Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reportedly went further than any other justice in voicing her displeasure that the Supreme Court had only eight justices following the death of Antonin Scalia in 2016 — an election year — calling it “not a good number.”
“The comments mark the furthest a sitting justice has gone, since the sudden death of the late Justice Antonin Scalia earlier this year, to signal that the court would function better with a fully staffed bench,” CNN reported. “Ginsburg was giving an end of the term report to an audience of mostly judges of the Second Circuit Judicial Conference in New York.”
Ginsburg’s resurfaced remark follows her passing late last week after she lost her the fight against her fifth bout with cancer.
“That means no opinions and no precedential value; an equal division is essentially the same as a denial of review,” Ginsburg said on the issue of the Supreme Court only having eight justices. “Eight, as you know, is not a good number for a multi-member court.”
Ginsburg’s resurfaced opinion also comes after she allegedly told her granddaughter that her dying wish was that a “new president” would be the one to replace her.
“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,” Ginsburg allegedly said.
Notice how RBG did not say, "until after the election" or "until the next presidential term".
She said "until a new president is installed," meaning one different than Trump.
She was specifically saying that she did not want Trump to be the one to replace her, even if he wins. https://t.co/9In1MMPota
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) September 20, 2020
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) threatened that Democrats may pack the court with leftist judges if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and President Donald Trump fill her seat because, as Ocasio-Cortez says, they would be in “violation of her dying wish.”
The Supreme Court released the following statement in response to Ginsburg’s death:
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this evening surrounded by her family at her home in Washington, D.C., due to complications of metastatic pancreas cancer. She was 87 years old. Justice Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Clinton in 1993. She was the second woman appointed to the Court and served more than 27 years. She is survived by her two children: Jane Carol Ginsburg (George Spera) and James Steven Ginsburg (Patrice Michaels), four grandchildren: Paul Spera (Francesca Toich), Clara Spera (Rory Boyd), Miranda Ginsburg, Abigail Ginsburg, two step-grandchildren: Harjinder Bedi, Satinder Bedi, and one greatgrandchild: Lucrezia Spera. Her husband, Martin David Ginsburg, died in 2010.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. said of Justice Ginsburg: “Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her — a tireless and resolute champion of justice.”
Justice Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York, March 15, 1933. She married Martin D. Ginsburg in 1954. She received her B.A. from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School, and received her LL.B. from Columbia Law School. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri, Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, from 1959- 1961. From 1961- 1963, she was a research associate and then associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure. She was a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law from 1963-1972, and Columbia Law School from 1972- 1980, and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California from 1977-1978. In 1971, she was instrumental in launching the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, and served as the ACLU’s General Counsel from 1973-1980, and on the National Board of Directors from 1974-1980. She was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. During her more than 40 years as a Judge and a Justice, she was served by 159 law clerks.
While on the Court, the Justice authored My Own Words (2016), a compilation of her speeches and writings.
A private interment service will be held at Arlington National Cemetery