Justice Ginsburg's Last Words "Nina Totenberg recounts Justice Ginsburg's final message to the public:
Just days before her death, as her strength waned, Ginsburg dictated this statement to her granddaughter Clara Spera: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."
"Ginsburg could have said, "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until after the election," or even "After the inauguration." Rather, she said she did not want to be replaced "until a new president is installed." If President Trump wins re-election, then a "new president" will not be "installed" until 2024. (Barring impeachment or resignation, of course.) If Ginsburg meant these words literally, then her seat would remain vacant throughout the entirety of Donald Trump's second term. Merrick Garland could not be reached for comment.
"I am disappointed, but not surprised by Ginsburg's parting shot. First, he has placed even more pressure on the Supreme Court, which was already under great stress. Second, she has placed a bullseye on whomever President Trump nominates. "Honor her wishes" will become the new "Win one for the Gipper." Third, if Trump does fill the vacancy, Ginsburg's words will be used as the rallying cry for Court Packing.
"Imagine for a moment that Justice Scalia, on his death bed, said that "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."
"This is not the first time Ginsburg hoped a different President replaces her. In July 2016, she gave an interview to Mark Sherman of the Associated Press. Ginsburg said, in so many words, that she wanted Hillary Clinton to replace her:" . . .
No mercy for leftists: Fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat now . . . "Some Democrats have brought up Merrick Garland, who was nominated by Obama but failed to become a SCOTUS judge. The GOP objection was that Obama was in the last six months of his second term, so the upcoming election should decide. Democrats will be quick to point out this occurrence, labeling it hypocrisy for conservatives to replace RGB when they rejected Garland.
Other leftists urged Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell to lead the way by not filling a SCOTUS seat this close to an election. He concluded with: “You’d agree with this, especially in light of the Garland precedent, right?”
Except, that’s not what happened. The Merrick Garland circumstance was different because Obama was in his second term, and there would be a new president in six months, no matter the outcome. In this instance, we might have the same president in six months. What makes it worse is Democrats did not set any “precedent” by deciding it wouldn’t be fair to fill an open SCOTUS seat only months away from a new presidency — they tried to ram judge Garland down our throats anyways(sp)! " . . .
It's imperative that Congress immediately confirms a new Supreme Court justice . . . "Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death didn’t just leave a vacant seat on the Supreme Court. It left a court evenly divided Supreme Court between four leftist justices and four strict constructionist justices. With his usual acumen and clarity, Ted Cruz explains why an evenly divided court is a recipe for a civil breakdown.
"We can all understand the reasonableness of having an uneven number of Supreme Court justices: It substantially diminishes the likelihood of a stalemate. However, Ginsburg’s death means that, as we head into the most contentious election process in American history, the Court has eight justices. Worse, the justices are split evenly along ideological lines.
"On the one side are the so conservative justices. In this context, conservative means that they believe that the Constitution as written, and as its authors intended it to be understood, must be the single-most-important document in any judicial analysis. Next in order of importance for analysis are acts of Congress, again to be interpreted as Congress intended when it passed the documents.
"Regarding that last analytical metric, Justice Gorsuch failed horribly when he imputed transgenderism to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, despite his monumental slip-up, Gorsuch has mostly been a reliably “strict constructionist.” The other strict constructionists on the Court are Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh."
