A6 MONDAY, APRIL 6, 2020 LATIMES.COM
THE NATION
WASHINGTON — For-
mer Vice President Joe Bid-
en has promised that if
elected in November, he will
appoint the first black wom-
an to the Supreme Court — a
step he called “long over-
due.”
One of the leading candi-
dates is 43-year-old Califor-
nia Supreme Court Justice
Leondra R. Kruger. A former
Justice Department lawyer
who argued a dozen cases
before the high court in
Washington before return-
ing to California, she is a fa-
vorite of former Obama ad-
ministration lawyers and
Democratic Senate advis-
ors.
“She should be on any-
one’s shortlist” for the
Supreme Court, said Chris-
topher Kang, a deputy coun-
sel to Obama who oversaw
the selection and vetting of
220 appointees to the federal
court.
“Leondra Kruger is one of
the handful of the most bril-
liant attorneys with whom
I’ve ever worked,” said
Washington attorney Neal
Katyal, who was acting solic-
itor general during Presi-
dent Obama’s first term.
“I asked her to be my
principal deputy solicitor
general because I knew the
advice she’d give me would
be meticulous and deeply
thought out, and most of all,
honest:I cannot imagine a
better justice.”
Kruger grew up in South
Pasadena, the daughter of
two pediatricians. She at-
tended the Polytechnic
School in Pasadena and
earned an undergraduate
degree at Harvard Uni-
versity and a law degree
from Yale, where she served
as editor in chief of the Yale
Law Journal.
She moved to Washing-
ton, where she was a law
clerk for Judge David Tatel,
a prominent liberal on the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit,
and for Supreme Court Jus-
tice John Paul Stevens. She
later worked for a private law
firm in Washington, taught
for a year at the University of
Chicago and worked as
lawyer in the U.S. solicitor
general’s office in the Bush
and Obama administra-
tions.
She was only 38 when
Gov. Jerry Brown appointed
her in 2014 to California’s
high court. There she has
emerged as a moderate on a
liberal-leaning court. In 2018,
she spoke for the court in a
4-3 ruling that upheld a voter
initiative on “DNA finger-
prints” that calls for taking a
DNA swab of people who are
arrested for felony crimes.
Kruger said that swabs
did not violate California’s
constitutional protection for
privacy, and that the courts
should do all they can to re-
spects voters’ wishes.
“We have often said that
‘it is our solemn duty to jeal-
ously guard’ the initiative
power secured by the Cali-
fornia Constitution and that
we accordingly may not
strike down voter measures
‘unless their unconstitution-ality clearly, positively, and
unmistakably appears,’ ”
she wrote in People vs. Buza.
Kruger is soft-spoken
and modest, and she has
been a cautious judge, which
could make her an especially
appealing candidate if Re-
publicans keep control of the
Senate.
“I know her well, and I
think she would be a superb
choice,” said former Obama
Solicitor Gen. Donald Ver-
rilli Jr.. “She has a powerful
intellect and she’s a careful
thinker. She is not rigidly
ideological, but fair, open-
minded and prudent. And
those are the qualities you
want in a justice of the
Supreme Court.”
Biden is not the first
presidential candidate to
pledge to diversify the high
court. In 1980, Ronald
Reagan pledged to select the
first woman, and did so a
year later when he ap-
pointed Justice Sandra Day
O’Connor.
A decade later, White
House lawyers for President
George H.W. Bush were in
search of a conservative Af-
rican American who could
be appointed to replace the
aging Justice Thurgood
Marshall, a civil rights leg-
end and the court’s first
black justice. There were no
obvious candidates on the
federal bench.
So they turned to Clar-
ence Thomas, then the out-
spoken 41-year-old director
of the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission,
and appointed him in 1990 to
the U.S. appeals court for
the District of Columbia.
Ayear later, when Mar-
shall retired, Thomas was
chosen for the SupremeCourt.
All of the Supreme Court
justices, with the exception
of Elena Kagan, came from a
federal appeals court. But
there are only four black
women now serving on fed-
eral appellate courts, and all
of them are older than 65.
“There are many out-
standing African American
women who would make ter-
rific Supreme Court jus-
tices,” said Nan Aron, presi-
dent of the Alliance for Jus-
tice, a coalition of prog-
ressive groups. But she said
the search should not be
confined to federal appeals
courts, because Senate Ma-
jority Leader Mitch Mc-
Connell (R-Ky.) blocked ac-
tion on several of Obama’s
black nominees to those
benches.
The other oft-mentioned
candidate if Biden wins thepresidency is U.S. District
Judge Ketanji Brown Jack-
son.
She is a 49-year-old judge
in Washington, D.C., who
was considered by the
Obama White House for the
Supreme Court nomination
in 2016 that went to Judge
Merrick Garland. She too
has backers among the law-
yers who worked for Obama
and for Senate Democrats.
Jackson grew up in Mi-
ami, the daughter of a lawyer
and a school principal. She
has undergraduate and law
degrees from Harvard and
clerked for three federal
judges, including Justice
Stephen G. Breyer. Before
Obama appointed her as a
federal judge in 2013, she
worked in a private law firm,
was a federal public defend-
er and served as vice chair of
the U.S. Sentencing Com-mission.
In November, she issued
a 120-page opinion that re-
jected President Trump’s
claim of “absolute immuni-
ty” to prevent former White
House counsel Donald Mc-
Gahn from testifying before
a House committee. She
said the claimed immunity
“appears to be a fiction that
has been fastidiously main-
tained over time” by White
House lawyers, even though
it has not been accepted by
the courts.
“Because compulsory
appearance by dint of a sub-
poena is a legal construct,
not a political one, and per
the Constitution, no one is
above the law,” McGahn
may not refuse to testify, she
wrote. Trump’s lawyers ap-
pealed, and the full District
of Columbia court is recon-
sidering her decision.Biden’s court pick?
Here’s a top candidate
LEONDRA R. KRUGER,who grew up in South Pasadena and attended Harvard
and Yale, was 38 when Jerry Brown put her on California’s high court in 2014.David ButowFor The TimesDemocratic insiders
say California’s
Leondra Kruger has
Supreme credentials.
By David G. Savage
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. —
They didn’t pack masks or
latex gloves before their
morning hike, trusting that
the increasingly empty trails
amid the vast mountain vis-
tas would provide more than
adequate protection.
For R.W. Van Arsdale and
his son, Robert, an im-
promptu respite in the
Southwest has become an
unlikely antidote to riding
out the coronavirus
pandemic.
It’s also their only option
for now.
Van Arsdale’s Ford F-
broke down two weeks ago
during their father-son road
trip from Oregon to the
Grand Canyon. It took sev-
eral days to find a mechanic
who wasn’t booked up for
several more days, but he fi-
nally found one and planned
to be back on the road to the
Pacific Northwest soon.
In the meantime, howev-
er, the pair have remained
quarantined inside their
travel trailer: father, son and
two golden retrievers, Wat-
son and Fink, cooped up in-
side a 24-foot rectangle. But
Van Arsdale’s not complain-
ing. He’s glad they have their
own place in which to isolate.
“What is happening is
really real and it’s terrifying,”
Van Arsdale, a retired phar-
macist, said one recent
morning. “If people don’t
take proper precautions, it
can and definitely will get
even worse.”
The question for Van Ars-
dale and other Americans
traversing the country in
RVs and campers this spring
is what exactly are proper
precautions during a health
crisis that even a month ago
—when many of them set
out on their adventures
along Route 66 — seemed in-
conceivable.
Should they pull into a
Walmart parking lot and
hunker down? Should they
hit the open road? Or if their
RV is their permanent resi-
dence, should they return to
their hometown and try to
find a place to park?
For now, many remain in
limbo.
You can see it in the
hodgepodge of motor homes
and truck campers parked
at Black Bart’s RV Park
campground here in
Flagstaff. You’ll spot license
plates from North Carolina
and Oklahoma, New Mexico
and California, British Co-
lumbia and Alberta.
Van Arsdale, 68, and his
son, 29, a graduate student
at La Sierra University in
Riverside, started planning
their trip a year ago. Last
month, after monitoring the
headlines, they decided to
move things up a few weeks,
hoping to be home before
things possibly got too dicey.
“We were going to make
this a quick one,” the father
said. “See the Grand Canyon
and head back.”
In mid-March, they drove
south on Interstate 5 from
Oregon, traversing much of
California before catching
Interstate 40 east to
Flagstaff, and then heading
north to the Grand Canyon.
While they hiked along the
rim, more and more states
started implementing stay-
at-home orders, and the duo
decided to head home.
“Then,” Van Arsdale said,
sighing, “my truck decided
to break down.”
For days, they have
parked the trailer at Black
Bart’s — far from the worst
place to be stranded giventhe circumstances. Spired
pine trees line the park’s
gravel roads, which have
names like Ambush Bend
and Pony Express, and off in
the distance you can see the
snow-capped Humphreys
Peak.
On a recent afternoon,
smoke wafted through the
crisp air as a fellow traveler
grilled hot links for lunch.
“We’re staying inside as
much as possible and follow-
ing the news,” Van Arsdale
said. “But we also need to
step out and enjoy some
fresh air.”
As a graduate student,
Robert teaches English to
undergraduates at La Sier-
ra, and now that classes
have moved online, he
spends some of his day on
Zoom, presenting slide
shows and fielding ques-
tions about assignments.
“Surreal,” he said, “really,
all of it is.”
And they’re far from
alone in this space.
Nearly 25 million Ameri-
cans traveled in recreational
vehicles last spring and
summer, according to a sur-
vey by the group Go RVing,
which partners with the RV
Industry Assn. In recent
days, a blogger from NewYork City — the nation’s co-
ronavirus hot spot— drew
online ire when she set off on
a cross-country road trip
with her husband and kids
inside an RV. Some believed
the move was a deliberate
flouting of stay-at-home or-
ders.
“After two full weeks in
the apartment, we made the
family decision to drive out
west so we can have a little
more space,” blogger Naomi
Davis wrote on Instagram,
adding that they planned to
take care to stay away from
others.
For some families, living
in their RV isn’t a backup
plan — it’s their main resi-
dence, which has made
things a bit complicated.
Cody Taylor and his wife,
Edith, rented out their home
in Albany, Ore., about 70
miles south of Portland, in
July, having decided they
wanted to see more of the
country before their toddler
sons were school age.
They bought a Fifth
Wheel and Cody, a traveling
nurse who often helps dur-
ing elective surgeries, took a
contract in Twin Falls,
Idaho. The family lived there
for several months before
moving to Albuquerque for anew gig.
Five weeks ago, he began
a new contract at Flagstaff
Medical Center, and the
family moved into Black
Bart’s. Soon after President
Trump declared a national
emergency, the hospital
ended elective surgeries,
and Taylor lost his job. He’s
looking for new work.
“It’s terrible,” he said on a
recent afternoon as he
shined the trailer attached
to his pickup truck. “But I
know a lot of people are also
in my situation, whether
they work in a restaurant or
small business.
“We just have to ride this
all out,” he said.
To pass the time, the fam-
ily has gone on several hikes
and watches movies inside
the RV. His wife, who does
CrossFit workouts, man-
aged to borrow some weight-
lifting equipment from a
shuttered gym. She exer-
cises often. But during their
downtime, Taylor said, they
ponder the future.
“I think we’re going to
have to move back to Oregon
soon,” he said, seated in the
rear of the truck.
His wife nodded.
“It’s time to head home,”
she said.For Lawrence Dennis,
Flagstaff is home.
Dennis, who lives in a
Fifth Wheel across town at
the Kit Carson RV Park,
moved here a few years ago
from Texas. During the sum-
mers, he often travels
throughout the West with
his wife. He’s 50 and works in
insurance.
“We like to get lost in the
woods and travel off the
grid,” he said. “If I was actu-
ally concerned about this co-
ronavirus, we would do
that.”
Instead, Dennis said, he
sees what’s going on as a
massive overreaction.
“We never do this for the
flu, and say what you want,
this is the flu,” Dennis in-
sisted before setting off on a
two-hour bicycle ride
through the nearby hills.
Dennis said he was frus-
trated by the order issued by
the mayor of Flagstaff last
week shuttering restaurants
and gyms. If people want to
go out to eat, he said, they
should be allowed to. If they
feel unsafe, he added, they
can go ahead and stay home.
“It’s pretty simple to me,”
he said. “The madness is just
so much.”
That type of thinking
concerns Van Arsdale, the
retired pharmacist, who
says he has had an up-close
view of how quickly viruses
can spread.
“The government is now
taking the right steps,” he
said, “I just hope we’re not
too late.”
On a recent afternoon,
Van Arsdale and his son
turned north in the van they
were renting while their
truck was under repair, loop-
ing past a section of the
Navajo Nation, which has
urged travelers to stay away,
as they headed toward the
southern rim of the Grand
Canyon.
They were greeted by a
clear sky, an empty parking
lot and free admission — a
nearly nonexistent trio at
the world wonder. (Since
their visit, the park has offi-
cially closed until further no-
tice.)
On the large plateau near
the South Rim of the Grand
Canyon, Van Arsdale
gripped the dogs’ leashes,
and Watson and Fink pulled
him toward a patch of wild
grass to relieve themselves.
It was beautiful here and
it felt safe to be outside and
in this empty parking lot.
But still, his mind was on
his truck, hoping it would be
fixed soon.
He just wants to go home.Riding out the pandemic in their RVs
Some were traveling
when crisis hit; others,
just living. Both find
themselves in limbo.
By Kurtis Lee
“I THINK WE’REgoing to have to move back to Oregon soon,” says Cody Taylor, 34, a traveling nurse who’s
been on the road with his family. Above, Taylor with his son Emery, 2, and their dog Moose in Flagstaff, Ariz.Gina FerazziLos Angeles Times