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Ginsburg's Death Could Lead to Conservative Lock on Supreme Court

Masood Farivar

   WASHINGTON - The death of liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader
   Ginsburg gives President Donald Trump an opportunity to add another
   conservative to the bench andshiftthe powerful high court's ideological
   balance further to the right.

   With a super-majority on the bench, wide-ranging issues could be
   impacted.Trump's other Supreme Court appointments-
   conservativejuristsNeil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh --had
   succeededotherRepublican-appointedjustices.

   Now, with the death of Ginsburg, Trump can do something no other
   president has accomplished in a generation: replace a liberal justice
   with a conservative jurist. The last time this opportunity presented
   itself was when Republican President George H. W. Bush nominated
   conservative judge Clarence Thomas in 1991 to replace liberal icon
   Thurgood Marshall on the court.
   Appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993, Ginsburg, who died at her home
   in Washington Friday at the age of 87 after five bouts with cancer, was
   the oldest and longest serving liberal justice on the nine-member
   Supreme Court.
   For months, as Ginsburg's health deteriorated, liberals worried that
   her death would enable Trump to nominate a replacement ahead of the
   November election regardless of whether voters decide to re-elect Trump
   for a second term.
   For many liberals, their worst fears have been realized. "The next
   nominee is all but guaranteed to be well to the right" of Kavanaugh and
   Gorsuch, Trump's two choices to the high court, said Gabe Roth,
   executive director of the left leaning Fix the Court.
   A lifelong champion of women's rights, Ginsburg served as a federal
   judge from 1980 to 1993 when President Bill Clinton nominated her to
   the Supreme Court to become only the second woman in history to serve
   on the bench. Before her career as a federal jurist, Ginsburg made a
   mark as a women's rights advocate at the American Civil Liberties Union
   in 1970s, leading high-profile litigation against gender
   discrimination.
   "I have four daughters, and I told them just now that this woman
   singlehandedly established rights for women as equal human beings,"
   said Kimberly Wehle, a professor of law at the University of Baltimore.
   "Of course, there are many, many women and men that contribute to that.
   But in terms of how the law was shaped, it was her work as a lawyer and
   of course as a Supreme Court justice."
   Known for speaking her mind, she famously clashed with Trump during the
   2016 presidential campaign, calling him a "faker," prompting the real
   estate mogul to call on her to resign.
   In a statement issued late Friday, Trump praised Ginsburg as a
   "fighter," saying her legal opinions "inspired all Americans, and
   generations of great legal minds."

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