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

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      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

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      What does Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death mean for the supreme court?

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      Ruth Bader Ginsburg

      A replacement for the liberal justice could reshape the court for a generation, marking Trump’s most lasting legacy

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      Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her own words – video obituary

      The supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on Friday evening. As messages of grief and gratitude for her life and career swept the country, here’s a look at what the liberal icon’s death means for the supreme court and what happens next.
      What does this mean for the court?
      Ginsburg’s death has set up nothing short of a historic war for the future of the court – and American life under the law. Donald Trump and Republicans in the Senate are determined to replace Ginsburg with a conservative justice. Their doing so could decisively tilt the ideological balance of the court for a generation and would probably constitute the most lasting legacy of the Trump presidency.
      What’s at stake?
      Reproductive rights, voting rights, protections from discrimination, the future of criminal justice, the power of the presidency, the rights of immigrants, tax rules and laws, and healthcare for millions of vulnerable Americans, to name a few issues. Every big issue in American life is on the line.
      Why is so much at stake?
      Replacing Ginsburg with a young conservative justice would fundamentally shift the ideological balance of the court, creating a seemingly bulletproof conservative majority of five justices (excluding chief justice John Roberts, who would make six conservatives but who is seen by the far right as less reliable). This new majority could usher in a new legal landscape that could last at least 30 years.
      Didn’t Trump already appoint two justices?
      Yes, Trump appointed justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. But they replaced justices who were nominated by earlier Republican presidents. They have pulled the court right, but not as far right as replacing Ginsburg with a conservative would. Ginsburg was nominated by Bill Clinton in 1993.
      That sounds dramatic. Is it really such a big deal?
      Yes. An ideological tilt of this kind on the supreme court has not happened for 50 years. Since 1969, Republican presidents have appointed 14 out of 18 justices elevated to the court – but certain Republican appointments, such as Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter turned out to occupy moderate ground or even drift liberal on some issues. In the recent hyper-partisan age, that middle ground on the court has mostly disappeared.
      Can Trump and the Republicans pull this off?
      It’s not a sure thing. Any new appointment by Trump must be confirmed by straight majority vote in the Senate. Senate leader Mitch McConnell has said he would confirm a new justice before the election. But McConnell is working with a narrow 53-47 majority, and if Trump nominates a conservative with extreme views, confirmation might be more difficult.
      But yes, there is definitely the time and the will for Trump to pull this off. And the willingness of Republicans to violate every norm in the process should not be underestimated. The Republican senator Joni Ernst of Iowa said in July that a Trump pick could even be confirmed during a lame duck session of Congress, meaning after the 3 November election but before a new Senate is installed.
      Who will Trump pick?
      He’s released a list of potential picks, among them Amy Coney Barrett, 48, whom Trump appointed to the US court of appeals for the seventh circuit in 2017. Barrett worries progressives as a committed Roman Catholic with conservative views on social issues. At Barrett’s circuit court confirmation hearings, the Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein expressed concern that the judge would be guided by church law instead of the constitution.
      “The dogma lives loudly within you and that’s a concern,” Feinstein said, “when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for for years in this country.”
      Astonishingly, earlier this month the president augmented the list with the names of three sitting Republican senators among 20 additional names, including Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton, who then tweeted “It’s time for Roe v Wade to go”, referring to the landmark 1973 court ruling that led to the legalization of abortion in the US.
      Could Trump fail to confirm a Ginsburg replacement?
      Trump sees appointing conservative judges as a political winner with his base, and a third supreme court justice in his first term could help him win re-election.
      But the hypocrisy in a move by McConnell to confirm a Trump pick with so little time before the election – after McConnell blocked the Barack Obama nominee Merrick Garland in March 2016 on the grounds that “only” eight months remained before that year’s election – could be politically costly.
      Because McConnell might be more worried about helping Republican senators win in close races, allowing McConnell to keep his leadership post, than helping Trump win a long-shot race, the political will to push a Trump nominee through might falter.
      The resistance to the confirmation would be extreme and the political fight would be all-consuming.
      Just hours before Ginsburg died, moderate Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska had remarked hypothetically, it was reported on Friday evening, that she would not confirm a new justice until after the presidential inauguration in January, 2021.

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      Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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