Well, if you have kept track of all that’s gone on in this crazy world of ours or not over just the past month, you should basically know the gist of what’s going on. I will be getting rid of the miscellaneous posts as of two political posts ago so I can do the returning theme for this blog. Since there is now a vacancy on the Supreme Court, I will be going back to doing a recurring theme by posting about the Supreme Court for a while at least twice until maybe the vacancy is filled, the end of the year, or I just decide to get rid of it for some reason.
Today’s post is on the late and great Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Perhaps the most well known of all of the justices at one point, I figure that it makes sense to pay respects to her by doing a post in her honor. Let’s get to this post.
Her influence on the court was quite good in many ways. I can’t even begin to list all of the ways that it was good because it would take too long and I figure that I might as well get into doing just what you want to hear. Despite being in the minority in many ways throughout her whole time on the court, she was a force to be reckoned with in many ways.
As for her influence for women, that was such a huge factor in so many women’s lives that they may take what she did for granted. You mean one couldn’t do things without a man’s authority if they were a woman? She did a lot for women’s rights.
It is worth noting that she was not the first woman on the court, although she might be thought of as the woman authority on the court. What’s interesting to note is that if she hadn’t felt some of the gender discrimination and had made it further as an attorney, she never would have been on the Supreme Court, similar to the first woman on the court, Sandra Day O’Conner.
She was nominated by Bill Clinton to be on the Supreme Court. This was one of the best parts of his presidency. Sure, she may have been partly a diversity pick, but she was one of the best picks in the end that could have ever happened on the Supreme Court.
Since the liberals were in the minority on the court during her entire time on it, she became known for her dissents which since the time she became the most senior of the liberal wing which happened during the Obama administration. She wrote about guts to the voting rights act being akin to throwing out your umbrella in a rainstorm because you aren’t getting wet. And she was the only woman on the court for quite a while.
One of the most notable things about her was her friendship with Antonin Scalia. This is notable because he was one of the most conservative members in the court’s history. I have no idea just how often they disagreed on things. But they enjoyed visiting the opera and it even inspired an opera based on them.
In addition to helping women, Ruth’s ways were also able to help men. While men’s rights are often just known as being sexist and otherwise not needed, if only women are known to benefit from something, then that would be as bad as only men benefiting.
Before she became a judge, she had argued before the Supreme Court, winning at least twice in decisions that were made there. It was after this that Jimmy Carter put her on one of the court of appeals that is one of the more federal courts in the country.
What is interesting is that when Bill Clinton got his first opportunity to put someone on the court, it was Orrin Hatch, a Republican senator, who recommended her and helped vote her in. This was when we had more consensus and bipartisanship in terms of court confirmations. But at the time, she was considered a moderate. She wound up getting 96 votes for confirmation.
However, one of the dangers of her hearings was that she was not answering questions in hearings for the Supreme Court. This created a precedent that was later used by John Roberts and, more infamously, Brett Kavanaugh. But she thinks that this is okay because, after all, she did it herself.
One of the most notable things that she helped with was a gender discrimination case that one Lily Ledbetter brought to the court. While she lost the Supreme Court case, because of what Ruth said in her dissent, a new law was made to ensure that women would get equal pay.
Sadly, not every choice that she did was good in the end. She made a bad decision with a case that involved Native American land and while it was not the only one she regrets, it was the one that she regrets most as it is often cited in cases that take away land from Native Americans still to the very day.
Some are wondering now if she should have stepped down from the court earlier. Some have thought that she could have stepped aside before the 2014 midterms when Obama was still the president and the Democrats still had the senate. But she wanted to stay as long as she felt she was mental sharp enough. Sadly, it was her physical health that did her in.
What now is going to happen? Well, we are sadly already in a shit storm due to Republicans doing an about face on how they feel about filling vacancies during a presidential election year which could hopefully ensure their losses in the senate. More of what is going on with the new vacancy is worth covering in other blog posts and I plan to do at least one YouTube video about it. I can only hope that she gets her dying wish fulfilled to not be confirmed until a new president is in charge.
I’m most concerned about the upcoming case California v Texas as not only does the fate of the Affordable Care Act on the potential chopping block once again, but if the past votes of certain justices are any indication, then the fate could lie with the hands of the people that Trump appointed to the Supreme Court, which is concerning, yet not as concerning as one might think given the times that they have agreed with the liberals thus far.
As for the rest of this post, there’s not much else to say as I’ve already gone a bit off topic towards the end. I’m very worried with her parting that the court could get worse than it already has by now. But maybe things will be okay in the end.
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