Regardless of our politics or our judicial philosophy, we can all appreciate and admire the integrity, intelligence, and fearsome strength of character of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We can all mourn her loss. May her memory be a blessing.
The timing for filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by the death of “the notorious RBG” is not a moral issue. It is a political issue. Nominating a replacement justice and pushing for a Senate vote before the November election, or before any “changing of the guard” at the White House and in the Senate come January, is a political matter. Similarly, possible future efforts by a 2021 Democratic-majority Senate and a President Biden to “stack the Court” by adding justices beyond the traditional nine is not a moral issue. It is a political issue.
Democrats like Schumer and Republicans like McConnell regularly pay lip-service to supposed principles of governance which are often invented or resurrected to serve partisan interests. McConnell refused to hold hearings on Merrick Garland, Obama’s last nominee to the High Court. That was a political maneuver that paid off, at least temporarily, with the nomination and confirmation of Neil Gorsuch. Democrats decried McConnell’s maneuver, claiming moral outrage.
If Democrats argue that a new appointment to the Court should not be made until after the January 20, 2021 inauguration, they may do so, apart from any concerns about precedent or fairness, simply based on the hope that this November’s election will result in a Democratic sweep of the presidency and the Senate. When a moral argument reaches the same conclusion as an argument from political expediency, and when the arguer is a professional politician, one might well wonder whether the desired result drives the argument.