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Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Dying Wish: Next President Should Nominate Her Replacement

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We can’t forget election year 2016 when the President Barack’s Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia was blocked for 11 months.  Senate leader Mitch McConnell said at the time that no SCOTUS seat should be filled in an election year.

Fast-forward to 2020, and 7 weeks before the General Election; McConnell vowed almost immediately after news that long time Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died, that he would hold a Senate for Trump’s nominee.  Of course, folks on the other side of the isle are crying foul, calling out the hypocrisy of McConnell’s actions, and with just cause.

In reaction to Ginsburg’s death and commenting hon her dying wish is former President Barack Obama:

“Over a long career on both sides of the bench — as a relentless litigator and an incisive jurist — Justice Ginsburg helped us see that discrimination on the basis of sex isn’t about an abstract ideal of equality; that it doesn’t only harm women; that it has real consequences for all of us. It’s about who we are — and who we can be.

Justice Ginsburg inspired the generations who followed her, from the tiniest trick-or-treaters to law students burning the midnight oil to the most powerful leaders in the land. Michelle and I admired her greatly, we’re profoundly thankful for the legacy she left this country, and we offer our gratitude and our condolences to her children and grandchildren tonight.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought to the end, through her cancer, with unwavering faith in our democracy and its ideals. That’s how we remember her. But she also left instructions for how she wanted her legacy to be honored.

Four and a half years ago, when Republicans refused to hold a hearing or an up-or-down vote on Merrick Garland, they invented the principle that the Senate shouldn’t fill an open seat on the Supreme Court before a new president was sworn in.

A basic principle of the law — and of everyday fairness — is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what’s convenient or advantageous in the moment. The rule of law, the legitimacy of our courts, the fundamental workings of our democracy all depend on that basic principle.”

Read Obama’s full statement here.


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