Ginsburg death highlights American ideological divide as Barrett appointment ignites debate
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Photo from Flickr
On September 18, 2020, at the age of 87, United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away after a long fight against metastatic pancreatic cancer. Idolized by liberals as a proponent of equal rights as well as the first Jewish woman on the court, Ginsburg was a successful lawyer before she was confirmed to the Court in 1993. During her 27 years on the bench, she contributed to many groundbreaking decisions and precedents. Quickly following her passing, Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s nominee, has been confirmed to take her place.
This has created great controversy in the political scene as liberals argue the Republican controlled Senate and Executive Branch should have waited until after the popular election on November 3. AP US Government and Politics teacher Paul Stellpflug believes history will remember Ginsburg’s work from a gendered perspective.
“There are a lot of women who look at some of Ginsburg’s decisions as really strong statements for equal rights,” he said. “The intelligence, effort, and dedication that anybody has on the highest court in the land is quite a statement. It’s impressive.”
Many Americans, including senior Frances Kerkhof, admire Ginsburg’s activism on a national scale.
“All the power that she had being a Supreme Court judge in everything directly affected everybody in America,” she said. “The way she passed Obergefell v. Hodges and how she stood up for women's rights and everything in relation to that are very important.”
Junior Joe Gonzalez sees compassion at the heart of her rulings.
“There's one case where a husband's wife died during childbirth and he wanted to stay home from work for a little bit and take care of his son and have less hours,” he said. “They denied him that because he wasn't a widow and because he wasn't a woman, so Ginsburg went to the court and said that they're the same. For both genders, she really has been trying to make it so that equality is the forefront of everything. Jimmy Carter appointed her to the federal court, and then shortly after, Bill Clinton appointed her to the Supreme Court where she spoke out against Donald Trump during his campaign in 2016.”
Ginsburg spent her last days planning for what was to happen when she passed, hoping for her replacement to occur after the election. However, the Trump administration quickly moved to take advantage of her passing, pushing for the confirmation of Coney Barrett. This decision, following the obstruction of the Republican Senate in 2016 when President Obama was refused his appointment, appalled proponents of the Democratic party who believed that it should be decided after the election.
Senior Rebecca Zier understands the political nature of such appointments.
“I know for a long time she had said that she didn't want to resign until there was another president that was Democrat, so I think the timing of that was difficult since there's a Republican president right now; especially with things being so close to the election,” she said. “I think that really influenced a lot of things because people have different opinions, whether leadership should have even been replaced yet. Now that she’s being replaced by President Trump’s nominee, it just changes a lot of things that are going to really sway the Supreme Court as a whole.”
Freshman Hannah Wolf believes that now should not be the time for a new nominee to replace Ginsburg, particularly considering Ginsburg’s own wishes for replacement.
“I think it's extremely disrespectful that they waited such a short time to nominate someone else, especially because waiting for the election was one of her dying wishes,” she said.
Amy Coney Barrett
Photo from Wikipedia Commons
Ginsburg’s death spawned controversy over whose right it would be to fill the seat. Trump, possibly only having three months until the end of his presidential term, quickly advanced Coney Barrett despite the controversial, unofficial tradition to wait until the next presidential term to fill the seat. A similar situation occurred about ten months before the 2016 election with the death of conservitive Justice Antonin Scalia, in which Obama attempted to fill the seat to the resentment of prominent Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Democrats and Republicans have had very different opinions regarding Ginsburg's replacement before the election.
“It's a very, very polarized time in the political atmosphere right now because it just threw a whole wrench into what's going on with elections, COVID-19, and Black Lives Matter,” Gonzalez said. “When Obama was in office, he tried to appoint a justice right before the election but he didn't have the Senate to confirm it because there was a Republican Senate, and they denied the justice. This time, the Republican president nominates a Republican justice and the Senate can actually confirm at this time, so people are questioning why this is happening now.”
Junior Kai McClellan holds a different view.
“The timing of her death was unfortunate for strong liberal followers as they had looked up to her to hold up their end in judicial politics,” he said. “As a whole, however, it's nothing more than what's happened with past Supreme Court justices, and was simply the end of an era and an open door to the start of a new one.”
A new era could very well be in the making indeed. Preceding Ginsburg’s death, there had been four seats filled with candidates appointed by Democratic presidents, with another five filled with nominations by Republican presidents; a relatively even mix. Having another Supreme Court seat filled with a justice nominated by a Republican president could secure a victory of great proportions for them.
There are many critical cases that will see the Supreme Court in the next few months. The Affordable Care Act, controversial from its start, could be overturned. Precedents such as Roe v. Wade, protecting abortion under the right to privacy, is facing new scrutiny. Some even argue that healthcare protections for the LGBTQ+ community may be in jeopardy. These situations may very well depend on the new Court following Coney Barrett’s appointment. Some Americans have shared their view that a non-partisan justice should fill the seat, but this is an action that’s unlikely to happen, given the nature of the majorly bipartisan American system. Trump, as a Republican, chose a more traditional, conservative nominee.
Barrett is a 48-year-old mother of seven, a practicing Catholic, and was first nominated by Trump as circuit judge on the U.S. court of appeals seventh circuit in 2017. She graduated top of her class from Notre Dame law school in 1997 and worked as a judicial law clerk for Scalia in 1998 and 1999. To quite a few Americans, including freshman Jake Christofferson, her religious stance may unnecessarily influence her actions in the highest federal court.
“I think religion could have a role, but I don't think it should,” he said. “It doesn't matter what religion, I don't think your religion should play that big of a role in your decisions.”
While Zier agrees with this idea, she also comments on the possible outcomes of using religion as a part of one’s political platform.
“I think that could be difficult if her views are not separated from her religion because, obviously, her religion is not the same as every American's religion, so I don't think that's great,” she said. “Besides that, I know she just hasn't expressed a lot of her political views and that almost frustrates me a bit more. I'd rather have her just tell us her political views than try to pretend that she doesn't have any.”
Proponents of the Democratic party have also adopted the stance of separation of religion from political policy-making, fearing that her religious views may influence her stance on the precedent set in Roe v. Wade. Despite this idea, Gonzalez doesn’t believe that religion will dictate her judicial work.
“Republicans are going to point out how she is really tight with her family and how she's really Catholic and religious,” he said. “She said in their hearings that she's going to interpret the Constitution to her best ability and that she's just going to judge based not on what side of the political spectrum she's on, but how the constitution sees fit for a case. I think that's really important to note that she's not going to come in here with a political agenda, she's not going to put her political agenda over that of the Constitution, which I think is really important.”
Junior Ryan Butler is impressed with the positives in Barrett’s work at Notre Dame, as well as her skills in addressing the American people.
“I know that she graduated top of her last class so she is pretty smart,” he said. “I watched some of her hearings and she didn't have any notes, so she was legitimately speaking from her brain, which is refreshing.”
McClellan also holds a similar opinion, arguing that her education is well beyond what some may consider necessary for a seat of such great nature.
“I don't see why there would be any arguments against her,” he said. “She's a very intelligent woman who fits the needs of a Supreme Court justice, so there's no logical reason to be against her nomination. Any reasons would be biased, as she has no bad background and has all the requisites to fill the seat.”
The importance of any seat in the Supreme Court causes a widespread panic by both Democrats and Republicans to fill it with a figure that supports their leanings, but the actions taken to fill the seat have been both controversial and contradictory, as again referenced by the rush to fill Scalia’s seat in 2016.
“Personally I'm not too familiar with the 2016 conservative reactions, but I do know that this year they're really pushing for it because a conservative majority in the court would be really beneficial to the Republican party,” McClellan said. “Any party would strongly push for that if they were given the opportunity; it's a universal political motive to have as much control in government as possible.”
Gonzalez admits the controversial reality that is the rush to fill a judicial seat.
“It's a power grab, but it's legal,” he said. “This is a justice that they like quite frankly, and it's that simple. I guess another thing that they could say is, Obama, when he tried to nominate someone, didn't have the Senate to put his candidate through.”
Many, like Gonzalez, believe that Democrats are more irritated over the process Trump is taking than anything else.
“They see that kind of hypocrisy for the Republican Senate to deny Obama's appointee in 2016 but accept this one,” he said. “They're more upset with that than the actual justice coming on.”
Zier, like prominent figures in the Democratic party, are arguing that the nomination may go against America’s best interest.
“I think it should just wait until after the election, whether Trump wins or Biden wins,” she said. “I think it would have been best to wait so that the judges could reflect the American people, especially because this appointment could potentially affect the Supreme Court for the next, I think they're estimating, 30 years being potentially swayed conservative.”
McClellan argues the opposite, believing that it’s the president’s duty to fill the position.
“It's one of the president's main jobs to fill the seats of Supreme Court justices and frankly it's the most normal thing a president can do,” he said. “No president would wait on it and allow the opposing party to fill it. However, it doesn't matter who fills it as long as it gets filled because that's the only thing truly important to all Americans as an incomplete court can't rule court cases.”
A majority of Americans, like Gonzalez for instance, have identified the issue of letting either side fill the seat.
“I guess I can see how Democrats would be upset how this has happened really with Trump ushering in a new justice right before an election,” he said. “I like Amy Coney Barrett, but the principle of the nomination is kind of questionable.”
To Stellpflug, just being on either political side is enough to sway a citizen’s view on whether the process is right or not.
“Depends who you are, if you're a conservative, replacing her quickly is the best thing you can do for America, and just the opposite if you're a Democrat,'' he said.
Ginsburg was undoubtedly a favorite among the Democratic party, but her influence extended beyond that of a bi-partisan system. Kerkhof learned much regarding Ginsburg’s activism within her 27 year run.
“I didn't really pay much attention in the past until she died and then a whole bunch of people were talking about all of her accomplishments and things like that, because, I mean, I knew of her, but not as much as I did until after she died,” she said. “She seemed to know what she stood for and she followed through with what she believed in.”
Zier has learned a lot from Ginsburg’s term and her influence reflected on the American people.
“She did so much with her life and made such an influence; you really can make a difference no matter who you are,” she said. “She was Jewish too, so she was really breaking barriers, especially being a woman. You can do anything no matter who you are.”
By Index Staff
October 30th, 2020
Oshkosh West Index Volume 117 Issue 2