Ruth Bader Ginsburg has passed away

Take this for what it’s worth but I’ve seen quotes from Chuck Grassley, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham that they won’t support a vote on a SC nominee this close to an election.

In addition to that, if Mark Kelly wins the Arizona special election, he can be seated as early as Nov. 30, when the election has been certified. Or so I’ve been informed. Can anyone shed additional light on that?

This is indeed a terrible day for progressivism but the path forward seems pretty obvious: the coming Democratic congress needs to pass rock solid progressive legislation that will survive the inevitable court challenges by the Republicans. For example, the SC probably can’t block Puerto Rico statehood but there are wording issues that complicates the same for DC.

Murkowski’s about the only one of those above that has even a shred of honor and decency; I seriously doubt the others will come around. Maybe Collins, if the election is at stake. Mark Kelly being seated could be a big deal, and might be a reason they try to get it done before the election (or very soon after).

I’m very pessimistic. Chances are, the SCOTUS will be 6-3 Republican soon. Its credibility as an institution is already in the toilet, and this should shatter whatever’s left. Which was inevitable, I suppose, and maybe this will help increase the chances of actual rebuilding it as a functioning, non-partisan and trusted arbiter of justice and law, rather than just another political branch of government as it is now.

What you’ve seen are quotes from these Senator’s speaking hypothetically regarding a vacancy this close to the election, and with sufficient vagueness or caveats to allow them to shift their position. E.g. Chuck Grassley said that as Judiciary Committee chairman he wouldn’t advance a nominee this close to the election – well, he’s not the chairman anymore. Murkowski said in an interview just hours before RBG passed that she wouldn’t support a vote on a Supreme Court justice before the election – which lets her vote for Ginsburg’s replacement in a lame duck session after the election.

Long story short, trust nothing any of these Senators have said and don’t think they’re going to be in any way beholden to past statements.

There won’t be a vote on a SCOTUS nominee before the election. Afterwards they will push for it as soon as possible. Republicans are the enemies of freedom and liberty and can’t be trusted.

My thoughts on how this impacts the presidential race: Despite all the liberal hand-wringing, I think it does Biden more good than it does Trump. Trump has had, and continues to have, a ridiculously low ceiling. Whether they ram a nominee through before the election, or dangle the carrot during the remainder of the campaign, Trump is earning no new voters from this. This SC pick from Trump is only exciting to the right-wing base. Not to moderate voters, not to suburban women, not to low-information infrequent voters. Best case scenario for Trump: he wins back every voter he got in 2016, which he only won because of depressed Democratic voting in three specific states.

But for Biden, this has the potential to energize suburban women, moderates and progressives alike. Worst-case scenario for Biden: He gains no new voters out of this, but maintains the solid lead he’s maintained over Trump all summer, a lead that he’s maintained because of what a terrible job Trump has done on race relations, the pandemic, the economy, healthcare, etc.

Worst case scenario, even if Biden is elected and the Senate goes D – the ACA is destroyed by a 6-3 SCOTUS (or 5-4 if Roberts votes as he has been). Every Democratic attempt to replace the ACA is destroyed by SCOTUS. Democratic attempts to add DC and PR statehood is destroyed by SCOTUS. Every election and voting rights challenge goes to the R side thanks to SCOTUS. Even the attempts to expand the SCOTUS legislatively are somehow destroyed by SCOTUS.

All of this seems very feasible. And if the American people see SCOTUS as an illegitimate institution, who knows what could happen? I can think of some bloody possibilities that are almost too dark to even consider.

The DC statehood is the one that is entangled with constitutional issues. Puerto Rico would not and if brought to the court would be dispatched as a straight “political question” up to Congress to resolve, as both liberal and conservative courts have done for a century.

Who cares about precedent? A 6-3 court, filled with the likes of Alito, Thomas, and Kavanaugh, could do anything they want.

I understand the angst that a lot of us are feeling here in this thread, and elsewhere, but while flipping through MSNBC, FOX, and CNN for the last few hours and seeing not one detailed discussion of the amazing life of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, I would just like to take a moment to offer a few things she accomplished.

  1. Bader graduated from Cornell University in 1954, finishing first in her class.
  2. During the 1970s, she also served as the director of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), for which she argued six landmark cases on gender equality before the U.S. Supreme Court.
  3. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
  4. Confirmed as an associate Justice by the Senate, 96-3 in 1993.
  5. In 1996, Ginsburg wrote the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in United States v. Virginia, which held that the state-supported Virginia Military Institute could not refuse to admit women.
  6. In 1999, she won the American Bar Association’s Thurgood Marshall Award for her contributions to gender equality and civil rights.

All quotes, and more, available at https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/ruth-bader-ginsburg.

May she rest in peace, and may her like soon be seen again on the American stage.

Roberts saved the ACA twice, did he not? Seriously, it was twice, right? :slight_smile: But even once is enough for me to ask, “did you see that coming?” I understand your concern, and certainly agree that the things you mention are feasible. But I just can’t go along with the thinking that all of this is a forgone conclusion, and whomever Trump MAY get on the court is going to destroy it for a generation. You said earlier in this thread that SCOTUS has no credibility as an institution. I’m not sure if this is where to discuss this, but why do you feel this way? I mentioned gay rights earlier. I see in Gorsuch’s Wiki page how he has sided with the liberal justices on a number of cases, as has Kavanaugh at times.

I have to think that RBG’S passing will have minimal effect on the presidential race. Everyone knew that the next president was going to name RBG’s replacement. This only has the effect of making that knowledge more immediate.

Of course, if a nominee is approved by the Senate before Nov 3, then it has zero impact.

Thomas and Alito are no spring chickens themselves. Breyer could most likely be convinced to retire under a Biden presidency, with a young lefty justice to replace him.

I understand some nervousness to a degree, but not abject despair. A 6-3 SC isn’t permanent, and the fact that it could change again in the next four years only solidifies the importance of a Biden victory and Democratic Senate. And I don’t think Ginsburg’s death has hurt the chance of those two things happening one iota. In fact I think a 6-3 SC (or even the threat of one) fires up the people Biden needs to win-- suburban women and progressives. For Trump, it really only fires up his base, which isn’t enough for him to win with.

Okay, perhaps I’m being a bit hyperbolic. I’m not certain this is how it will go down, I just think this is, by far, the most likely scenario (or something functionally identical).

As to why the institution’s credibility is shot? Because nominations are so fraught, and so political. Maybe it would be okay if, for every GOP justice, there was a Democratic justice. But there’s not. The GOP is rigging it such that only they get justices. Another Democratic justice or two isn’t going to be enough. It needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. How could we see this is anything other than just another political branch? Right now, it’s a GOP branch, like the Senate and the WH. Hopefully the Democrats, with expanding the court, can make it a Democratic branch. And in the long run, hopefully we can make it non-partisan again. But there’s little hope of this in the short or medium term, so I’ll just hope that the Democrats play hardball like McConnell.

Eh, on the PR question it’s a no-brainer precisely for them to punt to Congress. There is NO mass movement in Congress by either party to push for fast PR statehood, much to the chagrin of the PR statehooders. It’s a scare tactic by Mitch.

There should be. DC and PR statehood should be pretty much the first priority (aside from, perhaps, expanding the court) for a Democratic Senate.

What a difference a quarter century makes, right?

You do understand that statehood is a hyperdivisive issue IN Puerto Rico, and that for good measure half of the PRican-origin members of Congress, notably veteran high-seniority Nydia Velazquez and up-n-comer darling AOC, are either against it or are statehood-skeptics.
But this is really a hijack.

Certainly these things are wrong, and they don’t help the court gain credibility. But in the end, those who join it have nothing to do with the process, really. So I just think it makes more sense to look at the actual workings of the court, and the decisions it makes. Keep in mind the conservative’s disappointment in Souter…

I’m preparing for the worst. Maybe I’ll hope for the best too, but I think preparing for the worst is wise.

I was watching The Reidout when it broke. I heard somewhere that they need to appoint another justice as if the election is contested, a 4-4 tie wouldn’t decide anything. What would happen in That scenario?

Yes, especially given that as I recall, the Senate was pretty evenly divided between Rs and Ds. I remember reading years ago about how a president nearly always got his nominations through, how Senators would just bite the bullet if they were in a different party, and just give the president what he wanted. And then televised hearings began, and the grandstanding started, and now we are where we are. :frowning: