There are few figures in the history of the American judiciary who have garnered quite the widespread popular appeal as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. With such a title, you may mistakenly have been fooled into thinking that she has passed away. Don’t worry, you wouldn’t be the first one… Fox News’ hugely successful show Fox & Friends made a similar mistake when they broadcast this on live television this year:
All jokes aside, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is certainly alive and very well, still kicking at 85 years of age and faithfully serving the Supreme Court. Only the second female to ever be appointed to the nation’s highest court, RBG possesses a legacy like no one else and a fervor that is unmatched by Justice’s past. To this end, she has earned herself the nickname the “Notorious R.B.G.” from fans on the left.
Perhaps most the most critical part of her legacy today is her resolve in attempting to maintain the integrity and standard of well-represented, balanced justice within the Court. Her unwillingness to retire despite her age and deteriorating health is critical, as doing so would severely tip the already uneven scales of the court in favor of conservative justices 6-3. With such a majority, the future (for an indeterminate amount of time) of the court would undoubtedly be one of turmoil for advocates of a liberal judicial philosophy across the nation.
Although she is up there in age and has seen a decline in her physical condition in years the years past, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has certainly not seen any decline in her mental sharpness and acuity. Recent dissenting opinions have possessed the same cutting tone and principled approach to jurisprudence that she has been known for throughout her legal career. In a speech just before her nomination, she said of her judicial philosophy that “[m]easured motions seem to me right, in the main, for constitutional as well as common law adjudication. Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped, experience teaches, may prove unstable.”
Justice Ginsburg, though often villainized by adherents of the philosophical originalism (that was brought to the forefront of jurisprudence by her longtime peer Justice Antonin Scalia), is often defined as a “rational minimalist” when assigning philosophical labels to Justice’s approaches to interpreting the Constitution. This steady and consistent application of her judicial philosophy has made her votes on cases highly predictable, a mark of her consistency and service to the role.
All things told, the legacy of RBG lives on to this day. God only knows how much longer our country has her, though we ought to hope that it is longer than 2 years.
On a court that seems like it is becoming more conservative everyday, the importance of Ginsburg on the court is higher now more than ever. Her importance to the history of the Supreme Court is obvious, and I agree hopefully she will be around to see the next president.
I was definitely concerned that she had passed when I first started reading your blog. RBG has definitely come to the front of the public eye in the past year with documentaries about her life as well as her unwillingness to give in to pressures. She has maintained the same attitude and approach to her role in the court and yet somehow she is seen as problematic by some today. This reflects her position as one of the few non-conservative justices and her hard adherence to her philosophy.
When I first glanced at this blog post I saw the picture of RBG and believed she was dead. Before even reading the rest of the blog, I looked online to see when she died and how. Apparently, she didn’t die, but she is becoming very old; I wasn’t shocked to think she was dead. As morbid as this is, she has very little time left on the Court. It is insane to think that the fate of the Supreme Court (and by extension, the US) may come down to whether RBG can outlast Trump’s presidency.
Maybe Fox isn’t even making mistakes, they’re just trying to speak the passing of RBG into existence. In all seriousness though, I like how you don’t just go over her biography which i’m sure most of us have heard by now, but you display her importance and even an “old lady” like herself is instrumental in the United States future, which is pretty cool to me.