A huge sigh of audible relief went up from progressive circles on Wednesday, 26 January, 2022, when the story broke that Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, would resign at the end of this term. Breyer, 83, had been balking at political pressure to remove himself from office while the Democrats still marginally control the Senate, so his seat would not pass into conservative hands at a later date.
“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”
–Ruth Bader Ginsburg
On September 18th, 2020, the US political world was shaken to its foundations by the death of the Notorious R.B.G., Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an associate Justice of the US Supreme Court and liberal icon for almost thirty years. Ginsburg succumbed to complications arising from metastasized pancreatic cancer, after struggling with the disease in one form or another for over twenty years. Ginsburg’s death, coming so close to a US presidential election, completely upends the calculus, energizing both sides, as conservatives scramble to replace her before they may lose control of the White House and Senate, and progressives cry “Foul!” in the face of clear double standards regarding the rules for filling such vacancies.
