Column: On the Legend of the Notorious RBG, What Should Be Done With Supreme Court
With the recent passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Donald Trump and the Republican Majority Senate Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky are now poised to add another conservative-minded judge (with all signs pointing to deeply Conservative Catholic Amy Coney Barrett) to the highest court in the land.
If you are a political news junkie like myself, you have likely immersed yourself with every potential scenario and ramification of Trump and the Republican Senate appointing a third Judge in four years and solidifying a super-majority of conservatives in our nation's highest court just as Americans begin (early) voting in the 2020 presidential election.
The genesis of this current political crisis started in 2013 when then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada removed the filibuster for placing lower-level judicial nominees. Upon the GOP's control of the Senate, McConnell took it up a notch when Republicans outright blocked a hearing on then-outgoing President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland in February of 2016, nine months prior to that year's election.
As expected, Republicans who once cried about the American voter having a right to elect a President before adding a Supreme Court judge are now exposing all of their hypocritical political stripes given that they are jumping at an opportunity to reshape both the Supreme Court and American life as we know it for decades to come just because they can, spitting in the face of decades of decorum advising against making such a decision with the nation's highest office still in the air.
But with this upcoming potential change, expect to see a major onslaught of political retaliation from Democrats if they win both the White House and Senate.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is among the prominent conservative figures promoting the Republican's latest cynical talking point of how the fraught nomination process of latest justice Brett Kavanaugh “radicalized” the Republican base and will push them into supporting Trump’s next nominee, whoever that may be. Whomever that nominee is doesn't really matter, as long as the Republican base feels he or she will eliminate Obamacare, tear into women's reproductive rights along with voting rights and environmental rights while upholding ultra-conservative wishes.
What Republicans are failing to see is how across the board progressives and liberals (myself included) are becoming radicalized as well regarding the Supreme Court after taking it for granted over the past 50 years. Since RGB’s death, the Democrat party has raised over $160 million that will be intended to fuel Senate races around the country, many in which the Republicans running are already on track to lose.
As much as I and many Americans disapprove, nowhere in our Constitution does it say a Supreme Court Justice should or should not be added during a Presidential election, which gives the Republican Party every right to block or add a nominee. Neither does the opposing party have to show any mercy in fighting the power against majority rule.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Life, and the Battle for Her Seat (New York Times)
It is time to push former vice president Joe Biden to the highest office of the land. If Biden becomes the 46th president of the United States, one of his first acts of significant change should be expanding the Supreme Court bench to 11 or 12 judges, nullifying the current conservative bench advantage. Also, the statehoods of our capital Washington D.C. and possibly Puerto Rico, must be established -- that would likely give the Democrats four additional Senate seats. The ultimate goal is the elimination of the Electoral College from our presidential election process.
President Trump's racist and divisive policies have to have as little room to breathe as possible after he gets the boot. I’m for all for measures that ensure Black, Brown, Asian, Native Americans, immigrants and women especially Women are not shoved back into a pre-civil rights era in America. These measures are a consequence of his radical political moves, the needed checks to restore balance to our democracy.
All of these potential political outcomes could wipe out any chance of a Republican majority for years to come, a consequence of that party continually overstepping its bounds not in the name of bettering life for as many Americans as possible but only to strengthen their vice grip on the government.
With all that said and my own political suggestions shared, nothing is stopping America's shared engagement through a continuous and unhealthy political tit-for-tat between two parties that normally snipe at each other, but rarely with the stakes as high as they will be on November 3rd.
Of course, one day the Democrats will lose their upcoming majority as well, the cycle of national politics calls on it eventually. With this focus now on the manipulation of the Supreme Court, another political norm has been erased from our country and its removal will only deepen our civil wounds.
What will the next Republican majority do to punish the Democrat Party and their ever-expanding base? What will be the Democrats' counter move? Will this infighting be what dooms America to its end? We all know we are playing with political fire here and the flame may end up engulfing everyone who sees it.