Late last Friday afternoon, I was checking email and news like I usually do at the end of the day. All of a sudden up popped the news that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away. My mind raced to a number of thoughts but the most prominent one was how man knows not his time, but God sure does.
The year 2020 just took yet another incredible twist and turn.
Then, on Wednesday, I watched the U.S. Supreme Court observance of Justice Ginsburg’s passing and laying in repose with mixed emotions. I am one of those women who entered law school about 25 years after Justice Ginsburg. My law school class at University of Texas was close or at 50/50 male female. Women like Ginsburg and Sandra Day O’Connor did “blaze a trail” for women like me.
We now are on the verge of seeing a conservative woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court – someone very likely to be more like me in judicial philosophy, someone likely more conservative than O’Connor. I am grateful for those women who blazed the trail. But I sure do look forward to having a conservative, well-qualified woman on the highest court. I am one who entered law school as a liberal feminist. Thankfully, God got a hold of me and I left law school as a conservative, believing evangelical. Not the normal path for a law school student.
President Trump will announce his nominee tomorrow at 2:00 pm, Arizona time. Look for our Breaking News tomorrow with my take on the nominee. Brace yourself – we may be on the verge of seeing the most hateful religious bigotry and ugliness against this nominee ever witnessed.
For today, here’s my take on some of the key issues all over the news:
2020 isn’t 2016
You hear that Republicans are hypocrites, and they’re violating precedent because the Senate Republicans wouldn’t move to confirm a justice in the last year of President Obama’s term. So, they are hypocritical and wrong to move this nomination through.
The facts are that President Obama was a term-limited president with a Republican majority in the Senate. That Senate was elected by the voters in 2014 to make decisions on confirmations. Americans elected Donald Trump President in 2016, giving him the authority to make nominations. Americans increased the Republican majority in 2018, at least partly in response to the horrific treatment of Justice Kavanagh during the confirmation process. The 2018 Republican victories also indicated agreement with President Trump’s selection of judges.
As the Judicial Crisis Network reported, “When the same party controls the White House and the Senate (e.g., now), the confirmation process proceeds as usual and the nominee is almost always confirmed. A new justice has been confirmed 8 out of 10 times this has happened.”
“Republicans Are Rushing Confirmation”
Justice Ginsburg was confirmed within 42 days and Justice O’Connor within 33 days. The five women on President Trump’s list all have been through confirmation hearings in the last few years. Vetting of each through background checks, judicial record reviews, etc. will be updated easily.
“Women Will Die”
The radical left will be screaming that women will die as a result of this nominee because ROE will be overturned. A reversal of ROE only means that states will then be the ones to determine whether abortion is legal or not. In all likelihood, abortion would remain legal in the most populous states – think the left and right coasts. Our work to restore sanctity of life to this culture requires far more than an overturning of ROE.
Election Impact
For several election cycles, we’ve known that the stakes are high for the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court. Voters now will have a clear choice to decide which candidates line up with their views.
For Arizona voters, do you trust Martha McSally or Mark Kelly to vote to confirm justices that will interpret the law, not make the law?
For all voters nationwide, do you want Donald Trump or Joe Biden nominating judges? Trump has laid out his list of potential nominees. Biden has declined to reveal his choice of nominees. Will voters overlook Biden’s refusal to produce a list?
I look forward to Saturday’s announcement of the next justice. Please continue to pray for President Trump, the U.S. Senate, and our nation as a whole.
ICYMI
- Learn a little about The Five Women on Trump’s List
- Hear Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser on NY Times podcast about the S. Supreme Court nominee and Roe v Wade.
- Read an analysis of the anti-Catholic bigotry against at least one nominee, and how it all leads back to abortion.
- Hear Heritage Foundation’s Kay Cole James on why the Supreme Court nominee should be picked this year.