Tag Archives: SCOTUS

News, Observation, Politics

How Roe v. Wade changed the lives of American women

The recent announcement of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement has ignited widespread speculation about the future of Roe v. Wade. Some analysts believe that a new appointment to the Supreme Court would mean a conservative justice, particularly one who is against abortion rights, will threaten the status of the law.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted women an essential degree of reproductive freedom on on Jan. 22, 1973, by supporting the right to terminate a pregnancy under specific conditions.

As a sociologist who studies women, work and families, I’ve closely examined how the landmark ruling affected women’s educational and occupational opportunities over the past 45 years.

Then and now

Let’s go back to 1970, three years before the Roe decision.

In that year, the average age at first marriage for women in the U.S. was just under 21. Twenty-five percent of women high school graduates aged 18 to 24 were enrolled in college and about 8 percent of adult women had completed four years of college.

Childbearing was still closely tied to marriage. Those who conceived before marriage were likely to marry before the birth occurred. It wasn’t yet common for married women with young children under age 6 to be employed; about 37 percent were in the labor force. Then, as now, finding satisfactory child care was a challenge for employed mothers.

By 1980, the average age at marriage had increased to 22. Thirty percent of American women aged 18 to 24 who had graduated from high school were enrolled in college, and 13.6 percent had completed a four-year college degree. Forty-five percent of married mothers with young children were in the labor force.

While these changes may not be directly attributable to Roe v. Wade, they occurred shortly after its passage – and they’ve continued unabated since then.

Today, roughly two generations after Roe v. Wade, women are postponing marriage, marrying for the first time at about age 27 on average. Seventeen percent over age 25 have never been married. Some estimates suggest that 25 percent of today’s young adults may never marry.

Moreover, the majority of college students are now women, and participation in the paid labor force has become an expected part of many women’s lives.

Control over choices

If the Roe v. Wade decision were overturned – reducing or completely eradicating women’s control over their reproductive lives – would the average age at marriage, the educational attainment level and the labor force participation of women decrease again?

These questions are also difficult to answer. But we can see the effect that teen pregnancy, for example, has on a woman’s education. Thirty percent of all teenage girls who drop out of school cite pregnancy and parenthood as key reasons. Only 40 percent of teen mothers finish high school. Fewer than 2 percent finish college by age 30.

Educational achievement, in turn, affects the lifetime income of teen mothers. Two-thirds of families started by teens are poor, and nearly 1 in 4 will depend on welfare within three years of a child’s birth. Many children will not escape this cycle of poverty. Only about two-thirds of children born to teen mothers earn a high school diploma, compared to 81 percent of their peers with older parents.

The future depends in large part on efforts at the state and federal level to protect or restrict access to contraception and abortion. Ongoing opposition to the legalization of abortion has succeeded in incrementally restricting women’s access to it. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that studies reproductive policies, between 2011 and mid-2016, state legislatures enacted 334 restrictions on abortion rights, roughly 30 percent of all abortion restrictions enacted since Roe v. Wade.

In 2017, Kentucky enacted a new law banning abortion at or after 20 weeks post-fertilization. Arkansas banned the use of a safe method of abortion, referred to as dilation and evacuation, which is often used in second-trimester procedures.

New battles

Of course, medical abortion isn’t the only way in which women can exert control over reproduction.

Even before 1973, American women had access to a wide range of contraceptives, including the birth control pill, which came on the market in 1960. Five years later, in Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court ruled that married couples could not be denied access to contraceptives. In 1972, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, the court extended this right to unmarried persons.

In 2017, a record number of states acted to advance reproductive health rights in response to actions by the federal government. In 2017, 645 proactive bills were introduced in 49 states and the District of Columbia. Eighty-six of those were enacted and an additional 121 passed at least one committee in a state legislature.

How would the lives of American women in the last decades of the 20th century and early 21st century have unfolded if the court had made a different decision in Roe v. Wade? Would women be forced into compulsory pregnancies and denied the opportunity to make life plans that prioritized educational and employment pursuits? Would motherhood and marriage be the primary or exclusive roles of women in typical childbearing ages?

With the availability of a greater range of contraception and abortion drugs other than medical procedures available today, along with a strong demand for women’s labor in the U.S. economy, it seems unlikely that women’s status will ever go back to where it was before 1973. But Americans shouldn’t forget the role that Roe v. Wade played in advancing the lives of women.

This story has been updated to correct the proportion of women enrolled in college in 1970 and 1980.

Constance Shehan, Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies, University of Florida

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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News, Observation, Politics

What’s at stake as Supreme Court appears intent on overturning Roe v. Wade – 3 essential reads

A leaked draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito suggests the Supreme Court is on the brink of overturning two rulings, including Roe v. Wade, that guarantee the right to abortion in the U.S.

The Supreme Court confirmed that the document, obtained and first reported on by Politico, is real, but said “Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”

The opinion is due to be issued later in the year. The leaked document indicates that a conservative majority in the court is on track to end a woman’s constitutional right to abortion, opening the door for states to enact bans.

Although a seismic development in the long-running legal battle and social debate over abortion rights, the development is not entirely unexpected. In recent years, pro-abortion rights advocates have been ringing alarm bells over threats to Roe. Legal scholars, health experts and sociologists have helped explain in The Conversation U.S. what is at stake and what it would mean for American women should the historic ruling be overturned.

1. How Roe changed women’s lives

A lot has changed in the nearly 50 years that separate the constitutional enshrining of the right to abortion in the U.S. to the brink of ending that right.

Constance Shehan, a sociologist at the University of Florida, provides a snapshot of life for women prior to the landmark case. In 1970, the “average age at first marriage for women in the U.S. was just under 21. Twenty-five percent of women high school graduates aged 18 to 24 were enrolled in college and about 8 percent of adult women had completed four years of college,” she notes. But today, she says, “roughly two generations after Roe v. Wade, women are postponing marriage, marrying for the first time at about age 27 on average. Seventeen percent over age 25 have never been married. Some estimates suggest that 25 percent of today’s young adults may never marry.”

How much of this change in the experiences of American women is due to Roe? And if it is overturned, will the trends be reversed? Such questions are difficult answer. But there is evidence that carrying through with an unwanted pregnancy may have a detrimental effect on a woman’s education – and that, in turn, has an impact on career opportunities and income, writes Shehan. “Two-thirds of families started by teens are poor, and nearly 1 in 4 will depend on welfare within three years of a child’s birth. Many children will not escape this cycle of poverty. Only about two-thirds of children born to teen mothers earn a high school diploma, compared to 81 percent of their peers with older parents.”

Medical abortion isn’t the only option for young women seeking abortion. As Shehan notes: “With the availability of a greater range of contraception and abortion drugs other than medical procedures available today, along with a strong demand for women’s labor in the U.S. economy, it seems unlikely that women’s status will ever go back to where it was before 1973. But Americans shouldn’t forget the role that Roe v. Wade played in advancing the lives of women.”

2. Who might be affected?

“One important group’s voice is often absent in this heated debate: the women who choose abortion,” writes Luu D. Ireland at UMass Chan Medical School. She notes that 1 in 4 American women have the procedure at some point in their life, yet because of the perceived stigma involved, their perspective is largely missing. As an obstetrician/gynecologist, Ireland does, however, hear on a daily basis stories from women who opt for an abortion.

She notes that while abortion is a routine part of reproductive health care for many, and women of all backgrounds choose to end their pregnancies, unintended pregnancies are more common in certain groups: poorer women, women of color and those with lower levels of formal education.

“Women living in poverty have a rate of unintended pregnancy five times higher than those with middle or high incomes. Black women are twice as likely to have an unintended pregnancy as white women,” she writes.

The reason women opt to terminate a pregnancy varies. The most common reason is that the timing is wrong – it would interfere with education, careers or caring for family members. The second most cited reason is financial – the women seeking an abortion just can’t afford the associated costs of raising a child at that time. One impact of abortion restrictions, research has shown, is that women unable to get one “are more likely live in poverty or depend on cash assistance, and less likely to work full-time,” Ireland writes.

More than just financial risks

Financial problems are one result of restricting safe, available access to abortions. Another is a jump in the cases of pregnancy-related deaths. Amanda Stevenson, a sociologist at University of Colorado Boulder, looked into what would happen should the U.S. ends all abortions nationwide.

To be clear, this is not what would happen should the Supreme Court overturn Roe – rather, it would allow states to implement bans based on the ending of a constitutionally guaranteed right to abortion. Nonetheless, Stevenson’s research gives context as to risks involved for women who may find themselves in states that do not allow abortion, and who lack the means to get to a state that does.

She notes that staying pregnant actually carries a greater risk of death than having an abortion.

“Abortion is incredibly safe for pregnant people in the U.S., with 0.44 deaths per 100,000 procedures from 2013 to 2017. In contrast, 20.1 deaths per 100,000 live births occurred in 2019,” she writes. Stevenson estimates that “the annual number of pregnancy-related deaths would increase by 21% overall, or 140 additional deaths, by the second year after a ban.” The jump in deaths would be even higher among non-Hispanic Black women.

Matt Williams, Breaking News Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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News, Observation, Politics

Ketanji Brown Jackson set for historic Supreme Court confirmation vote: 3 essential reads

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are scheduled to vote April 4, 2022, on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination for the Supreme Court. It kicks off a potentially historic week in which a full Senate vote could set course for the nation’s highest court seating it’s first Black female judge.

The elevation of Jackson to the Supreme Court would not change the ideological setup of the bench – which would continue to be split 6-3 in favor of conservative justices.

Nonetheless, it would be an important landmark in the history of the Court – of the 115 justices on the Supreme Court since it was established in 1789, 108 have been white men.

Race featured in Jackson’s confirmation process; so too attempts to define her “judicial philosophy.” The Conversation has turned to legal scholars to explain the meaning of Jackson’s potential ascension to the court.

On the shoulders of pioneers

Jackson, if she wins confirmation at the next stage, a vote by the full Senate, will have broken through the ultimate glass ceiling in terms of legal careers. She would have done so on the shoulders of pioneering Black female judges.

University of Florida’s Sharon D. Wright Austin notes, even now, “relatively few Black women are judges at the state or federal level” – which makes the achievement of those who have made it to this level all the more remarkable.

Of the judges highlighted by Austin, there is Judge Jane Bolin, who became the country’s first Black female judge in 1939, serving as a domestic relations court judge in New York for almost four decades. Later, in 1961, Constance Baker Motley became the first Black woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court. In all she argued 10 cases before the Court, winning nine of them. Meanwhile, Judge Julia Cooper Mack is noted as the first Black woman to sit on a federal appellate court, being appointed in 1975 and serving 14 years on the bench.

These women are to be celebrated and remembered. As Wright Austin writes: “Representation matters: It is easier for young girls of color to aspire to reach their highest goals when they see others who have done so before them, in the same way that women like Jane Bolin, Constance Baker Motley and Julia Cooper Mack encouraged Ketanji Brown Jackson to reach hers.

Echoes of the past

The fact that a Black female Supreme Court justice is long overdue is testament to the slow progress the U.S. has made toward racial – and gender – equality.

Margaret Russell, a constitutional law professor from Santa Clara University, saw signs of this lack of advancement during parts of Jackson’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings.

Questions directed at the would-be Supreme Court justice were, according to Russell, tantamount to race-baiting. They also sounded eerily similar to criticisms that then-Supreme Court nominee Thurgood Marshall, the first Black American nominee to the court, faced in his own confirmation hearings in 1967.

Both Jackson now, and Marshall then, stood accused by senators of being soft on crime and were asked about how they intended to bring race into their legal decisions. “Are you prejudiced against white people in the South?” Marshall was asked by a known white supremacist senator. Similarly, Jackson was asked during her confirmation hearings if she had a “hidden agenda” to incorporate critical race theory, which holds that racism is structural in nature rather than expressed solely through personal bias, into the legal system.

“I find it striking,” Russell writes, “that race has surfaced in such a major way in these hearings, more than five decades after Marshall’s nomination. In some respects, there has been progress on racial equity in the U.S., but aspects of these hearings demonstrate that too much remains the same.”

What Jackson would bring to the Supreme Court

Jackson’s potentially historic achievement of becoming the first Black female Supreme Court justice may distract from the fact she is also eminently qualified to sit on the highest court in her own rights.

Alexis Karteron of Rutgers University-Newark notes that the Harvard law-trained Jackson went on to clerk for Stephen Breyer, the retiring justice she is set to replace. She has served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission as well as acting as both a trial court and appellate judge.

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Jackson is also the first former criminal defense attorney to be nominated to the Supreme Court since Marshall. This puts Jackson in a unique position on the bench. Karteron writes that having served as a public defender “will help [Jackson] understand the very real human toll of our criminal justice system. … The criminal justice system takes an enormous toll on both the people in the system and their loved ones. I believe having a Supreme Court justice who is familiar with that is incredibly valuable.”

Matt Williams, Breaking News Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Observation, Politics

Why Abortion Bans Aren’t Pro-Life: New Video by Robert Reich

Video

As a new Supreme Court appointment looms…

In another great new video Robert Reich talks about the unspoken downsides of Abortion bans and why they are not “Pro-LIfe”. The video is one of many that can be seen on the Inequality Media YouTube channel – which adds at least a new video weekly.

Abortion bans are not pro-life. They’re pro-poverty and pro-inequality.

I’ll tell you what we can do about it in a moment. But first, let me explain how these bans worsen inequalities.

You’ve probably heard of the two abortion cases making their way through the courts. But it’s not just Texas and Mississippi’s new bans. For years, Republican state lawmakers – almost entirely white men – have been chipping away at reproductive freedom: enacting laws that lead to clinic closures, force people to travel hundreds of miles for abortions, and create near-insurmountable barriers for low-income people, especially people of color.

Make no mistake: bans like those in Texas and Mississippi won’t stop abortions. Wealthy people will always have access, but millions of low-income people will be forced to give birth – with dire consequences for both parent and child.

Pregnant people in Texas now have to travel an average of 247 miles to get an abortion. Who but the wealthy can afford this? Only one third of the lowest paid workers receive paid sick days, while 95% of the highest paid do. Taking just one unpaid day off from a low-wage job can mean sacrificing groceries, electricity, or gas.

These restrictions worsen inequality, and have lifelong effects.

One study found that being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term makes it nearly 4 times more likely that parent and child will live below the poverty line. They’re also less likely to have full-time work, and more likely to have public assistance four years later. Decades of research confirm that abortion access improves education, employment, and earnings — and the differences are especially large for Black people.

It’s not just economics. Restricting abortion puts people’s health at risk. Researchers found that abortion legalization in the 1970s reduced deaths among Black mothers by 30 to 40 percent.

The Supreme Court’s right-wing majority is poised to gut or even overturn Roe v. Wade. If they do, 21 states already have laws that will go into effect to severely restrict or outright ban all abortions immediately – threatening the livelihoods and health of millions of low-income Americans.

Congress must codify Roe v. Wade into federal law — now — by passing the Women’s Health Protection Act. It’s already been passed in the House but is being blocked in the Senate by – you guessed it – a Republican filibuster.

Let’s be clear: there is nothing “pro-life” about forced pregnancy and forced birth. The freedom to choose when, how, and with whom you start a family should not be dictated by your income or where you live. Congress must act to protect reproductive now, freedom before it’s too late.

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Business, Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, News, Observation, Politics

Six-Month Sentence for Lawyer Who Took on Chevron Denounced as ‘International Outrage’

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic

Conviction of Steven Donziger, said one critic, “perfectly encapsulates how corporate power has twisted the U.S. justice system to protect corporate interests and punish their enemies.”

Environmental justice advocates and other progressives on Friday condemned a federal judge’s decision Friday to sentence human rights lawyer Steven Donziger to six months in prison—following more than two years of house arrest related to a lawsuit he filed decades ago against oil giant Chevron.

The sentence, delivered by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in New York City, represents “an international outrage,” tweeted journalist Emma Vigeland following its announcement.

Donziger’s sentence came a day after the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said it was “appalled” by the U.S. legal system’s treatment of the former environmental lawyer and demanded the U.S. government “remedy the situation of Mr. Steven Donziger without delay and bring it in conformity with the relevant international norms” by immediately releasing him.

Donziger represented a group of farmers and Indigenous people in the Lago Agrio region of Ecuador in the 1990s in a lawsuit against Texaco—since acquired by Chevron—in which the company was accused of contaminating soil and water with its “deliberate dumping of billions of gallons of cancer-causing waste into the Amazon.”

An Ecuadorian court awarded the plaintiffs a $9.5 billion judgment in 2011—a decision upheld by multiple courts in Ecuador—only to have a U.S. judge reject the ruling, accusing Donziger of bribery and evidence tampering. Chevron also countersued Donziger in 2011. 

In 2019, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Southern District of New York—a former corporate lawyer with investments in Chevron—held Donziger in contempt of court after he refused to disclose privileged information about his clients to the fossil fuel industry. Kaplan placed Donziger under house arrest, where he has remained under strict court monitoring for 787 days.

In addition to Kaplan’s own connections to Chevron, the judge appointed private attorneys to prosecute the case, including one who had worked for a firm that represented the oil giant.

Preska, who found Donziger guilty of the contempt charges in July, is a leader of the right-wing Federalist Society, which counts Chevron among its financial backers.

“As I face sentencing on Day 787 of house arrest, never forget what this case is really about,” tweeted Donziger on Friday morning, as he awaited the sentencing. “Chevron caused a mass industrial poisoning in the Amazon that crushed the lives of Indigenous peoples. Six courts and 28 appellate judges found the company guilty.”

https://twitter.com/SDonziger/status/1443900016859430916?s=20

Donziger indicated Friday afternoon that he plans to appeal the sentence.

“Stay strong,” he tweeted along with a photo from a rally attended by his supporters Friday.

350.org co-founder and author Bill McKibben said on social media that Donziger “deserves our thanks and support” for “daring to point out that Big Oil had poisoned the rainforest.”Rick Claypool, research director for Public Citizen, tweeted that Donziger’s case “perfectly encapsulates how corporate power has twisted the U.S. justice system to protect corporate interests and punish their enemies”—noting that as Donziger is ordered to prison for six months, members of the Sackler family recently won immunity from opioid lawsuits targeting their private company, Purdue Pharma.

“This ruling was done to deter ANYONE from crossing corporate special interests,” said progressive former congressional candidate Jen Perelman.

Originally published on Common Dreams by JULIA CONLEY and republished under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Politics

Trump’s Lawyers submit Legal Docs: Misspelling ‘United States’ – Twice

Downhill from the start, with proofreading as optional

The defense team for Trump issued a response for his upcoming impeachment trial to the House of Representatives last week.  The document was widely mocked because the article, besides having questionable content, had egregious grammatical and spelling errors (within the first page).

The major spelling error, on the first page, addressed members of the “Unites” (instead of United) State Senate. 

The same mistake! Again! “Unites” States: (fix your spell checker and proofread?)

Less than a week after submitting their initial legal brief, the 78-page brief, again referred to the country Trump used to be a President as “Unites States”.

Within the initial filings, the newly installed attorneys to lead the impeachment trail: Bruce Castor and David Schoen argued that former president Trump should not face impeachment relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection because he is out of office. 

From the Independent: They’re also reminiscent of the president and his allies’ chaotic legal effort to overturn the legitimate election results, where lawyers backing the president bungled basic composition somewhat regularly, once writing “DISTRCOICT” instead of “district,” and submitting another lawsuit with a promise it contained “plenty of perjury.”

The legal team continued using Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 presidential election was “suspect”.

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1356698300406239239?s=20

Another element that Trump’s defense is using is that the his freedom of speech was protected under the First Amendment. 

“The actions by the House make clear that in their opinion the 45th President does not enjoy the protections of liberty upon which this great Nation was founded, where free speech, and indeed, free political speech form the backbone of all American liberties,” the legal memo says. 

Twitter users were quick to respond back that someone’s rights to the First Amendment does have limits, one of which is a violent insurrection. 

https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1356657925574586375?s=20
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Politics

Donald Trump and Melania booed while visiting the Supreme Court for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Video

Trump to fill vacancy despite RBG’s ‘fervent’ wish

President Trump and @FLOTUS Melania Trump pay their respects as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in repose at the U.S. Supreme Court. #SCOTUS Protesters chant: “Vote him out!” and “Honor her wish!

Read More: A tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the impending clash to fill her seat

Just a day after Trump declared that he was planning a coup d’etat unless he wins the election on November 3rd, 2020, he arrives at the Supreme Court where Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in repose.

He has also announced his intention to ignore her dying wish that she not be replaced until after the inauguration in January 2021 and will attempt to force his chosen replacement before the election.

He has declared that he needs a court majority favoring him so that he can use the court to overturn election results which he has already declared to be “rigged“.

“I think this [the election] will end up in the Supreme Court, and I think it’s very important that we have nine justices,” Trump said, defending his decision to seek the appointment of a new Supreme Court justice in the short time before the Nov. 3 election.

“I think it’s better if you go before the election, because I think this scam that the Democrats are pulling — it’s a scam — the scam will be before the United States Supreme Court”

Donald Trump

Clearly he assumes that he will lose and has a plan in place to first declare the election a “scam” (since it must be a scam if he loses) and to try to interfere in every way possible, then contest the results and try and use a “packed” court to force him into the office against the will of the people.

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Politics

A tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the impending clash to fill her seat

The impressive legacy of RBG

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died of pancreatic cancer in her Washington, D.C. home on Friday, September 18th. She was eighty-seven years old and led a most extraordinary life. Growing up middle class in New York City, she strove for excellence from an early age, making it to Cornell University and later Harvard and Columbia Law School. She did all of this during a period where very few women pursued (and even fewer achieved) careers in law.

Read More: Books to read right now about the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

To make matters even more compelling, she married Martin G. Ginsburg shortly after graduating from Cornell and was already raising her first child while working on her Law Degree. Nevertheless, she tied for top of her class at Columbia and despite all the sexist odds, she eventually landed her first job as a law clerk for the U.S. District Court of Southern New York.

Ginsburg taught at Rutgers Law School for several years in the 1960s before taking a position at Columbia Law in 1972, where she became the first-ever tenured female professor. This would not be the last barrier for Justice Ginsburg to break through.

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She channeled much of her intellect towards combatting systemic sexism in America’s legal fabric, co-founding the Women’s Rights Law Reporter journal as well as the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1971, she wrote the brief for Reed v. Reed, which extended the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause to women, and come 1980, President Jimmy Carter nominated her for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Here, she gained a reputation for making fair and level decisions alongside both conservative and liberal colleagues.

Nevertheless, R.B.G. was the furthest thing from a pushover, and she continued to fiercely champion women’s rights and gender equality throughout her career. She carried this zealous intensity into her seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, which President Bill Clinton nominated her for in 1993 following Justice Byron White’s retirement.

The second woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg drew frequent parallels to Justice Thurgood Marshall in the public’s eye—many saying that she achieved for women’s rights what Marshall did for racial equity. In her twenty-seven years on the Court, she fought tirelessly for gender equality, most notably authoring U.S. v. Virginia, 518, which ended the Virginia Military Institute’s male-exclusive admissions policy, and dissenting Ledbetter v. Goodyear, which combatted pay discrimination based on sex. She also advocated for fathers and mothers—as well as husbands and wives—being seen as equally valuable family members in the eyes of the Constitution.

During the Obama Administration, as Justice Ginsburg entered her eighties, many encouraged her to retire so the Democratic president could nominate someone new before the next term. Combatting the odds yet again, she refused to step down.

The Divisive Future Of America’s Supreme Court

Now, in the wake of Ginsburg’s’ passing, America must look forward as politicians try to decide whether or not President Trump should be able to fill her vacant seat before November’s election. Many Democrats are saying that the seat should remain empty until the next term, rationalizing that the Supreme Court Justice is a lifelong position and a President should not be able to nominate someone if they themselves are going to be voted out in just a few weeks.

On the other hand, most Republicans want Trump to fill the seat immediately, citing that he has the Constitutional Right to do so and seeing the vacancy as an opportunity to regain a Republican majority in the Court. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) has already vowed to hold a vote on whoever Trump nominates.

The situation is somewhat the inverse of what happened in 2016, when Republican Justice Antonin Scalia passed away just months before President Obama left office. That time, Republicans filibustered to make sure Obama could not fill Scalia’s seat before the next election. They ultimately achieved this, as the seat remained empty when Trump took office, allowing him to appoint Justice Neil Gorsuch in April 2017.

Now, however, the stakes are even higher, for Gorsuch succeeding Scalia was simply one Republican replacing another. If a Republican nominee takes over Ginsburg’s Democratic seat, then it will create a Republican majority Supreme Court. In the present age where Republicans already have majority control of the Senate and Donald Trump sits in the White House, the Democrat-majority Court is the party’s last line of stability in the system of checks-and-balances.

Given that Election Day is nearly a month away, Ginsburg’s death could be a deciding factor in some voter’s minds. A vacant seat on the Court could compel right-leaning constituents to vote for Trump just for the sake of getting a Republican Justice. Likewise, the process draws attention away from other aspects marring the 2020 Trump campaign— i.e. his lack on initiative when it comes to COVID-19, his denial of climate science amidst California’s inferno, and his dismissive attitude towards present racial tensions in America.

On the Democrats’ side, perhaps the loss of Ginsburg will encourage more people to get out and vote now that more is at stake. If Joe Biden gets to nominate the next Justice, then the Courts will surely keep their Democratic majority, preventing the three branches of government from becoming a conservative hegemony.

Despite her small physical stature, the five-foot tall Ruth Bader Ginsburg left enormous shoes to fill on the U.S. Supreme Court. Regardless of her successor’s political affiliation, it is hard to imagine anyone accomplishing more for this country than the notorious R.B.G. However, we can still hope that her actions, bravery, and tenacity will inspire an entire new generation of politicians and constituents willing to stand up for what is progressive and what is right.

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