Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death is a deep sadness to the generations of Americans for whom she was a guiding light for her unshakeable commitment to equality and justice, her pioneering role in the women’s rights movement and her dauntless personal integrity.
Notorious? In the best sense of the word, absolutely. Ginsburg was “good trouble” embodied, with her decades of work dismantling systematic discrimination as a scholar, an attorney, an advocate and, lastly, a jurist. She earned her iconic status through countless battles against sexism, anti-LGBT discrimination and other forms of inequality in the workplace, in education and throughout society.
For the Supreme Court, her death Friday leaves a tremendous moral hole. The nation has seldom seen her match, and her intellect and virtue are a blazing rebuke to the guttural venality of today’s politics. Contrary to today’s hyperpolarization, Ginsburg valued collegiality and opposing viewpoints — her closest Supreme Court colleague from a personal level was thought to be Antonin Scalia, her ideological opposite.
“The most effective dissent spells out differences without jeopardizing collegiality or public respect for and confidence in the judiciary,” she once wrote.
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put it well in saying Ginsburg “represented a level of greatness rarely seen in our country.”
“She forever changed our country, not to mention the Supreme Court,” Reid said in a prepared statement. “The impact made by Justice Ginsburg on women’s leadership, equal rights and basic fairness is without parallel. She’s been an inspiration to women, girls, LGBTQ individuals and people everywhere, and she will continue to inspire for many years to come.”
Former President Bill Clinton, who nominated Ginsburg to the high court, called her “a magnificent judge and a wonderful person — a brilliant lawyer with a caring heart, common sense, fierce devotion to fairness and equality, and boundless courage in the face of her own adversity.”
“Her 27 years on the court exceeded even my highest expectations when I appointed her. Her landmark opinions advancing gender equality, marriage equality, the rights of people with disabilities, the rights of immigrants and so many more moved us closer to ‘a more perfect union,’” Clinton said, also in a prepared statement. “Her powerful dissents, especially her ringing defense of voting rights and other equal protection claims, reminded us that we walk away from our Constitution’s promise at our peril. And she did it all with kindness, grace and calm, treating even her strongest adversaries with respect.”
Ginsburg’s death, coming amid Donald Trump’s presidency and with right-wing extremists controlling the Senate, underscores why all Americans must go to the polls this fall. The actions precipitated by the opening on the court will change it — and our society — for decades.
Meanwhile, we must demand that the Senate not confirm any nominee to the position until after this fall’s election, not after the GOP would not allow a Senate vote on the confirmation of Judge Merrick Garland to the court in the late stages of Barack Obama’s presidency.
Reid, in his statement, spoke well to this issue: “If Republicans attempt to force yet another nominee onto the Supreme Court against the will of the American people, then they risk delegitimizing themselves and their party even more. Doing so would further tear our country apart and take our democracy down a perilous road. Democrats must do everything in their power to prevent this from happening and ensure the voices of the American people are heard.”
That’s exactly right.
Decent Republican senators must block Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s vow to vote on a nominee before Americans have their say in November. If there are changes on Election Day to the Senate and the presidency, the Senate should respect that and allow the incoming president to nominate a replacement and senators to confirm the selection.
The timing of Ginsburg’s death also raises a particular problem if the Supreme Court needs to play a role in a disputed election. Trump’s appointees must commit now to recuse themselves from hearing any election disputes.
And given that the Supreme Court could also have a role in Trump’s attempts to restrict voting or disenfranchise voters to alter the election, his appointees also must commit now to recuse themselves. This would prevent Trump from thinking he’s working with stacked court, which would encourage even more egregious vote tampering.
Democrats have some leverage in blocking the Senate from filling the seat before the election: They need to tell their Republican colleagues that if they proceed, the Democrats will change the number of justices on the court if they win the White House and Senate. Conversely, the Democrats can assure the GOP they won’t alter the number of seats if the Republicans don’t fill the seat until the election is settled.
Ginsburg’s death leaves a hole in the hearts of millions of Americans, compounding the anguish and anxieties that 2020 has brought in waves. A true champion of justice and equality is gone.
“To lose Justice Ginsburg amidst such a challenging moment in our nation’s history feels particularly cruel,” said retired Marine four-star Gen. John Allen, now president of the Brookings Institution. “As America continues to grapple with the catastrophic impacts of COVID-19 and the long-overdue reckonings on our legacies of systemic racism and inequality … we will profoundly miss Justice Ginsburg’s brilliant mind, moral clarity and unflinching pursuit of a more perfect union.”
But as Allen also noted, Ginsburg’s spirit lives on in us. And we can carry on her work.
“‘Fight for the things that you care about,’ she said, ‘but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.’ Justice Ginsburg has earned her rest, and it is up to us to carry on that fight,” Allen said.
Indeed, it is. For the moment, we can do it in two ways. One, we demand that the Senate grant Ginsburg’s dying wish of keeping her seat open until after the election. Two, if the GOP-controlled Senate denies that wish, we rain hell on them in the polls in November and get ready for a larger Supreme Court.
That’s how we honor Ginsburg and how we follow her lead.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” she once said, quoting Martin Luther King Jr., but then added an important twist by saying justice will happen only “if there is a steadfast commitment to see the task through to completion.”
Ginsburg never lost her commitment. We must not, either.