On September 18th, 2020 Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. She was appointed to the Supreme Court of Justice in 1993 by Bill Clinton. During her time as a Justice, she became a legal, cultural, and feminist icon. Ginsburg started the legal fight for women’s rights, writing the majority opinion in a 1996 case that opened doors for women's education. In United States v. Virginia, a 7-1 ruling determined that the Virginia Military Institute's (VMI) male-only admissions policy violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Now that Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died it leaves a vacancy in the Supreme Court and has caused major political turmoil. Ginsburg’s death gives Republican’s a chance to have a 6-3 majority as Trump has the right of appointment. However, this has also brought up the question of if an appointment right now will be too close to the election. In 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel refused for nearly a year to allow any consideration of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, so will he do the same now that we are a little over a month away from election day? No, quite the opposite, McConnel will try immediately to push through a Trump nominee so as to ensure a conservative justice to take over Ginsburg’s liberal position, even if Trump were to lose his reelection bid. Asked what he would do in circumstances such as these, McConnel said “Oh, we’d fill it.” In class we talk about government involvement and the amount of power each individual has, but should government officials be able to do one thing for one president, as not allowing Obama’s nominee to go through and then a different thing for another president? So should President Trump make the nomination before the election day? Or should it be put off until after the election?
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