AUSTIN (KXAN) — Just days before she died, Ruth Bader Ginsburg told her granddaughter that she did not want Pres. Donald Trump to choose her replacement.
“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,” Ginsburg told granddaughter Clara Spera, according to NPR via NBC News.
The vacancy left by Ginsburg, 87, could forever alter the Supreme Court in the long-run and also presents an immediate conflict in Washington, D.C.
In 2016, Republicans in Senate refused to consider then-President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, reportedly because 2016 was an Election year.
At that time, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
Now, Democrats say, Republicans must apply the precedent ahead of the 2020 Presidential Election.
On Friday, Obama released a statement saying:
“Four and a half years ago, when Republicans refused to hold a hearing or an up-or-down vote on Merrick Garland, they invented the principle that the Senate shouldn’t fill an open seat on the Supreme Court before a new president was sworn in. A basic principle of the law — and of everyday fairness — is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what’s convenient or advantageous in the moment.”
Nevertheless, McConnell has already issued a statement that a Trump Supreme Court nominee will receive a vote.
On Friday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted McConnell’s exact 2016 statement on Merrick Garland’s nomination, saying: “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
