With the passing of Justice Ginsburg, the November 3 election takes on new importance. It has to do with the Senate even more than before. Those who had relied on the courts to stand up for equal and civil rights are dismayed now but they do not need to be paralyzed. There is a new cause to fight:. There is a way forward. It is to flip the Senate to blue and to expand the size of the Supreme Court, adding two more seats. The opportunity to do that is both now and in future election cycles. With Trump stacking both the Supreme Court, both Roe v Wade and Obamacare (or any affordable health care insurance) are in severe jeopardy. If that should happen, there are various legislative measures that could reply a replacement, reform the court, and then work around Roe v Wade. That will only happen if Biden is elected and the Senate turns blue..He would have our back on both issues, but blue would have to win Nov.3
When the Trump administration pulled dirty tricks to suppress votes and stack the courts with ideologues, Democrats now know cannot rely anymore on the justice system to level the playing field on key issues dealing with discrimination, voters rights, affordable health insurance, women's and sexual orientation rights, and the environment.. . This means Democrats must hold the GOP senator's feet to the fire this Nov. 3, on the issues that matter to the majority of voters in their states now, and in the future and condemn them for playing dirty tricks in filling court vacancies. , Democrats have even more opportunities to increase enthusiasm to vote if they set an achievable goal...Their biggest asset:: Their issues are popular with the majority in the country..The GOP is engineering rule by a minority.and is out of step with the nation's majority.on issues coming before the Court.
Democrats can use this issue to turn the Nov. 3 vote into a protest vote on abuse of the process.and honor the memory of Justice Ginsburg.and damage the GOP/Trump party for years to come. There is an opportunity to highlight policy differences that would mobilize greater turn out of some otherwise unenthusiastic about Biden, young people, and some suburban women.
Trump is bent on nominating an anti-choice replacement on the court which tilts the court to 6-3 n favor of social. cultural conservatives and making reversing Roe v Wade a certainty, ,not a possibility. Along with that issue. the right to choose, that is overwhelmingly publicly supported, there are others who fear even more that gay marriage and banning discrimination against LBGTQ citizens would no longer be protected. Particularly of concern to millions of Americans is the loss of access to affordable health care with court rejection of Obamacare and coverage of pre-existing conditions. Obamacare is doomed. It .is now in certain jeopardy, since even if the vacancy of one seat makes this a tied vote which would leave the lower court's anti-Obamacare ruling stand. If the Trump-appointed choice anytime before January 20 will also likely doom. That a replacement would take place at all would only happen if Democrats controlled both the Senate and White House. What Biden must do is have in his hip pocket a replacement and make that an issue..
Now what? Some speculation.
The fight now moves to the Senate as Trump attempts to pressure Senators to vote on his replacement nominee before Nov. 3. Four GOP Senators would have to buck the President for that strategy to be stopped. . No doubt Trump sees an advantage of executing this dirty tactic. The outcry protest is that Sen. Majority Leader and any number of senators kept Obama from his nomination from even being considered because "it was 10 months away from the election, and voters should have their say".so these senators are a bunch of hypocrites. Calling them hypocrites or dirty tricksters is not enough so the focus is now on pressuring GOP senators up for re-election in purple and blue states. Here is the problem: It appears this is going to be a close race and the Trump tactic will be to challenge every vote they can, especially mail-in votes, which Trump has already blanketed called frauds. The challenge would be in the Supreme Court which he stacked and controlled before Nov. 3., ensuring his challenges would be heard and the results would work in his favor. It is a clever political maneuver, but it would be the mother of all challenges to our democracy and would fly in the face of any intent of faith in our voting system or representing the public. The Court would also never again be respected as an independent arbiter of what is constitutional and what is not and the rule of law would be whatever the President or Congress want to observe. . On of the three legs of our checks and balances would be just another "might makes right" institution, leaving the White House and Congress free to be as despotic as they want.
. I think it is likely to anticipate the public will react with such anger that it could destabilize the entire country as the majority would cry foul. Unfortunately, it is a likely scenario. The anger is likely to come from women, who have the most to lose in the issue of Roe v Wade. The president is hinting he will nominate a woman to dampen their anger. Women are not stupid: an anti-choice woman or one with a record of hurting other women will be seen as a meaningless, cynical pander. It is the vote on the Supreme Court that counts, not the sex of the Justice. There are other stakeholders angered, as well, since voters, workers' and civil rights, and the environment are hot button issues, as well. The civil chaos that follows, Trump hopes, would be resolved by the intervention of the military, just as happens in banana republics. His authority to require the military to intervene would be "insurrection", but court cases have already been decided that define "insurrection" as another animal than protests, peaceful or violent.https://definitions.uslegal.com/i/insurrection/ Joint Chief General Mlley has already made clear that the military will not intervene in domestic politics and polls of the rank and file show they are tilted against Trump, too. https://apnews.com/a979ad8beceacd77c692e42448cf7b82
If Trump does not succeed in his plan to control the vote count via his stacked Supreme Court and somehow who won both the presidency and vice presidency is in limbo by inauguration day, Speaker Pelosi will be sworn in. There is an argument made that if only the president's race is undecided, the vice president assumes the presidency, and his appointment to be president must be approved by Congress. That is hardly likely since the president and vice president run as one ticket and both would be in limbo leaving no vice president to nominate anyone.. .https://www.factcheck.org/2020/09/vice-presidential-vacancy-isnt-automatically-filled-by-house-speaker/
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