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Politics
Who Will Name RBG’s Replacement?
Both parties seem to be assuming that Biden will win the election
“My Most Fervent Wish Is That I Will Not Be Replaced Until a New President Is Installed”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the liberal jurists on the Supreme Court, so close to the election has thrown both the Senate and the presidential campaign into chaos.
The Democrats want to abide by the so-called McConnell Rule, which states that if a vacancy occurs on the Supreme Court during a president’s last year in office, that vacancy can only be filled by whoever wins the election. The Democrats want to wait until after Biden is sworn in as president so that he can name another liberal judge to fill Ginsburg’s seat.
The Republicans want to abide by McConnell’s new version of that rule which states that if a vacancy occurs on the Supreme Court during a president’s last year in office, if the Senate and the president belong to the same party, then the current president can fill the vacancy. They want to be able to confirm another conservative judge to SCOTUS giving the conservatives on the bench a clear majority on the court for years to come despite the country becoming more liberal.