I can see an argument developing here. Her biggest wish was – and I paraphrase – was that Trump not be able to replace her. So, there will be those who say it shouldn’t be done before the election. For this reason – leave aside all other reasons why or why not.
Which would really be most un-Supreme Court, wouldn’t it? The point of the institution being that the United States is a country of laws, not the wishes of any individual no matter how special or powerful?
Imagine a Supreme Court judge trying to subvert the process because her replacement will be a constitutionalist.
Tells you all you need to know about the woman.
She had the opportunity to retire under Obama, in fact was repeatedly told she should retire during his tenure to prevent her death being “exploited” by a Republican POTUS. She refused to do so (as was her right), but then ended up handing Donald Trump his third Supreme Court nomination after Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Sure, she can express her wish that the appointment be undertaken by whoever is elected POTUS in November, but there is no legal or even justifiable reason to do so. In the event of a disputed election the US Supreme Court may well end up being arbiter again as it was with the Bush/Gore result in 2000, so to undermine the courts ability to make a decision by not nominating a replacement makes no sense.
No doubt the Democrats will attempt to make political capital of this, but they cannot deny that it is within the gift of the POTUS to make the nomination and while there is precedent for delaying a nomination until after the election, there is no requirement to do so.
The Democrats are mostly just pissed that having no control of either the Whitehouse nor the Senate, they don’t have much of a say in the selection. To which the only possible response is “Cry harder”.
She didn’t want Trump to replace her, God thought otherwise.
Both sides using the same arguments their opponents used in 2016. All a bunch of hypocrites with zero principles.
You’re forgetting your Nietzsche. “God is Dead”. Thankfully though, so is RBG.
🙂
It’s all an irrelevance anyway. When the Dems get POTUS + the Senate, they are already muttering that they will just pass court reform and add loads more justices. It is the lefts god given right to control the legal system and therefore the people. I’m astonished that any of you think otherwise.
…and when I become Pope, I shall turn the Vatican into a combination casino / discotheque with a glitter ball suspended from the ceiling of the Sistine chapel.
Anyone who thinks the Democrats are electable in their current incarnation needs their head examining.
There is an extremely strong chance that the results from swing states such as Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin will be subject to legal challenge well into 2021.
The country then faces the prospect of a 4:4 deadlocked Supreme Court while interim President Pelosi (appointed by default under the Constitution in the absence of a declared winner by late January, I don’t know the exact date) gets on with her agenda at a pace that Republicans can only marvel at.
However, even if I were to agree with you, that isn’t going to be the case aeternum
One day, they will have both and *poof* they will do as they please.
However, I suspect they will win both this time by fair means or foul.
Why are we assuming this is true tho?
My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,” Ginsburg told granddaughter Clara Spera, according to NPR via NBC News.
So she was 87, riddled with cancer, and probably knew she was dying for years.
She probably didn’t want BLUMF to replace her, given her behaviour in clinging on, bitterly, to a job she was no longer capable of doing due to infirmity.
But did she actually say the above? She had plenty of opportunities to do so herself, or via her clerks, or in a written statement to be read in the event of her death. But she didn’t. Curious.
Well, who is Clara Spera? You’ll be shocked to know she’s another leftwing activist lawyer with a particular taste for the holy (Moloch is holy, bigots) sacrament of babycide:
Clara will protect and expand access to reproductive care, particularly for low-income women, using a variety of innovative legal and advocacy mechanisms, at a critical time when there is a substantial risk that the Supreme Court could decimate the right to an abortion.
Chances of this seething, goblin-faced lawtart not being a liar?
Dongguan John September 20, 2020 at 8:27 am – “Both sides using the same arguments their opponents used in 2016. All a bunch of hypocrites with zero principles.”
Nonsense. The Democrats only had the argument that it was mean for the Senate to refuse to give them what they wanted in 2016. The Republicans had the argument that they could block Obama – and the Constitution on their side.
Spineless Mitch has said that Kavanaugh changed everything. Good. If the Democrats do not want to play nice, why should anyone else?
True enough. It’s also part of the reason why Trump is looking at a female Conservative as a replacement for RBG. Hard to accuse a woman of rape in the way Kavanaugh was.
“The country then faces the prospect of a 4:4 deadlocked Supreme Court while interim President Pelosi (appointed by default under the Constitution in the absence of a declared winner by late January, I don’t know the exact date) gets on with her agenda at a pace that Republicans can only marvel at.”
AIUI when SCOTUS is split like this then the status quo prevails, that is they won’t make any precedent changing decisions. This means Pelosi won’t be able to make any major changes that don’t have full support of SCOTUS.
So if Trump doesn’t appoint someone the court may be unable to sort out the likely mess that will be the GE.
If they want revolution, that’s okay. The right has all the guns.
The problem with the U.S., perhaps all the West, is decadence. The people are just too comfortable to risk what they have to fight back.
Meanwhile, the commies have kept us from having glorious,wonderful lives.
Ted Cruz thinks it’s imperative that RBG’s replacement be approved before the election. He fears that there is a good chance that the election results will end up before the court again. And if that’s the case, it’s necessary that there not be a four-four split on the court.
Scott Adams, on the other hand, sees an electoral advantage in the seat remaining open. If it were not filled then the election becomes about who gets to fill the seat, not Covid. He reckons that it would motivate the Republicans, perhaps even the Never-Trumpers, to get out and vote.
PST – Adams is wrong.
Biden has an enormous enthusiasm gap, keeping the seat open would favour him in the childless-and-hysterical white women demographic.
If the Repubs can confirm a new justice they’ll go into the election with a yuge win and a demoralised opposition.
To be honest, I suspect both Scott Addams and Ted Cruz are right, but the Scott Adams option of holding off the nomination until after the election is the higher risk.
If the election outcome is unsettled (like Bush/Gore in 2000), then the SCOTUS comes into play and having a 4:4 outcome is a real problem. Better to give up a potential poll bump to ensure you get a SCOTUS that can give a more balanced outcome (i.e. won’t actually ignore the fact that a lot of Democrat voters are were already dead before they voted).
The trouble with Scott Adams’ notion is it might backfire badly. If Trump doesn’t nominate because “fairness” (as Adams suggests) then enough people might think there’s no point in voting for him. If Trump nominates but the Republican Senators won’t confirm, then people might not vote for them.
I think the days of voting for candidates and parties because they’re slightly less shit than the alternative are coming to an end.
Nominate and proceed to confirmation. Manoeuvre the Dems into causing delay and obstruction as they shout court packing and encourage their own radical base to riot. Keep the Dems tracking left.
Bloke in North Dorset September 20, 2020 at 9:42 am – “AIUI when SCOTUS is split like this then the status quo prevails, that is they won’t make any precedent changing decisions. This means Pelosi won’t be able to make any major changes that don’t have full support of SCOTUS.”
Umm. No. I don’t think so. The President already cannot make any decision that doesn’t have the support of the Supreme Court. As Trump has shown many times. Look at DACA.
If the Court is split then they cannot over turn a lower court and the lower court’s decision stands.
So if the Court is split, Pelosi can do whatever she likes as long as some judge in Hawaii agrees.
Everyone seems to be forgetting that we’re still deep in the banter era. The Dems will expend vast amounts of energy and squander what little goodwill they have in order to delay the SCOTUS appointment until after the election. In so doing they’ll alienate moderate Republicans who might otherwise have had a hand in reining Trump in, and they’ll destroy whatever little scope there is for bipartisan cooperation for a generation. Then Trump will scrape a victory in November and get his way anyway.
SMFS,
Thinking back to something I heard on a Cato podcast Ithink you’re right about not overturning Lowe court decisions.
The aftermath of the election is going to be one holy mess unless it’s an absolute landslide either way.
If they want revolution, that’s okay. The right has all the guns.
And yet none of the coronavirus totalitarianism is being scaled back.
@ PJF:
” If Trump doesn’t nominate because “fairness” (as Adams suggests)…”
F**k fairness, the only thing that matters is winning.
Steve: paging through my Farcebook feed to observe my Democrat friends (of which I apparently have many) I can not only confirm your childless-and-hysterical white women demographic observation, but extend it to to childful-and-hysterical, and bring in a fair few of the opposite gender too. They have all gone completely bananas about RBG, to an extent I’ve not seen before.
@ Hopper
The BBC first report on her death stated that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was famous for and admired for her *liberal* opinions stated in majority or as dissenting minority opinion – *not* for any judicial reasoning behind them. She was a political activist rather than a jurist. Just getting rid of her will improve the quality of decisions but reduce the number of political gains by the Democrats that they fail to win through the normal process of winning elections and passing laws.
Ted,
“America is at that awkward stage. It’s too late to work within the system,
but too early to shoot the bastards.” – Claire Wolfe
“She had the opportunity to retire under Obama”
This gets right to the heart of it. They can STFU about replacing her now.