Evgeny Feldman: "Ginzburg was a superstar"

"Tonight, Ruth Bader Ginzburg, the liberal judge of the US Supreme Court, died . She was 87 years old, she fought for a long time with different types of cancer. Hundreds of people came to the court building - and this despite the fact that the court of the Suprrolling Institute. Ginzburg was a superstar, and her death is a very important story. That's why," the photographer writes on her Facebook page.

"There are 9 judges in the US Supreme Court, they are appointed for life. Ginzburg appointed Bill Clinton back in 1993, she became only a second woman in the history of the Armed Forces (Obama appointed two more). She received a legal entity from the poor family of Jewish emigrants from Odessa, and all this was not at all at all, and they treated it at all at all with bewilderment and they were at a loss and they treated it with bewilderment and they treated it with bewilderment With contempt: at dinner with the dean, she was asked to explain why she occupies the "place of the man", and women were not allowed into one of the halls of the library.

She graduated from Colombian University with honors - but the judge, who was recommended to take her as a clerk, did not even talk to her. Jewish, woman, mother - this combination almost deprived her of her profession. She went to teach, but even there, not without difficulties, she had to hide pregnancy until the contract was extended. And then she worked for a long time with ACLU, a human rights organization, which in the post -war years organized a systemic legal campaign to combat a variety of types of discrimination.

In recent years, Ginzburg was probably the most famous judge of the Armed Forces. There was even a meme where it was called Notorious RBG (an allusion on the rapper Notorious Big), it was often shown in SNL, in recent years a large biography and a documentary nominated for Oscars have been released.

The famous Ginzburg became because of an uncompromising position, long work in court, fierce special opinions (but at the same time she was friends with the same fierce judge-conservator Antonin Scallion, and they helped each other write special opinions.)

It so happened that her 27 years in court fell on the fairly conservative phase of his device, and she was most often in the minority. Among the beautiful victories - for example, the story of how a complaint about a school search with a undressing of a 13 -year -old girl who was looking for Ibuprofen came to the court. At that moment, Ginzburg was the only judge-woman, and the rest listened to the performances of the parties without much interest, compared a search with dressing in the locker room. Ginzburg convinced them to support the schoolgirl.

The main work of life Ginzburg is the fight against gender discrimination. And there is also a beautiful story: in 1996, she announced the decision of the majority - the Cadet Academy in Virginia is obliged to accept girls. (The Academy tried to prove that the girls would not pull the demands, and the court decided that the chance to try to be with them.) In 2018, Ginzburg performed in this school - among 1700 students there were 200 girls.

Why is the Supreme Court important in general? This is the top of one of the 3 branches of power, the stronger that the judges are appointed for life. It is the court that makes the final decision on the constitutionality of each major reform. Obamaker, for example, resisted a miracle. It was the court that allowed gay marks. If conservative judges will be able to get 6 seats in it, this will mean that for decades they will have control over all reforms and many political conflicts. It was the court in July who decided whether Trump is obliged to show financial documents. (I’ll make a reservation in brackets that radical judges-conservatives are very fond of appealing to the hypocritical concept of legal inactivism-they say, these are the liberal judges decide something there, and we are not a congress, we are only interpreting the Constitution. In practice, of course, this is not so.)

As I wrote, there are 9 judges in the court. Each purpose is for decades. Now 5 of them are rather conservative, including the chairman of Roberts. And after the death of Ginzburg, three liberal judges remained. (I note that only every fifth case is decided by most of the 5 judges - and about half is unanimously; we apply political optics to the court and talk about the fractions and views of the judges, but they are much closer to the center than the party; however, the stratification is slightly stronger in resonant matters.)

The president offers the new judge of the Supreme Court, and approves the Senate with a simple majority, where the shattering majority are now also among the Republicans. Before the elections is 46 days. The inauguration of the new president on January 20, and in early January, the current cadents of senators will end. In terms of condition yesterday and there, and there, more likely, the Democrats should have defeated. Death Ginzburg changes everything.

In February 2016, 200+ days before the elections in which Trump defeated, the conservative judge of Skalia died. Republicans then also controlled the Senate - and in violation of all traditions, they even refused to discuss the candidacy of the judge proposed by Obama. Their argument was simple: soon the elections, and let the American people decide to whom to appoint a judge.

It would seem that a mirror situation: in the year of the election, a judge with the opposite views of the president dies. But there is one difference - now the Republicans also control the majority in the Senate. So, they can try to hold a conservative judge instead of liberal Ginzburg. To do this, they just need to cross out the promises that they publicly gave all these years - since their hysteria in 2016 has helped them preserve the place of the conservative of the rampant.

Technically, democrats can hardly interfere with them: to the new Congress of 107 days, and even if the elections end with the most likely outcome - the devastating defeat of Trump and a small advantage of the democrats in the Senate - right up to the inauguration will be able to carry out the necessary procedures and achieve the appointment of a new judge. For life date. The leader of the Senate majority of McConnell has already stated that they elected senators there to conduct Trump's agenda, which means why not to vote for his candidate? Therefore, now the Democrats will try to make this strategy as expensive for the Republicans. For example, during the first hours after the death of Ginzburg and the statements of the Republicans about its replacement, the democrats gathered on a website accumulating donations in the campaign of their candidates, $ 20 million. If the places under the 7-8 republican senators are now staggered from these conversations alone, maybe they will stop.

This tactic has already begun to work. The senator from Utah Mitt Romni announced that the new Congress, which will be gathered in January, should vote for the new judge; Senators Collins from Man and Murkovsky from Alaska talked about this in the summer when it came to an abstract case. At the same time, Collins is now re -elected, and she does not look like a favorite in her state. Will she hold back the word if there will be a “lame duck” between November and January, and Biden will be elected by the president?

And another important consequence of a sad night event. Right now, the November elections have not been about the re -election of Trump, but about the chance for conservatives to guarantee a significant part of the control for decades, regardless of the field of Texas and other clearly catastrophic trends for them. And there is a chance that this one that opened right now - and not once an illusory then - a lifelong vacancy in the Supreme Court will become the most important assembly point for all conservative voters who, in the usual situation, would clearly not support. (Another thing is that if the judge will be appointed in the place of Ginzburg, the liberals will still be in court of only 4, and no disaster for conservatives will happen) The pre -measurement statement of the Ruth of the hips of Ginzburg is like this: "My most passionate desire is that my replacement is not chosen before the inauguration of the new president."

TL; Dr

The political alignment is this: the Republicans have a great opportunity to consolidate control over one of the branches of power for 10-20 years. But the actions necessary for this may deprive them of control over two other branches from January. And they can, on the contrary, help the consolidation of supporters. "