in the 1960s warned us, Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," a large tome, was probably too inconvenient for most people to pay any credence to. We are faced daily with news on TV and in the newspapers, telling us of tornadoes and floods, the likes of which didn't occur a decade ago — certainly not a century ago. We have, in our own country alone, rainfalls of 5 inches or more. They are commonplace, and yet we are unmoved. Earlier in June, this newspaper told of temperatures reaching 123 degrees Fahrenheit in northern India in the state of Rajasthan ("At least 36 killed in India heat wave"). I've been there; air conditioning is nearly nonexistent. Then on June 15, in a sign of global warming, "Arctic experiencing 'big and early' melting."

Right here in our own country people are storming our borders from their homelands in Central America because of crop failure caused by global warming ("Falling prices are driving Guatemalan farmers to migrate to the United States," June 16). What will we do when places like Las Vegas and Miami become unable to sustain human life? (And they will.)

The June 16 paper does, encouragingly, tell of a "New plan to remove carbon from the atmosphere: Bury it."

But the current president has rolled back clean water and clean air regulations put in place by previous administrations.

Global warming must not be only a topic of discussion in future debates, but "the" topic of discussion.

I lived in Switzerland 45 years ago and they had already banned plastic bags from grocery stores, and yet we continue to clog up landfills and oceans. When will we ever learn.

This is a very big deal. We should all be afraid — very afraid.

I, luckily, will probably be gone shortly, but for the sake of future generations, we must act now, before it's simply too late. Don't say you weren't warned.