# Ruth Bader Ginsburg's replacement nomination fight **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 25, 2017, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020 "2017-03-25T19:15:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/101 "2017-03-28T20:02:35Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Few things motivate the right like the prospect of saving millions of baby lives every year. > > In most states it would have little to no effect on their lives. How motivated will California women be that some women in Kansas are being denied access to an abortion? its not like Roe V Wade makes abortion illegal, it just throws it back to the states. Yes I’m sure everyone attending the Woman’s March was only motivated by whatever issues personally affected them, and nobody gave a crap about anyone else that was there. That’s sure how it looked to me. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/102 "2017-03-28T20:05:01Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > In most states it would have little to no effect on their lives. How motivated will California women be that some women in Kansas are being denied access to an abortion? its not like Roe V Wade makes abortion illegal, it just throws it back to the states. In addition to the silly notion that women only care about themselves… _Roe_ isn’t just about abortion. It’s also about all kinds of other nonsense that men try to pull when they’re in office, like requiring spousal consent or requiring that abortions be regulated like brain surgery. All that other bullshit happens in blue states, too. Not California, I’ll grant you, but a majority of the country certainly. And the earlier note about how Roe gets overturned is right. It’s actually sort of hard to see how it gets done without either imperiling substantive due process cases that do matter to Californians, or opening the door to claims that abortion itself is unconstitutional. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/103 "2017-03-28T20:06:29Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Don’t be so sure. Bricker has outline scenarios where SCOTUS declares abortion to be entirely illegal in the US. He does say that he does not support this kind of decision by scotus, but points out that it is entirely possible. The statement we were respond to was: > [@DA](#): > > RBG’s ego may very well be the reason why Roe V Wade gets overturned. Yes, it’s certainly possible to go further, but that’s not what was postulated. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/104 "2017-03-28T20:14:43Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > _Roe_ isn’t just about abortion. It’s also about all kinds of other nonsense that men try to pull when they’re in office, like requiring spousal consent or requiring that abortions be regulated like brain surgery. All that other bullshit happens in blue states, too. Not California, I’ll grant you, but a majority of the country certainly. Kind of a nit pick, but it depends on how you are defining “red” and “blue” states. The majority of the states, by quite a margin, are Republican. So those things can happen in a majority of the states, but still not happen in Democratically controlled ones. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/105 "2017-03-28T20:31:07Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Kind of a nit pick, but it depends on how you are defining “red” and “blue” states. The majority of the states, by quite a margin, are Republican. So those things can happen in a majority of the states, but still not happen in Democratically controlled ones. What does it mean to be democratically controlled? All three branches of government? This stuff happens in all different kinds of states, is my point. It’s not just Alabama and Kansas. It’s Pennsylvania. In Delaware, they never abolished the criminal prohibitions on abortion. If Roe was overturned, the legislature would have to act to change the law. IIRC, their Senate is split 50-50, so it’s not clear that would happen. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/106 "2017-03-28T20:34:24Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Not to mention that there were more votes for democratic senators than there were for republican senators … I can’t imagine a more useless or misleading statistic than this, especially in a year where California’s general election Senate race was a choice between two Democrats. It surprises me that Democrats still naively parrot it. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/107 "2017-03-28T20:41:01Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > _Bullshit_. > > I realize that it’s tantalizing and easy to paint this as a partisan issue, because yeah, it’s mostly one side doing it (much like it’s a lot easier to paint the science behind climate change as a partisan issue, because only one side is _demonstrably wrong_), but that’s just bullshit, I’m sorry. > > Like it or not, there was a substantial shift in how the filibuster was used at the start of Obama’s term. A _substantial_ shift, one which threw out the norm that this was a tool to be used sparingly, rather than as a matter of course. The result: our system became far more intransigent and far less capable of actually getting the things that needed to be done done. There was never a _rule_ that said, “Don’t use the filibuster for fucking everything”. It was just taken as a given norm - that this tool should be used sparingly, because otherwise shit falls apart. Did you feel that it was a substantial shift when Bush 43’s judicial appointments were blocked? Really what you describe is just continuation of historical practice. It seems the modern Republicans were just more adroit at it. > [@](#): > > Like it or not, there was a substantial shift in how we view judicial nominations at the end of Obama’s term. As mentioned upthread, historically denying a presidential nominee has been happening since the founding. You say that by escalating ‘everything breaks’ or something along those lines. I don’t think so. Your assessment seems predicated on things happening that you don’t like. I’m sure in the future the pendulum will swing and things will lean more towards your ideological preferences. Maybe sooner than later. > [@](#): > > Where, in your eyes, are the limits here? Barring Obama from nominating a supreme court justice clearly didn’t do it. How about, just to pull one completely insane example out of a hat, the debt ceiling? Is it, in your eyes, legitimate for the democrats to take a majority in the house of representatives, then refuse to pass a bill raising the debt limit unless their demands are met? There’s no _rule_ saying that one party can’t hold the good faith and credit of the nation hostage unless the other party capitulates and gives them what they want. So why _shouldn’t_ the democrats do that, if they thought they could use this to gain an advantage? If they believed it would be beneficial to the country and their goals, then it could be defended as a legitimate tactic. Ultimately I think it would cause more harm to the party initiating the actual default than it would accrue to them benefits, but that’s a choice they can make. We as voters can choose to penalize them electorally, or change the rules to prevent that from happening, or not. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/108 "2017-03-28T20:56:46Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > Yes I’m sure everyone attending the Woman’s March was only motivated by whatever issues personally affected them, and nobody gave a crap about anyone else that was there. That’s sure how it looked to me. They weren’t protesting, they were cheering, like all those Muslims in Jersey on 9/11! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/109 "2017-03-28T20:58:35Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > What does it mean to be democratically controlled? All three branches of government? > > This stuff happens in all different kinds of states, is my point. It’s not just Alabama and Kansas. It’s Pennsylvania. In Delaware, they never abolished the criminal prohibitions on abortion. If Roe was overturned, the legislature would have to act to change the law. IIRC, their Senate is split 50-50, so it’s not clear that would happen. I don’t find the terms “red” and “blue” to be particularly useful in this type of discussion. That’s all. Better to speak of “controlled by Republicans”, “controlled by Democrats” or “not controlled by just one party”. [Republicans control 27 states (that is all branches of government or a veto-proof legislature), while the Democrats control only 8, one of which is Delaware, btw. Given that, I doubt it would take long for DE to get the abortion law off the books if _Roe_ were overturned.](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/14/1598918/-Republicans-now-dominate-state-government-with-32-legislatures-and-33-governors) PA is indeed mixed, but can it be considered “blue”? Again, not sure that term is useful. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/110 "2017-03-28T21:03:20Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I don’t find the terms “red” and “blue” to be particularly useful in this type of discussion. That’s all. Better to speak of “controlled by Republicans”, “controlled by Democrats” or “not controlled by just one party”. > > [Republicans control 27 states (that is all branches of government or a veto-proof legislature), while the Democrats control only 8, one of which is Delaware, btw. Given that, I doubt it would take long for DE to get the abortion law off the books if _Roe_ were overturned.](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/14/1598918/-Republicans-now-dominate-state-government-with-32-legislatures-and-33-governors) > > PA is indeed mixed, but can it be considered “blue”? Again, not sure that term is useful. I think we are in vehement agreement. 42 states are at risk, depending on the current state of their laws. If, like DE, they never bothered to take unconstitutional laws off the books, then the GOP can block changes. (You assume Delaware would take some action even though its Senate is nearly 50-50 split because of the party labels of its members. I wouldn’t make that assumption. If all it takes is one Democrat to defect, that’s a pretty slim reed when it comes to criminalizing abortion.) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/111 "2017-03-28T21:55:24Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I think we are in vehement agreement. 42 states are at risk, depending on the current state of their laws. If, like DE, they never bothered to take unconstitutional laws off the books, then the GOP can block changes. OK. Again, my major complaint, such as it is, is the use of “red” and “blue” since they are not very well defined. > [@](#): > > (You assume Delaware would take some action even though its Senate is nearly 50-50 split because of the party labels of its members. I wouldn’t make that assumption. If all it takes is one Democrat to defect, that’s a pretty slim reed when it comes to criminalizing abortion.) I’m basing it on a lot more than that. The state senate is an anomaly in a state that has voted D in every presidential election since 1992, is 47-28-23 in registered D-R-I, has both state senators in Washington DC as Democrats, and it’s only Rep is also a D. If the Senate blocked legalized abortion upon the overturning of _Roe_, it would flip to a a lot more Ds in the next election and self-correct. [This data](http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollTrack.aspx?g=ecf750f7-4d47-4a6b-9749-537694b27747) isn’t the most current, but it sure looks like DE skews pretty heavily towards pro-choice. ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/112 "2017-03-28T22:25:51Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I thought of a partial solution to the politicization of SCOTUS and SCOTUS confirmations, but it would require a Constitutional amendment: > > SCOTUS nominees must be at least 70 years of age. > > This way, filling vacancies wouldn’t be nearly as big of a deal, since they would be much more frequent – every Presidential term would probably get multiple vacancies. And I don’t think it would favor one side or the other. It would only mitigate, rather than eliminate, politicization of the SCOTUS, but I think it might improve things quite a bit. > > Any thoughts on this? Your post seems to have been ignored, but I will pipe in to say I heartily endorse your idea. It would also probably add “extreme medical vetting” to picking a nominee in addition to ideological vetting. Of course, the same could be done just by limiting the SC justice terms in some way. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/113 "2017-03-28T22:31:31Z")
I’d rather see a 10-year term limit than a minimum age of 70. Why make the court exclusively geezers? But I doubt that would change things. Once you politicize something, it’s going to stay politicized. ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/114 "2017-03-28T22:34:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’d rather see a 10-year term limit than a minimum age of 70. Why make the court exclusively geezers? Any term that is not divisible by four will make some presidents appoint more during their 4-year term than others. So let’s make it 12. It also plays nicely with the 8-year maximum term for one President and the (usual) switch of parties after two-term presidents, randomizing things a bit. Of course, the initial appointments under such rules have to be spaced out by 2 years or so, and deaths in office will screw the spacing up. Guess that could be taken care of by some fiddling with the rules. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/115 "2017-03-28T22:39:31Z")
The more common proposal I’ve seen is a single 18 year term for SCOTUS judges. [Summary](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/13/why-its-time-to-get-serious-about-supreme-court-term-limits/): > [@](#): > > Congress and the states should pass a constitutional amendment imposing an eighteen‐year, staggered term limit on the tenure of Supreme Court Justices. Under our proposal, each Justice would serve for eighteen years, and the terms would be established so that a vacancy on the Court would occur every two years at the beginning of the summer recess in every odd‐numbered year. These terms would be structured so the turnover of Justices would occur during the first and third year of a President’s four‐year term. ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/116 "2017-03-28T22:42:24Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > The more common proposal I’ve seen is a single 18 year term for SCOTUS judges. [Summary](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/13/why-its-time-to-get-serious-about-supreme-court-term-limits/): The deaths in office would scramble the “every 2 years” thing pretty quickly. How does the proposal handle that? (The article is behind a paywall) ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/117 "2017-03-28T22:53:43Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > The deaths in office would scramble the “every 2 years” thing pretty quickly. How does the proposal handle that? (The article is behind a paywall) I don’t know. No one is allowed to die! The penalty is death. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/118 "2017-03-28T22:57:24Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’d rather see a 10-year term limit than a minimum age of 70. Why make the court exclusively geezers? > > But I doubt that would change things. Once you politicize something, it’s going to stay politicized. It would still be politicized, but each vacancy would be a much smaller thing. Still significant, but a 10 year term (or 70 year old) is probably only about half or a third as much as at present, on average, and I think it would result in a similarly lower amount of rancor and awfulness. For deaths, vacancies could just be left alone until the next slot opened up, and then bumping each other justice down the line. For example, let’s go with 9 year terms (since there’s 9 justices). Every year, one of those expires, and a new slot opens up. If one justice dies, then rather than immediately filling it, it stays vacant until the next normal expiration (that year or the next), and the remaining justices move “back” a year (functionally extending their terms by a single year). With 9 year terms, unless I’m screwing up the math, every single President gets 4 justices per term. ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/119 "2017-03-28T23:17:25Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > It would still be politicized, but each vacancy would be a much smaller thing. Still significant, but a 10 year term (or 70 year old) is probably only about half or a third as much as at present, on average, and I think it would result in a similarly lower amount of rancor and awfulness. > > For deaths, vacancies could just be left alone until the next slot opened up, and then bumping each other justice down the line. For example, let’s go with 9 year terms (since there’s 9 justices). Every year, one of those expires, and a new slot opens up. If one justice dies, then rather than immediately filling it, it stays vacant until the next normal expiration (that year or the next), and the remaining justices move “back” a year (functionally extending their terms by a single year). > > With 9 year terms, unless I’m screwing up the math, every single President gets 4 justices per term. I like it. It is elegant enough, causes no vacancies much longer than a year, and I think would make the Supreme Court much more stable and less controversial (like the set-in-stone 4-year term makes the US government more stable than the parliamentary model). ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020/120 "2017-03-28T23:30:36Z")
So - suppose that Republicans had given Garland a hearing, but voted him down - and always planned to vote him down no matter what. Obstructionism or not obstructionism? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-replacement-nomination-fight/783020.md?page=7)