The Minneapolis Star from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 6

0 PINION The Minneapolis Star Monday, Aug. 17, 1981 6A O'Connor must be judged on legal not political, grounds By WIN BORDEN confirmation hearings get under way, those who have praised and criticized the appointment should re-evaluate the merits mun, wrote the decision that legalized abortion. Presidents have learned, and interest groups should know, that there is no way to predict with certainty how a judge will decide a specific case. It's one of the strengths of a strong, independent judiciary. Just as it's impossible to predict how the Supreme Court will rule on a specific issue, so, too, it's impossible to predict which case will come before the court.

Franklin Roosevelt admittedly chose Justice Douglas and Black with an eye as to how they might rule on his New Deal programs. But Douglas and Black spent most of their years on the court dealing with civil rights and civil liberties. Judges should be selected for their honesty, temperament, intellect and vision. Based on these qualities, O'Connor should and will be confirmed as the first woman on the Supreme Court. BORDEN president of the Minnesota Association of Commerce and Industry.

Judicial restraint used to be the watchword of the conservative movement, but it seems to have fallen out of favor with the New Right, which prefers ideological purity on a single issue over a conservative approach, which O'Connor has demonstrated, as to the role of the courts. Before liberals and conservatives praise i and denounce the appointment of O'Connor because of her position on women's rights or abortion or some other narrow issue, they should reflect on the general conduct of judges. Presidents as well as constituent groups have learned to view with surprise the pre- and post-appointment conduct of judges. President Teddy Roosevelt objected to a decision of Oliver Wendell Holmes on an antitrust case and said, "I could carve out of a banana a judge with more backbone than that." President Dwight Eisenhower regretted his appointment of Earl Warren. President Richard Nixon was shocked when his appointee, Justice Harry Black- Of The Star's Board of Contributors President Reagan's appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor to the U.S.

Supreme Court has been met with praise and criticism. Yet the reasons for both the positive and negative reactions are way wide of the mark. The Reagan appointment of O'Connor has been called a "major victory for women's rights," by the president of the National Organization for Women. At the same time, the New Right has issued a harsh assault against the appointment. A former president of the National Right to Life Committee said O'Connor was "unqualified because she's pro-abortion." Richard Viguerie, New Right mail-order king and publisher of the Conservative Digest, said simply, "We've been challenged.

The White House has said we're a paper tiger. They've left us no choice but to fight." Both camps should back off. Before the of their comments. It is understandable that women would generally be pleased with an appointment of a woman to the Supreme Court. Women have made significant progress in gaining entry to the legal profession in recent years.

In 1970, women made up 2.8 percent of the lawyers. Today, they constitute about 10 percent of the profession, and that proportion continues to grow. But few women are judges or full professors of law, and fewer still are partners in the nation's largest law Arms. No woman has ever served as president of a state bar association. When it comes to women, the law and O'Connor, there's progress, but also a long way to go.

Despite the New Right's vow to fight the appointment, there is little in O'Con nor's judicial record to merit criticism and there is much to indicate judicial restraint. Sandra Day O'Connor Anti-regulation steamroller paves way for business abuses The Reagan administration is taking a Kate Stanley Personal opinion because they were disparaged by businesses, state and local governments, schools and farm groups. The administration says it solicited suggestions from labor, consumer and environmental groups, too, but few answered. No wonder. These people feel that they've already lost, and they watch the making of a movement: Last spring, the administration announced it was considering easing a bevy of regulations, including 34 environmental and safety rules that it said constrained the ailing auto industry.

Who's in charge here? Consumer advocate Ralph Nader had a handle on the history of this disaster, at least, saying that Bush's announcement was "the latest installment in withdrawing health and safety protections for the American people. It is another signal to big business that there will be no law and order applied to them under the Reagan administration." Overstatement, of course. But industry will run the show, and it's only a matter of time before some critical controls dissolve in the anti-regulation solvent the Reaganauts are sloshing about. They're tearing at some of the country's most important public interest laws under the pretext of eliminating This campaign ignores altogether the notion of the "public interest," a distinction lost on many corporate types, who consider it nothing more than an amalgamation of special private interests. But that's not what it is.

The public interest is generally synonymous with what's best for consumers. It's not necessarily true, after all, that what's good for industry is always good for America. Of course business laments the "burdensome" nature of some regulations, but what's the alternative? In their absence, the howitzers and tanks that industry rolls onto the battlefield would quell the popguns consumerists wield in a minute or two. Ordinary people deserve a say in the affairs of government. We need regulation of business to preserve order and prevent abuses.

Even Herbert Hoover knew that: "When legislation penetrates the business world it is because there is abuse somewhere," he said. In the main, Hoover noted, "The public acts only when it has lost confidence in the ability or willingness of business to correct its own abuses." But then, it could be true that if government were as worried about hurting the consumer as it is of disturbing business, this wouldn't be America. achieve that goal? How will these crusaders reconcile the promise to preserve air quality with the idea of scrapping the "lead phasedown" rule, which limits the amount of lead in a gallon of gas? Ah, that's all metaphysical speculation. No need to mull over the details. No final decisions have been made about the regulations being reconsidered, Bush reassures, and there's still time.

Claptrap. They dress it up as "only a review" so they can dismiss the containers: "Why the fussing?" they'll say. "It's only a review." They've already made up their minds, and that's obvious. Boyden Gray, a Bush aide, cleared it up straightaway: Some rules may survive the review, he acknowledged, but most will be eased or eliminated outright. Well, there you have it.

They're just pretending. The Reaganauts mean to do away with regulatory irritants, not fine-tune the means to an end. They quarrel with the objectives themselves, and they mean to obliterate goals and lower standards whenever they obscure industry's natural right to exploit public resources. Just look at whom the government is listening to: The rules are set for scrutiny sledgehammer to nature and equity in a fell swoop, and you're just sitting there. You know by now, surely, that the White House is a front for industry apologists scheming to rescue business from a storm of purported paperwork.

And there's sense in that endeavor, of a sort. But have you looked at the list? The 30 federal regulations they've targeted for so-called "review" rank among the decade's most crucial consumer and civil rights victories. They're aiming at federal laws that regulate concerns ranging from sexual harassment in the workplace and employment discrimination to wildlife protection and the testing of new chemicals. The idea, Vice President George Bush said Wednesday, is to reduce the burdenspaperwork and bother on industry, without undermining key social protections, by finding more efficient ways of achieving the same objectives. Don't worry you won't feel a thing.

This is all technical stuff and has very little to do with the real world. "On the environment, for example," Bush said, "there is nothing in our approach that is destined to diminish the quality of life and the quality of the air." "There are a lot of people out there say- ing, 'Look, there's a better way to skin this Perhaps that's true unless you've got a recalcitrant cat, in which case vigor and alacrity are called for. Prohibiting discrimination in schools and on the job, for instance, tends to require a law declaring discrimination illegal. How else can you guarantee equal treatment? There's no such thing as halfway. Look at another rule the administration wants to ditch the Environmental Protection Agency requirement that manufacturers test and register pesticides and other chemicals before they are marketed.

The objective is to protect human health and the environment from unsuspected toxins. What "more efficient" procedure does the administration contemplate to GUNNAR THE TWINS. THE VIKINGS! THE GOPHERS! jjL H00 I THERE ARE NO LIMITS TO WHAT THEY CAN IJf Sf YEAH. THEY'LL BE ABLE TO GET i.o-.it- i I DO WITH THE PLACE. ffr PRV BILLY GRAHAM, BUT NOT THE KICKS.

IS FANTAp 1 Sites considered for chemical dumps won't necessarily go to waste By ROBERT DUNN so a sinele list eliminates imnortant alter. so a single list eliminates important alter board chose its criteria combination strate nal sites must have acceptable (if not the hydroeeoloev and must be fnrthpr A Guest Column natives at tne outset. The Legislature recognized this problem in setting up the board's site selection process, by asking it to identify six "candidate" sites by March 1982 and then enlisting extensive public involvement in the final selection. A danger is that the board might make all the important policy choices beforehand, by choosing criteria for the six finalists that excluded sites which highlighted certain important policy alternatives. evaluated in terms of transportation and land-use characteristics.

Ideally, a site would be found that met all of the criteria combinations, but that is unlikely given the geography of Minnesota. This is because the Twin Cities metro area and most public lands have a much lower probability of having hydrogeologi-cally superior sites than do some of the The board avoided this trap by using four different criteria lists or "combinations," each of which highlights a different emphasis. Each list has been applied and is producing site "study areas" in different parts of the state. The four criteria combinations were based upon advice the board received from me pudhc ana tecnnicai consultants. All fi agricultural parts of the state.

So the gy to avoid eliminating one or another policy option early in the process. By choosing sites with four different criteria lists, we expect that most of our finalist sites in fact will not meet one or another of our criteria combinations. Obviously, Sibley and Clay counties would be almost entirely eliminated if we vetoed all highly productive agricultural land, just as areas of Hennepin and Mille Lacs counties would be out if only the best hydro-geology was considered. But then the board would be making key policy tradeoffs at the beginning of a three-year siting process, and would be depriving Minnesotans of participating and debating in the resolution of one of the most far-reaching issues facing Minnesota. Admittedly our criteria combination approach is complicated and at times-confusing.

It does, however, meet the Legislature's goal of openness and evenhanded consideration of all areas of the state in the siting of a hazardous waste disposal facility. DUNN chairman of the Minnesota Waste Management Board. Editorial Amdahl will carry on battle for judicial reform THE LATE Chief Justice Earl Warrpn litical. While he has scruoulouslv avoided Robert Girouard's July 30 editorial, "Confusing inconsistencies pile up in selection of toxic waste sites," reflects some misunderstandings of the Waste Management Board's process for siting a hazardous waste disposal facility. Broad public understanding of this process is essential if the state is to find sites for the facilities needed to properly manage the 150,000 tons of hazardous waste generated in Minnesota each year in a safe and environmentally sound manner.

The Waste Management Board has used the computer data base of the State Planning Agency's Land Management Information Center (LMIC) to identify areas of the state that have the highest likelihood of yielding sites that meet the board's criteria. Far from being a deficiency in the board's process, the computer successfully identified the most promising areas of the state for further analysis. By applying the board's initial siting criteria statewide to find those promising areas, LMIC narrowed Minnesota's 84,000 square miles to a manageable 2,700 square miles. Minnesota is fortunate to have this unique planning tool. The major error in the editorial, however, stems from Girouard's lack of understanding of the board's use of "criteria combinations" in searching for hazardous waste disposal sites.

Those criteria combinations seek to identify: sites with the best natural conditions to protect ground water; sites that avoid the best agricultural lands; areas in or close to the Twin Cities metro area; and sites on public lands. Girouard assumes that areas that qualified under all four of the board's criteria combinations would be considered by the board for possible disposal sites. That isn't true. Areas that qualified under any one of the criteria combinations were designated as disposal site "study areas." The use of "criteria combinations" sets Minnesota's siting process apart from that of other states and we believe gives us a better chance of success. Most siting processes develop a single list of criteria and find sites that meet all of them in other words, sites that reflect a single set of The Minneapolis Star Monday, August 17, 1981 Volume CHI, No.

179 was prone, after suffering through highly technical oral arguments by hard-eyed lawyers, to lean forward and break into the verbiage with this question: "Yes, but it is fair?" It is precisely that quality that Minnesota Chief Justice Douglas Amdahl brings to his new assignment. Indeed, when Gov. Al Quie announced Amdahl's elevation (effective Dec. 19) at a news conference, Amdahl summed up his approach to jurisprudence by saying: "I hope that my service will be a benefit to justice." But Amdahl's innate sense of fairness Is not the only reason that he's ajworthy successor to another great chief justice, Robert Sheran. Professionally, he's not only a "judges' judge" but a "lawyers judge." When The Minneapolis Star surveyed Minneapolis trial.

lawyers six years ago at a time Amdahl sat on the district bench, he ranked at the top for diligence, courtesy, reasonableness, efficiency jd impartiality. Nothing has happened since to change that verdict. Donald R. Dwight Publisher Stephen D. Isaacs Editor a hardheaded dedication to the improvement of judicial efficiency.

It was no accident that he used the news conference called to announce his appointment as a forum to plug Sheran's pet project, the creation of a much-needed intermediate appellate court. Amdahl will not be bashful in his advocacy of this essential reform to relieve his court from a heavy caseload that can only diminish the quality of Minnesota appellate law. In this connection, it's good news that Quie used the occasion of Amdahl's elevation to add his support for this reform. And it must be added that, in the broader context of court reform and merit selection of judges, Quie is making an excellent record. The Amdahl appointment is just one example.

Quie has used a screening committee process that's reasonably if not entirely free of partisanship to fill lower court vacancies. Now, coincident with the Amdahl appointment, Quie has set up a new merit-selection committee on future Supreme Court appointments, including the choice of Amdahl's successor as associate justice. Austin C. Wehrwein for The Minneapolis Star any conflict with outside interests especially with partisan politics Amdahl does not dwell in an aloof ivory tower. He loves hunting, fishing and puttering around the house and reportedly has no peer when it comes to fixing faucets.

His on-the-bench visage is appropriately stern. But he can laugh about that: One of his yarns is about the time he frightened mice out of his garage by hanging up his picture. Recently he succeeded Justice C. Donald Peterson as chairman of the Minnesota Press Council. That, too, was a fortuitous appointment because he has a cordial if somewhat "arm's-length" relationship with news organization people.

It would be a shame if the press of judicial duties made it impossible for him to stay with the news council. Apart from-iis no-nonsense, businesslike image on the bench, he's decidedly old-shoe. It's no aspersion to say that an average citizen who didn't know who he was might well take him, say, for a smalltown lawyer or even for a successful farmer. His folksy humor and modest, often halting out-of-court demeanor, conceal Robert .1. Girouard Opinion Editor Rodgert Adams Assistant to the Editor G.

Kent Gardner Assistant Managing EditorGraphics- Blaine King Assistant Managing EditorCommunity David Eden Sports Editor Tun I. McGulre Execuuve Editor Michael J. Finney Managing Editor A. Hallock Seymour Deputy Managing Editor Special Sections Llane Guenther Assistant Managing EditorAdministration Robert Ostmann Jr. Assistant Managing EditorReporting poncy cnoices.

unionunateiy, there is no universally agreed-upon list of criteria, He's avowedly conservative but non-po- 4.