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SCREEN CAPTURE / ABC Ruth Bader Ginsberg, 1933-2020
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OPINION
With the pandemic, the sour economy, the divisive elections, can 2020 get any worse? The answer, I'm afraid, is "Yes, much worse."
The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg Friday (Sept. 18) at the age of 87 has turned the heat up by several notches in one of the most contentious and important Presidential elections in America's history.
“The stakes of this election couldn’t be higher,” Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris tweeted after offering prayers for Ginsburg and her grieving family. “Millions of Americans are counting on us to win and protect the Supreme Court—for their health, for their families, and for their rights.”
We should celebrate that we lived in an age when Justice Ginsberg was possible. We should work so that there can be even more Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Many people would like to honor the late champion of civil rights, women's rights with quiet respect to mourn her passing; others would like to wallow in despair for the future of our country. To truly honor RBG's memory, we should redouble our efforts to turn this country around.
It may be proper to offer a quiet prayer for the soul of RBG, but you would be totally wrong if you think Republicans are going to sit on their hands quietly during this period of mlourning. Conservatives have been waiting for Ginsberg's death for years to solidify their grip on the Supreme Court.
Don't expect Senate Leader Mitch McConnell to stick to his words that he used to rationalize go against centuries-old tradition by turning down President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court four years ago.
When Justice Antonin Scalia died in February of 2016, McConnell said:
"Given that we are in the midst of the presidential election process, we believe that the American people should seize the opportunity to weigh in on whom they trust to nominate the next person for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court," they conclude. "It is today the American people, rather than a lame-duck president whose priorities and policies they just rejected in the most-recent national election, who should be afforded the opportunity to replace Justice Scalia."
With those words, the GOP-dominated Senate pushed through the nomination and vote for Neal Gorsuch, who has been a steady vote for conservatives since he took his place on the bench.
“A basic principle of the law – and of everyday fairness – is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what’s convenient or advantageous in the moment,: wrote President Obama in Medium. "The rule of law, the legitimacy of our courts, the fundamental workings of our democracy all depend on that basic principle. As votes are already being cast in this election, Republican senators are now called to apply that standard.”
"I have a very simple message for Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell tonight," said Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-HI, who sits on the Senate Judicial Committee, "The best and only way to honor the life’s work of Justice Ginsburg, a giant of a jurist, is to honor her fervent final wish that she not be replaced until a new president is installed.
On Friday night, Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, declared: “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.” Hypocrisy be damned!
Ginsberg was fully aware what was at stake and fought to stay healthy until just a few weeks ago. And ... she fought to the end. On her deathbed, she uttered her dying wish to one of her granddaughters:
“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”
The Senate and McConnell should honor that wish, but I'm afraid "honor" has no meaning in Trump's Republican Party.
Make no mistake what's at stake here. They are enormous. The selection of the new Justice could determine what kind of America we, our children, our grandchildren and their children will live in, given the key role the court plays in guiding our society on cultural, social and political issues.
The highest court in the land already has four steady right-wing votes in Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. Chief Justice John Roberts might sometimes side with the more liberal wing of justices but for the majority of his votes, he has voted conservative. That's a majority of five.
With the possible appointment of another conservative, that would give conservative-leaning SCOTUS and decided rightward tilt. The more ideologically liberal justices, Steven Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor would be reduced to writing dissenting views -- which boil down to nice thoughts but totally powerless in implementation.
MSNBC host Ari Berman tweeted: "It’s truly shocking that 4 of 5 conservative justices on Supreme Court (Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch & Kavanaugh) were nominated by Republican presidents who lost (the) popular vote.
Indeed, both Presidents Bush and current White House occupant Donald Trump lost the popular vote but won the electoral college votes.
Diving down even further, the U.S. Senate Republicans represent 15 million less voters than their Democratic counterparts. In the 2018 elections, Senate Democrats garnered 18 million more votes than Republicans.
It is unlikely that Ginsberg's replacement would be appointed before the first Monday of October, when the Supreme Court traditionally opens a new term and decides which cases it would accept for their judgement.
Trump has been using the conservative-leaning High Court as his backstop to controversial measures that have been rejected by lower courts.
Some of the life-changing decisions the 2020-2021 SCOTUS will likely face: Affirmative action, what's left of President Obama's Affordable Care Act which has been whittled down since Trump took office; Roe v. Wade, the ruling that allows a woman to choose, has been chipped away at the last few years; the future of the participants in the Deferred Action on Delayed Arrivals (DACA) that similarly has been upheld by lower courts, in fact, Trump's entire anti-immigrant agenda from the issuance of visas and green cards to the detention and deportation of refugees.
Looking further down the road, in keeping with their anti-big government pillar, Republicans would also like a conservative Supreme Court to eventually review and perhaps end New Deal institutions of Social Security and Medicare, which have long been targets of the ultra-rich who don't believe in sharing their good fortune; doing away with estate taxes benefiting the ultra-rich; and just about any government assistance program from unemployment to food supplements would be vulnerable.
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Ruth Bader Ginsberg through the years, as an advocate, and later as a Supreme Court Justice, fought for the rights of men and women.
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So mourn, pray RBG's passing, but also start planning and girding yourselves for a battle -- and we're not exaggerrating -- that could determine how we and our descendants live our lives in our country -- with rights equal to all -- or as second-class citizens who have to claw our way to the upper tiers of society in order to have the rights we enjoy today.
The first step, is to make sure Justice Ginsberg's replacement is not nominated until after the November elections when voters can give Democrats the edge in the Senate and remove McConnell, who represents Kentucky. In states where a Senate seat is up -- yes, that means Arizona, Maine, Kansas, Kentucky, Colorado, Iowa, Montana, North Carolina, Alabama -- vote for Democrats in the Senate races.
The second step in that battle is to kick out Trump and his minions from the White House and the power that office holds.
“We cannot let them win this fight,” said Harris, the first Asian American nominated for national office, in a prepared statement to supporters today (Saturday, Sept. 19). "Millions of Americans are counting on us to stand up, right now, and fight like hell to protect the Supreme Court -- not just for today, but for generations to come.“
"The work of holding Senate Republicans accountable to the standard they set in 2016 starts now," she said. "To Joe (Biden) and me, it is clear: The voters should pick a President, and that President should select a successor to Justice Ginsburg.”
RBG has died. We must pick up her banner. Her fight, is now our fight.
EDITOR'S NOTE: A word of caution, this is news laced with opinion. Readers are encouraged to seek multiple news sources to formulate their own positions.
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