As the debate over what to do about the vacancy on the Supreme Court is only getting started, perhaps we should heed the advice of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself as to what to do.
When a similar scenario occurred four years ago, following the death of Antonin Scalia, the Republican-controlled Senate blocked Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. It was a controversial move, and Ginsburg had something to say about it: Ginsburg publicly called on the Senate to go through with the nomination.
“That’s their job,” she said in July 2016. “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the President stops being President in his last year.”
“Eight is not a good number for a collegial body that sometimes disagrees,” Ginsburg said on the issue a few months later during an event at the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was with her, agreed. “I think we hope there will be nine as quickly as possible.”
“What we do is we automatically affirm the decision of the court below. No opinion is written, no reasons are given, and the affirmance has no precedential value,” Ginsburg explained. “It’s just as though we denied review.” – READ MORE
Listen to the insightful Thomas Paine Podcast Below --