Senate Republicans’ rush to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg puts America at risk more than ever.
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Online Editor
The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spent her entire career fighting for the rights of the American people. With her death, some of those rights are in dire jeopardy.
I don’t say that lightly. I really don’t like to get political, but the actions of and the policies enacted by the Trump administration have largely forced my hand. As a matter of fact, one benefit of Trump’s disastrous four years of leadership (thus far) is the light it has shined on the importance and inner workings of our government institutions.
One of those institutions is the Supreme Court, which has largely remained fair and balanced despite welcoming the controversial Brett Kavanaugh to the bench in 2018.
One of the Justice’s that ensured a fair and balanced court was Ginsburg. Ginsburg, who suffered from multiple health ailments in recent years, passed away from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer on Sept. 18 at the age of 87.
Before Ginsburg died, she told her granddaughter that she wished for her soon to be vacant seat to remain unfilled “until a new president is installed.” I never expected that final wish to be honored, but I didn’t think that the Senate and Republicans would lunge at the opportunity to fill the seat starting on the day of her death.
Senate Majority Mitch McConnell, who on that day said that President Trump’s pick (later revealed to be Amy Coney Barrett, a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit) would receive a confirmation vote on the Senate floor, with less than 50 days to go before the 2020 Presidential Election.
McConnell’s comments and objective to push the confirmation of Barrett through before election day are indisputably hypocritical. When Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016, he and other Senate Republicans refused to allow then-President Obama’s pick, Merrick Garland, to have a confirmation hearing; they insisted on having the new President make the nomination. Now that the ball is in their court and the Republicans have control of the Senate and a president in the White House, they have completely changed their stance.
Over half of the American people who were polled think that the winner of the election should nominate Ginsburg’s replacement, but it doesn’t matter. With the Republicans in complete control of the process, there is virtually nothing that will stop the relatively young and controversial Barrett from being put on the bench for decades to come, leaning the court even further to the right.
While all of this is perfectly legal, make no mistake about it: this is nothing more than a dirty political move to establish ideals and maybe even secure President Trump another term in office if he loses the election and refuses to accept the results as he has hinted. The Supreme Court has overturned an election result before; that’s how George W. Bush became the president in 2000. They can quite possibly do it again, especially with a more conservate court in place.
My views are my own, and some readers may think I’m completely blowing things out of proportion. Maybe I am, and maybe things won’t turn out to be as bad as I think they might. But the more I see about this ongoing story, most of which I really don’t have the space to write about here, the more afraid I become for our country’s future. If the diverse melting pot of American citizens can no longer rely on the Supreme Court to uphold the laws that are in their best interest… then what kind of country are we living in?
