Today I continue to mourn the death of a feminist hero and liberal icon, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Ginsburg dedicated her life to fighting for gender equality even before she was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1993. During her more than two decades on the nation’s high court, Ginsburg continued to fight for equal protection under the law and over time became a liberal icon, delivering progressive votes on a number of key issues including abortion rights, same-sex marriage and healthcare.
She was never afraid to speak her mind and over the years, became known for her dissents in key cases, some of which have inspired legislation.
Simply put, there is no one Donald Trump can select who will be worthy of filling the vacancy left behind by the notorious RBG on the Supreme Court. Her last wish was that the next president chooses her replacement.
Less than an hour after her death was announced, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell rejected her dying wish. He vowed that Donald Trump’s nominee will get a vote on the Senate floor.
“Americans re-elected our majority in 2016 and expanded it in 2018 because we pledged to work with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary,” McConnell said in a statement. “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”
This is the same Mitch McConnell who refused to even give Merrick Garland a hearing when he was nominated in 2016 by President Obama, 237 days before the election. He said at the time that “the American people, should have a say in the court’s direction.” The 2020 presidential election is just 45 days away.
Notably, McConnell did not say when this vote will be held. This did not stop GOP senators from weighing in, urging McConnell to move as quickly as possible to get Trump’s nominee on the bench before the November elections. A clear sign that they know Donald Trump will not be re-elected, but I digress.
Senator Ted Cruz, who Trump named as a potential nominee, told Fox News that Trump should name someone next week so he/she can be confirmed before the election. Similar sentiments were expressed by Sens. Rick Scott, Martha McSally, Kelly Loeffler, and Marsha Blackburn.
Democrats meanwhile are calling for McConnell to delay the vote and honor Ginsburg’s dying wish. But McConnell, who Paul Begala describes as “someone spectacularly Machiavellian and malevolent” is unlikely to listen. He’s playing bare-knuckle politics and unfortunately, when Donald Trump names a nominee and the Lindsey Graham led Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing and a panel vote, Democrats will not be able to stop the process. They can slow it down, but they won’t be able to stop the nomination from going through.
What is to come will make the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process look like small potatoes. If Republicans thought they had a chance of keeping the Senate, they can kiss that goodbye. This is not Brett Kavanaugh, and we are in a very different political climate than during the Kavanaugh hearings. A number of Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are facing very tough re-election battles this November. Their chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham is running neck and neck with Jaime Harrison in South Carolina. Joni Ernst is trailing Theresa Greenfield by 0.3% in Iowa and Thom Tillis trails Cal Cunningham by 3.6 percentage in North Carolina.
An open Supreme Court seat would galvanize Republicans, now that perception appears to be outdated. A recent Pew Research Center poll shows that Democrats have finally realized the importance of the Supreme Court. In the Pew poll, 66 percent of Democrats say Supreme Court appointments are “very important” to their vote in 2020 as opposed to 61 percent of Republicans. In 2016, Trump supporters were 8% more likely than Clinton supporters to say Supreme Court nominations are “very important” to their vote.
The Supreme Court was already a top issue for Democrats this election and that was before the death of the Notorious RBG. Dems were already energized to vote Trump out of office, we are more energized now. Things will not end well for those vulnerable Republicans up for re-election if they side with McConnell to ram through a far-right nominee who is antithetical to everything RBG stood for.
But, given the time frame for a normal Supreme Court nomination process and the fact that McConnell did not specify a date for a Senate vote, it will likely be after the November 3rd elections, so during a lame-duck session.
Legal experts say Democrat Mark Kelly could be seated by November 30 if he defeats Sen. Martha McSally in the Arizona Senate race, which is the expected outcome. So, the Republican majority will be narrowed down to 52-48. This will be hard to hear but if they have a nominee by that time, he/she will likely get confirmed to the Supreme Court. Of course, people will lose confidence in the court but I doubt that matters to McConnell very much.
The Republicans are given a once in a lifetime opportunity get a 6-3 conservative majority on the high court, they will not give that up, it’s what they’ve wanted for years. So if you were depending on Republican decency or morality to win out, you will be disappointed. Romney, Collins or Murkowski will not pass up the opportunity to swing the court solidly right for a generation. No matter what they say in the past, this is too good an opportunity to pass up.
During a lame-duck session, Collins would likely lose her seat by then so she literally will have nothing else to lose and I doubt that she would want Republicans to remember her as the woman who screwed up their chance for a supermajority. Murkowski is up for re-election in 2022 and Romney in 2024, they’ll probably not want to upset the base of their party. Even if they do, it will not be enough, the vote will be a 50-50 split and Mike Pence will be the deciding vote.
But there’s hope, VOTE!. That’s it go out and vote. The constitution did not say the Supreme Court must have nine justices. If you vote and give Dems control of the White House, Senate and House, a Democratic Senate can expand the number of justices on the court. My suggestion, add 4 new justices, two for each seat stolen by McConnell and we can finally get someone worthy of filling the vacancy left behind by RBG.
As I said earlier, this is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she was an icon to women, millennials, and the LGBTQ community. If the Republicans ram this through they will pay for it at the ballot box for a long time.
There is not much Democrats can do to stop McConnell at this point, but when they are given the majority in the Senate, the gloves should come off.
