Law (US)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Arizona race could give Democrats extra Senate seat for supreme court fight

      by

      If he wins a US Senate seat in Arizona, the former astronaut Mark Kelly could take office as early as 30 November, an outcome which might jeopardize the launch of Donald Trump’s third supreme court nominee. The Democratic candidate has maintained a polling lead over the Republican Martha McSally, who was appointed to the seat held by John McCain, who died in 2018. Because the contest is a special election to finish McCain’s term, the winner could be sworn in as soon as the results are certified. Other winners in November’s contest, in which Democrats hope to retake the Senate, will not take office until January. Trump has pledged to nominate a replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Friday, and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has vowed that the nominee “will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate”.If Kelly wins, when he takes office could be crucial in deciding the ensuing nomination fight. Republicans currently hold the chamber by 53 seats to 47. The prospect of falling to 52 could prompt McConnell to speed up the nomination process. With McSally in the Senate, four defections would defeat a nomination. A tie vote could be broken by Vice-President Mike Pence. Within hours of the announcement of Ginsberg’s death, McSally declared that “this US Senate should vote on President Trump’s next nominee for the US supreme court”. She has not elaborated on whether the vote should come before or after the election. But she highlighted the renewed stakes of her race in a fundraising pitch on Saturday. “If Mark Kelly comes out on top, HE could block President Trump’s supreme court Nominee from being confirmed,” McSally wrote. In the 2018 midterms, Democrats found success in Arizona, long dominated by the GOP, by appealing to Republicans and independents disaffected with Trump. The supreme court vacancy could boost McSally by keeping those voters in her camp. Kelly said late on Saturday: “The people elected to the presidency and Senate in November should fill this vacancy. When it comes to making a lifetime appointment to the supreme court, Washington shouldn’t rush that process for political purposes.” Arizona law requires election results to be certified on the fourth Monday after the election, which falls this year on 30 November. The certification could be delayed up to three days if the state has not received election results from any of its 15 counties. Mary O’Grady, a Democratic lawyer, said the deadlines are firm. “I don’t see ambiguity here,” said O’Grady, Arizona’s solicitor general under two Democratic attorneys general, adding that state law allows recounts and election challenges only under very limited circumstances. Former Senate historian Don Ritchie told the Arizona Republic, which first reported on the prospect for Kelly taking office early a day before Ginsburg’s death: “Usually, the secretary of the Senate’s office goes out of its way to accommodate the new senators coming in.“The old senator is out of their office there. I mean, they actually literally put a lock on the door so their staff can’t go in.” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      'I will fight!': mourners' vow at supreme court vigil for Ruth Bader Ginsburg

      by

      On a pavement across the street from the supreme court, school teacher Amanda Stafford chalked the words carefully: “That’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow.”It was a quotation from Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a justice more renowned for her dissents than her majority opinions, including on the Bush v Gore case that decided the 2000 presidential election. Ginsburg died from pancreatic cancer on Friday aged 87, the newest jolt to an angry, divided and fragile nation.On Saturday night, as summer succumbed to the chill of autumn, thousands came to mourn her at a vigil outside the court in Washington. Some made speeches. Others sang songs. More joined hands or laid flowers and candles. Stafford paid tribute in chalk.“I wanted to show words that are empowering at a time when a lot of people are feeling worn out,” the 31-year-old from Alexandria, Virginia, explained. “As a woman in a country getting ever more divided, it’s important to come out and make a stand for someone who made this her life’s work.”What is the state of American democracy that one single woman passing away feels like a harbinger of hopelessness?Amanda StaffordLike many others, including numerous mothers and daughters, Stafford was hit hard by the loss of the feminist lodestar.“I broke down crying and went to sit in a park, sobbing. I called my closest girlfriends and we cried together. What is the state of American democracy that one single woman passing away feels like a harbinger of hopelessness? We’re already in a pandemic and losing her felt like the end.”Stafford’s homage was one of many outside the court, built in the 1930s in classical style to project the full majesty of the law, its 16 marble columns illuminated as two US flags flew at half mast. “RIP RGB,” said one banner in the rainbow colours of the LGBTQ movement. “For my daughter,” said another, simply.“Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time – Ruth Bader Ginsburg” was written on cardboard sign amid a sea of pictures, candles and flowers. “She kept theology off our biology” was among the acknowledgements of Ginsburg’s support for reproductive rights. More

    • 175 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Rushing to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, McConnell shows power trumps principle | Robert Reich

      by

      People in public life tend to fall into one of two broad categories – those motivated by principle, and those motivated by power.Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Friday night at the age of 87, exemplified the first.When he nominated her in 1993, Bill Clinton called her “the Thurgood Marshall of gender-equality law”, comparing her advocacy and lower-court rulings in pursuit of equal rights for women to the work of the great jurist who advanced the cause of equal rights for Black people. Ginsburg persuaded the supreme court that the 14th amendment’s guarantee of equal protection applied not only to racial discrimination but to sex discrimination as well.For Ginsburg, principle was everything – not only equal rights, but also the integrity of democracy. Always concerned about the consequences of her actions for the system as a whole, she advised young people “to fight for the things you care about but do it in a way that will lead others to join you”.My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installedRuth Bader GinsburgMitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, exemplifies the second category. He couldn’t care less about principle. He is motivated entirely by the pursuit of power.McConnell refused to allow the Senate to vote on Barack Obama’s nominee to the supreme court, Merrick Garland, in February 2016 – almost a year before the end of Obama’s second term – on the dubious grounds that the “vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president”.McConnell’s move was a pure power grab. No Senate leader had ever before asserted the right to block a vote on a president’s nominee to the supreme court.McConnell’s “principle” of waiting for a new president disappeared on Friday evening, after Ginsburg’s death was announced.Just weeks before one of the most consequential presidential elections in American history, when absentee voting has already begun in many states (and will start in McConnell’s own state of Kentucky in 25 days), McConnell announced: “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”This is, after all, the same Mitch McConnell who, soon after Trump was elected, ended the age-old requirement that supreme court nominees receive 60 votes to end debate and allow for a confirmation vote, and then, days later, pushed through Trump’s first nominee, Neil Gorsuch.Ginsburg and McConnell represent the opposite poles of public service today. The distinction doesn’t depend on whether someone is a jurist or legislator – I’ve known many lawmakers who cared more about principle than power, such as the late congressman John Lewis. It depends on values.Ginsburg refused to play power politics. As she passed her 80th birthday, near the start of Obama’s second term, she dismissed calls for her to retire in order to give Obama plenty of time to name her replacement, saying she planned to stay “as long as I can do the job full steam”, adding: “There will be a president after this one, and I’m hopeful that that president will be a fine president.”She hoped others would also live by principle, including McConnell and Trump. Just days before her death she said: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”Her wish will not be honored.McConnell’s ‘principle’ of waiting for a new president disappeared on Friday eveningIf McConnell cannot muster the Senate votes needed to confirm Trump’s nominee before the election, he’ll probably try to fill the vacancy in the lame-duck session after the election. He’s that shameless.Not even with Joe Biden president and control over both the House and Senate can Democrats do anything about this – except, perhaps, by playing power politics themselves: expanding the size of the court or restructuring it so justices on any given case are drawn from a pool of appellate judges.The deeper question is which will prevail in public life: McConnell’s power politics or Ginsburg’s dedication to principle?The problem for America, as for many other democracies at this point in history, is this is not an even match. Those who fight for power will bend or break rules to give themselves every advantage. Those who fight for principle are at an inherent disadvantage because bending or breaking rules undermines the very ideals they seek to uphold.Over time, the unbridled pursuit of power wears down democratic institutions, erodes public trust and breeds the sort of cynicism that invites despotism.The only bulwark is a public that holds power accountable – demanding stronger guardrails against its abuses, and voting power-mongers out of office.Ruth Bader Ginsburg often referred to Justice Louis Brandeis’s famous quote, that “the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people”. Indeed. More