cnbc--2020-09-19--Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at age 87

Ruth Bader Ginsburg , the pioneering Supreme Court justice who became the second female on the nation 's highest court , the leader of its liberal wing and a pop culture icon known as Notorious R.B.G.
, has died .
She was 87 .
The vacancy enables President Donald Trump to nominate his third justice to swing the bench further to the right , setting up what 's certain to be a colossal battle perhaps even bigger than those of his nominations of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh .
According to NPR , days before her death , Ginsburg told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed . ''
Ginsburg had a history of medical problems .
In December 2018 , doctors removed two cancerous nodules from her left lung , and she underwent additional treatment in August 2019 for a tumor on her pancreas .
She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1999 and underwent surgery in 2009 for pancreatic cancer .
The Supreme Court released the following statement Friday : Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this evening surrounded by her family at her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to complications of metastatic pancreas cancer .
She was 87 years old .
Justice Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Clinton in 1993 .
She was the second woman appointed to the Court and served more than 27 years .
She is survived by her two children : Jane Carol Ginsburg ( George Spera ) and James Steven Ginsburg ( Patrice Michaels ) , four grandchildren : Paul Spera ( Francesca Toich ) , Clara Spera ( Rory Boyd ) , Miranda Ginsburg , Abigail Ginsburg , two step-grandchildren : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one great- grandchild : Lucrezia Spera .
Her husband , Martin David Ginsburg , died in 2010 .
Chief Justice John G. Roberts , Jr. said of Justice Ginsburg : `` Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature .
We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague .
Today we mourn , but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her -- a tireless and resolute champion of justice . ''
Justice Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn , New York , March 15 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ginsburg in 1954 .
She received her B.A .
from Cornell University , attended Harvard Law School , and received her LL.B .
from Columbia Law School .
She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri , Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York , from 1959–1961 .
From 1961–1963 , she was a research associate and then associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure .
She was a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from 1972–1980 , and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford , California from 1977–1978 .
In 1971 , she was instrumental in launching the Women 's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union , and served as the ACLU 's General Counsel from 1973–1980 , and on the National Board of Directors from 1974–1980 .
She was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980 .
During her more than 40 years as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ served by 159 law clerks .
While on the Court , the Justice authored My Own Words ( 2016 ) , a compilation of her speeches and writings .
By early January 2020 , Ginsburg told CNN she was `` cancer free , '' but in July she announced that she was being treated for liver cancer .
The nodules in her lung were discovered in November 2018 , when she was hospitalized for broken ribs following a fall in her office .
Ginsburg 's convalescence 2½ weeks after the lung surgery ended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Supreme Court case for any reason outside of recusal , but she continued to work from home in her Watergate apartment .
In her second day back on the bench , she read the opinion she had written in a unanimous ruling against excessive punishment .
`` I think my work is what saved me because instead of dwelling on my physical discomforts if I have an opinion to write or a brief to read , I know I 've just got to get it done so I have to get over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nina Totenberg in a September 2019 interview at an event hosted by the Clinton Foundation and the University of Arkansas ' Clinton School of Public Service .
In another interview with Totenberg two months later , she defended herself from criticism that she should have retired while President Barack Obama was in office .
`` When that suggestion is made , I ask the question : Who do you think the president could nominate that could get through the Republican Senate ?
Who you would prefer on the court than me ? ''
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2018 and an animated cameo appearance in a 2019 Lego movie , Ginsburg battled for the equality of the sexes .
The first movie , `` RBG , '' was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary .
Her dedication to the law was perhaps best illustrated by the fact that she always kept a `` pocket Constitution '' in her handbag .
Months after giving birth , Ginsburg became one of only nine women in a class of 500 at Harvard Law School in 1956 .
After transferring to Columbia Law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in her graduating class in 1959 , she had trouble finding a law firm to hire her .
In 1960 , Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter rejected her for a clerkship on the basis of her gender , despite the recommendation of Harvard Law 's dean .
`` A Jew , a woman and a mother , that was a bit much .
Three strikes put me out of the game , '' she once recalled .
Ginsburg became a professor at Rutgers Law in 1963 and later Columbia Law 's first woman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the American Civil Liberties Union 's Women 's Rights Project in 1972 .
`` Women 's rights are an essential part of the overall human rights agenda , trained on the equal dignity and ability to live in freedom all people should enjoy , '' she said .
`` Throughout her life , '' Clinton said in introducing Ginsburg as his nominee , `` she has repeatedly stood for the individual , the person less well off , the outsider in society , and has given those people greater hope by telling them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legal system , by giving them a sense that the Constitution and the laws protect all the American people , not simply the powerful . ''
Ginsburg took over the leadership of the court 's liberal wing in 2010 upon the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens , who died in 2019 .
Thirteen years before joining the high court , Ginsburg was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit , nominated to the position by President Jimmy Carter .
And before becoming a judge , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Supreme Court , winning five .
In an even earlier sex discrimination case , she and her late husband , Martin , a tax lawyer , successfully argued Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue before the 10th U.S .
Circuit Court of Appeals in 1972 .
The couple represented Charles Moritz , who in 1968 was denied a deduction for expenses he incurred in caring for his invalid mother .
Under the law , a woman was entitled to such a deduction but not most men .
The case , the only one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ depicted in the 2018 biopic `` On the Basis of Sex , '' starring Felicity Jones as Ginsburg and Armie Hammer as her husband .
The screenplay was written by Ginsburg 's nephew Daniel Stiepleman , who was inspired to write the story after hearing a eulogy at his Uncle Martin 's funeral in 2010 .
`` Ruth Ginsburg was as responsible as any one person for legal advances that women made under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution , '' Marcia Greenberger , founder of the National Women 's Law Center @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1993 .
`` As a result , doors of opportunity have been opened that have benefited not only the women themselves but their families . ''
RBG enrolled in Harvard Law School in 1956 , where her husband was studying , and became the first woman member of the Harvard Law Review .
She also helped her husband with his studies while he was being treated for testicular cancer .
After receiving his degree , he joined the law firm Weil , Gotshal & Manges in New York and Ruth transferred to Columbia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rejection in 1960 , she did get a clerkship that year from federal Judge Edmund Palmieri of the Southern District of New York .
Later , she became associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure , and went to Sweden , where she co-authored a book about legal procedure there .
`` Reading and observing another system made me understand my own system so much better , '' she told CNN in January 2020 about her research in Sweden .
Asked in a 2019 interview with NPR to name @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was her work as a lawyer in the '60s and '70s leading the legal fight for gender equality .
In the Washington building that bears the motto `` Equal Justice Under Law , '' Ginsburg won the first case she argued before the nation 's highest court , the landmark 1973 Frontiero v. Richardson , a gender discrimination case .
Air Force Lt. Sharron Frontiero , and her husband , Joseph , challenged a law that allowed female military spouses to receive full benefits as dependents but not to men married to women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justices ruled that the statute was discriminatory .
Three years later , she prevailed in Craig v. Boren , in which the court rejected Oklahoma 's statute that women could buy beer at age 18 but men had to be at least 21 .
Her notable rulings as a Supreme Court justice included the 1996 landmark United States v. Virginia , in which she wrote the majority opinion striking down Virginia Military Institute 's traditional male-only admission policy .
The 7-1 ruling said VMI violated the Fourteenth Amendment 's Equal Protection Clause .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ VMI quality education can not be offered anything less , under the State 's obligation to afford them genuinely equal protection , '' Ginsburg wrote .
In the 1999 Olmstead v. L.C .
decision , Ginsburg said that under the Americans with Disabilities Act , mentally disabled people have the right to live in the community rather than in institutions `` when the State 's treatment professionals have determined that community placement is appropriate , the transfer from institutional care to a less restrictive setting is not opposed by the affected individual , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , taking into account the resources available to the State and the needs of others with mental disabilities . ''
During her convalescence from lung surgery , she wrote the 2019 ruling in Timbs v. Indiana that the Eighth Amendment 's ban on excessive fines applies to states and local governments , not just federal government .
At issue was the confiscation of a $ 42,000 Land Rover from an Indiana man who pleaded guilty to selling $ 225 of heroin to undercover police officers .
`` For good reason , the protection @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shield throughout Anglo-American history : Exorbitant tolls undermine other constitutional liberties , '' Ginsburg wrote in the 9-0 ruling .
`` Excessive fines can be used , for example , to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies . ''
Some of her most memorable opinions were dissents .
Among them : Gonzales v. Carhart , in which the court in 2007 upheld Congress ' Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 .
Opponents of the ban contended that the procedure , also known as `` intact dilation and extraction , '' @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a woman 's uterus when ending a late-term pregnancy .
It was the first time the court had banned a specific abortion method and the first time it did not include an exception for the woman 's health , according to The Washington Post .
Writing for the majority in the 5-4 decision , Justice Anthony Kennedy said Congress may regulate an area where doctors have not reached a consensus about the necessity of the procedure in protecting the woman 's health .
`` Respondents have not demonstrated that the Act , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vagueness , or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman 's right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception , '' he wrote .
In her dissent , Ginsburg wrote that the majority ruling `` tolerates , indeed applauds , federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists . ''
`` In candor , the Act , and the Court 's defense of it , can not be understood as anything other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a right declared again and again by this Court — and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women 's lives . ''
She added : `` The court deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice , even at the expense of their safety .
This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women 's place in the family and under the Constitution — ideas that have long since been discredited . ''
She also was among the four-justice minority in the 2007 Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of reading her dissent from the bench .
The majority ruled against Lilly Ledbetter in her claim of unequal pay because of her sex .
As an area manager , Ledbetter was paid $ 3,727 per month compared with $ 4,286 for the lowest paid male counterpart .
The majority on the court did not rule on the merits of Ledbetter 's claim made under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act .
The five justices rejected it on grounds that it was filed too long from the time the original decision @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the often secret nature of salary levels , Ginsburg said : `` In our view , the court does not comprehend , or is indifferent to , the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination . ''
`` The ball is in Congress ' court ... to correct this Court 's parsimonious reading of Title VII , '' she wrote .
Two years later , Congress took such action , passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act , which said each discriminatory paycheck resets the 180-day limit to file @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law signed by Obama .
Ginsburg kept a framed copy of the 2009 law on a wall in her chambers .
In the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores case , the court for the first time recognized a for-profit corporation 's claim of religious belief .
The store chain , owned by the Evangelical Green family , challenged an Affordable Care Act mandate that employers cover the cost of certain contraceptives for their female employees .
In a 5-4 ruling , the high court ruled that the mandate violated the Religious Freedom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ginsburg said : `` Until this litigation , no decision of this Court recognized a for-profit corporation 's qualification for a religious exemption from a generally applicable law , whether under the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA .
The absence of such precedent is just what one would expect , for the exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons , not artificial legal entities .
...
Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another , ' the very 'risk the Establishment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Court , I fear , has ventured into a minefield . ''
In another minefield , the outcome of the 2000 presidential election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore was thrust into the court 's domain following the chaotic results in Florida .
By one vote , 5-4 , the Supreme Court abruptly stopped a vote recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court .
In her dissent , Ginsburg criticized the majority 's willingness to interpret Florida law .
''The extraordinary setting of this case has obscured the ordinary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal courts defer to state high courts ' interpretations of their state 's own law .
This principle reflects the core of federalism , on which all agree , '' she wrote .
''Were the other members of this court as mindful as they generally are of our system of dual sovereignty , they would affirm the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court . ''
The other dissenters , Justices John Paul Stevens , David Souter and Stephen Breyer , said they had done so `` respectfully , '' but Ginsburg singed off @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . ''
Despite her credentials as a fighter for women 's rights , Ginsburg was critical of the high court 's 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade ruling , which said the right to privacy extended to a woman 's decision to have an abortion .
In a lecture she gave nearly two decades later and published in the New York University Law Review , Ginsburg contended that the court should have limited its ruling to Texas ' criminal abortion statute , which outlawed abortions except to save the life of the pregnant woman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the court went too far too fast .
`` Suppose the Court had stopped there , rightly declaring unconstitutional the most extreme brand of law in the nation , and had not gone on , as the Court did in Roe , to fashion a regime blanketing the subject , a set of rules that displaced virtually every state law then in force .
Would there have been the twenty-year controversy we have witnessed ? ''
she said .
`` [ Judges ] do not alone shape legal doctrine but ... they participate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government , and with the people as well .
...
Measured 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 . ''
' I wish her well' After Ginsburg 's fall in her office in November 2018 , Trump wished her a speedy recovery from the broken ribs .
`` I wish her well , '' Trump told reporters at the White House .
`` I hope she serves on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . ''
But during the 2016 presidential campaign , he called on her to resign after she broke from the tradition of Supreme Court justices avoiding commenting on elections .
When asked by The Associated Press during a July 2016 interview about the implications of a Trump victory for the Supreme Court , she said : `` I do n't want to think about that possibility , but if it should be , then everything is up for grabs . ''
In a subsequent interview with The New York Times , she went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ n't imagine what this place would be — I ca n't imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president .
... For the country , it could be four years .
For the court , it could be — I do n't even want to contemplate that . ''
She went even further with CNN , saying Trump was `` a faker . ''
Then-candidate Trump called on her to resign .
Trump tweet : Justice Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court has embarrassed all by making very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mind is shot - resign !
The flap calmed down after Ginsburg apologized , saying in a statement : `` On reflection , my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them .
...
Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office .
In the future I will be more circumspect . ''
But it was n't all lowbrow culture .
She was a classical music maven — she played the cello `` not well , '' she said , in high school and piano @ @ @ @ @ @ @ son founded the classical recording label Cedille Chicago .
Her first outing following her lung surgery was to attend a concert in her honor , performed by musicians including her daughter-in-law , soprano/composer Patrice Michaels , at Washington 's National Museum of Women in the Arts .
Before the concert , James Ginsburg said his mother was walking a mile a day and meeting with her personal trainer twice a week .
Her love of opera earned her a cameo appearance in a nonsinging role on the stage of the Washington National Opera @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and those of conservative rival and fellow opera aficionado Antonin Scalia , inspired Derrick Wang to write the comic opera `` Scalia/Ginsburg , '' which premiered in 2015 .

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the pioneering Supreme Court justice who became the second female on the nation's highest court, the leader of its liberal wing and a pop culture icon known as Notorious R.B.G., died Friday night. She was 87. Ginsburg died surrounded by her family at her home in Washington, D.C., due to complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer, the court said. The vacancy enables President Donald Trump to nominate his third justice to swing the bench further to the right, setting up what's certain to be a colossal battle perhaps even bigger than those of his nominations of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. In a statement issued just over an hour after the Supreme Court announced Ginsburg's death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Trump's eventual nominee "will receive a vote on the floor." According to NPR, days before her death, Ginsburg told her granddaughter: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed." "Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature," Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said in a statement. "We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her — a tireless and resolute champion of justice." The White House flag has been lowered to half-staff in her memory. Trump, who was in Minnesota for a campaign rally, was stunned when a reporter informed him of the news. "She has died?" Trump responded. "Wow. I didn't know that. You're telling me now for the first time. She led an amazing life. What else can you say? She was an amazing woman, whether you agreed or not, she was an amazing woman who led an amazing life. I'm actually saddened to hear that. I am saddened to hear that. Thank you very much." Ginsburg had a history of medical problems. In December 2018, doctors removed two cancerous nodules from her left lung, and she underwent additional treatment in August 2019 for a tumor on her pancreas. She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1999 and underwent surgery in 2009 for pancreatic cancer. By early January 2020, Ginsburg told CNN she was "cancer free," but in July she announced that she was being treated for liver cancer. The nodules in her lung were discovered in November 2018, when she was hospitalized for broken ribs following a fall in her office. Ginsburg's convalescence 2½ weeks after the lung surgery ended her 25-year streak of never missing hearing a Supreme Court case for any reason outside of recusal, but she continued to work from home in her Watergate apartment. In her second day back on the bench, she read the opinion she had written in a unanimous ruling against excessive punishment.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, celebrating her 20th anniversary on the bench, is photographed in the West conference room at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Friday, August 30, 2013. Nikki Kahn | The Washington Post | Getty Images
"I think my work is what saved me because instead of dwelling on my physical discomforts if I have an opinion to write or a brief to read, I know I've just got to get it done so I have to get over it," she told NPR's Nina Totenberg in a September 2019 interview at an event hosted by the Clinton Foundation and the University of Arkansas' Clinton School of Public Service. In another interview with Totenberg two months later, she defended herself from criticism that she should have retired while President Barack Obama was in office. "When that suggestion is made, I ask the question: Who do you think the president could nominate that could get through the Republican Senate? Who you would prefer on the court than me?" The subject of two major movies in 2018 and an animated cameo appearance in a 2019 Lego movie, Ginsburg battled for the equality of the sexes. The first movie, "RBG," was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary. Her dedication to the law was perhaps best illustrated by the fact that she always kept a "pocket Constitution" in her handbag. Months after giving birth, Ginsburg became one of only nine women in a class of 500 at Harvard Law School in 1956. After transferring to Columbia Law School and tied for No. 1 in her graduating class in 1959, she had trouble finding a law firm to hire her. In 1960, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter rejected her for a clerkship on the basis of her gender, despite the recommendation of Harvard Law's dean. "A Jew, a woman and a mother, that was a bit much. Three strikes put me out of the game," she once recalled. Ginsburg became a professor at Rutgers Law in 1963 and later Columbia Law's first woman tenured faculty member. She helped launch the American Civil Liberties Union's Women's Rights Project in 1972. "Women's rights are an essential part of the overall human rights agenda, trained on the equal dignity and ability to live in freedom all people should enjoy," she said.
Confirmation vote: 96-3
Ginsburg was appointed to the high court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton to fill the seat vacated by Justice Byron White. The Senate confirmed her nomination by a near-unanimous 96-3. The Brooklyn-born daughter of a Jewish immigrant from Russia was the second woman to rise to the bench of the nation's highest court, following Sandra Day O'Connor, who broke the barrier in 1981 after being appointed by President Ronald Reagan. Reagan was the last president to fill three Supreme Court seats.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as associate justice of the Supreme Court as President Bill Clinton watches. Ginsburg's husband, Martin, holds the Bible as Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist administers the oath of office, Dec. 10, 1993. Mark Reinstein | Corbis News | Getty Images
"Throughout her life," Clinton said in introducing Ginsburg as his nominee, "she has repeatedly stood for the individual, the person less well off, the outsider in society, and has given those people greater hope by telling them that they have a place in our legal system, by giving them a sense that the Constitution and the laws protect all the American people, not simply the powerful." Ginsburg took over the leadership of the court's liberal wing in 2010 upon the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, who died in 2019. Thirteen years before joining the high court, Ginsburg was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, nominated to the position by President Jimmy Carter. And before becoming a judge, she argued six sex-discrimination cases before the Supreme Court, winning five. In an even earlier sex discrimination case, she and her late husband, Martin, a tax lawyer, successfully argued Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1972. The couple represented Charles Moritz, who in 1968 was denied a deduction for expenses he incurred in caring for his invalid mother. Under the law, a woman was entitled to such a deduction but not most men. The case, the only one the couple had argued together, was depicted in the 2018 biopic "On the Basis of Sex," starring Felicity Jones as Ginsburg and Armie Hammer as her husband. The screenplay was written by Ginsburg's nephew Daniel Stiepleman, who was inspired to write the story after hearing a eulogy at his Uncle Martin's funeral in 2010. "Ruth Ginsburg was as responsible as any one person for legal advances that women made under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution," Marcia Greenberger, founder of the National Women's Law Center, told The New York Times in 1993. "As a result, doors of opportunity have been opened that have benefited not only the women themselves but their families."
An immigrant's daughter
"I learned very early on in our marriage that Ruth was a fairly terrible cook and, for lack of interest, unlikely to improve," Martin Ginsburg said in a speech years later. "Out of self-preservation, I decided I had better learn to cook because Ruth, to quote her precisely, was expelled from the kitchen by her food-loving children nearly a quarter-century ago."
High school yearbook photo of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. AP
RBG enrolled in Harvard Law School in 1956, where her husband was studying, and became the first woman member of the Harvard Law Review. She also helped her husband with his studies while he was being treated for testicular cancer. After receiving his degree, he joined the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York and Ruth transferred to Columbia Law School. After Justice Frankfurter's rejection in 1960, she did get a clerkship that year from federal Judge Edmund Palmieri of the Southern District of New York. Later, she became associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure, and went to Sweden, where she co-authored a book about legal procedure there. "Reading and observing another system made me understand my own system so much better," she told CNN in January 2020 about her research in Sweden. Asked in a 2019 interview with NPR to name her greatest accomplishment, she said it was her work as a lawyer in the '60s and '70s leading the legal fight for gender equality.
In the Supreme Court
In the Washington building that bears the motto "Equal Justice Under Law," Ginsburg won the first case she argued before the nation's highest court, the landmark 1973 Frontiero v. Richardson, a gender discrimination case. Air Force Lt. Sharron Frontiero, and her husband, Joseph, challenged a law that allowed female military spouses to receive full benefits as dependents but not to men married to women in uniform. By 8-1, the justices ruled that the statute was discriminatory. Three years later, she prevailed in Craig v. Boren, in which the court rejected Oklahoma's statute that women could buy beer at age 18 but men had to be at least 21. Her notable rulings as a Supreme Court justice included the 1996 landmark United States v. Virginia, in which she wrote the majority opinion striking down Virginia Military Institute's traditional male-only admission policy. The 7-1 ruling said VMI violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. "Women seeking and fit for a VMI quality education cannot be offered anything less, under the State's obligation to afford them genuinely equal protection," Ginsburg wrote. In the 1999 Olmstead v. L.C. decision, Ginsburg said that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, mentally disabled people have the right to live in the community rather than in institutions "when the State's treatment professionals have determined that community placement is appropriate, the transfer from institutional care to a less restrictive setting is not opposed by the affected individual, and the placement can be reasonably accommodated, taking into account the resources available to the State and the needs of others with mental disabilities." During her convalescence from lung surgery, she wrote the 2019 ruling in Timbs v. Indiana that the Eighth Amendment's ban on excessive fines applies to states and local governments, not just federal government. At issue was the confiscation of a $42,000 Land Rover from an Indiana man who pleaded guilty to selling $225 of heroin to undercover police officers. "For good reason, the protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history: Exorbitant tolls undermine other constitutional liberties," Ginsburg wrote in the 9-0 ruling. "Excessive fines can be used, for example, to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies."
Some of her most memorable opinions were dissents. Among them: Gonzales v. Carhart, in which the court in 2007 upheld Congress' Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. Opponents of the ban contended that the procedure, also known as "intact dilation and extraction," was the safest way to avoid damaging a woman's uterus when ending a late-term pregnancy. It was the first time the court had banned a specific abortion method and the first time it did not include an exception for the woman's health, according to The Washington Post. Writing for the majority in the 5-4 decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy said Congress may regulate an area where doctors have not reached a consensus about the necessity of the procedure in protecting the woman's health. "Respondents have not demonstrated that the Act, as a facial matter, is void for vagueness, or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception," he wrote. In her dissent, Ginsburg wrote that the majority ruling "tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists." "In candor, the Act, and the Court's defense of it, cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court — and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives." She added: "The court deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice, even at the expense of their safety. This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women's place in the family and under the Constitution — ideas that have long since been discredited." She also was among the four-justice minority in the 2007 Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., and she took the rare step of reading her dissent from the bench. The majority ruled against Lilly Ledbetter in her claim of unequal pay because of her sex. As an area manager, Ledbetter was paid $3,727 per month compared with $4,286 for the lowest paid male counterpart. The majority on the court did not rule on the merits of Ledbetter's claim made under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The five justices rejected it on grounds that it was filed too long from the time the original decision was made about her pay. Citing the often secret nature of salary levels, Ginsburg said: "In our view, the court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination." "The ball is in Congress' court ... to correct this Court's parsimonious reading of Title VII," she wrote. Two years later, Congress took such action, passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which said each discriminatory paycheck resets the 180-day limit to file a claim. It was the first law signed by Obama. Ginsburg kept a framed copy of the 2009 law on a wall in her chambers.
President Barack Obama (C) greets (L-R) Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer before the State of the Union address on Capitol Hill on Jan. 25, 2011. Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty Images
In the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores case, the court for the first time recognized a for-profit corporation's claim of religious belief. The store chain, owned by the Evangelical Green family, challenged an Affordable Care Act mandate that employers cover the cost of certain contraceptives for their female employees. In a 5-4 ruling, the high court ruled that the mandate violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In her dissent, Ginsburg said: "Until this litigation, no decision of this Court recognized a for-profit corporation's qualification for a religious exemption from a generally applicable law, whether under the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA. The absence of such precedent is just what one would expect, for the exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons, not artificial legal entities. ... Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.' The Court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield." In another minefield, the outcome of the 2000 presidential election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore was thrust into the court's domain following the chaotic results in Florida. By one vote, 5-4, the Supreme Court abruptly stopped a vote recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. In her dissent, Ginsburg criticized the majority's willingness to interpret Florida law. ''The extraordinary setting of this case has obscured the ordinary principle that dictates its proper resolution: federal courts defer to state high courts' interpretations of their state's own law. This principle reflects the core of federalism, on which all agree," she wrote. ''Were the other members of this court as mindful as they generally are of our system of dual sovereignty, they would affirm the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court.'' The other dissenters, Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Stephen Breyer, said they had done so ''respectfully,'' but Ginsburg singed off by saying only: ''I dissent.''
Ginsburg on Roe v. Wade
Despite her credentials as a fighter for women's rights, Ginsburg was critical of the high court's 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which said the right to privacy extended to a woman's decision to have an abortion. In a lecture she gave nearly two decades later and published in the New York University Law Review, Ginsburg contended that the court should have limited its ruling to Texas' criminal abortion statute, which outlawed abortions except to save the life of the pregnant woman. In short, she said, the court went too far too fast. "Suppose the Court had stopped there, rightly declaring unconstitutional the most extreme brand of law in the nation, and had not gone on, as the Court did in Roe, to fashion a regime blanketing the subject, a set of rules that displaced virtually every state law then in force. Would there have been the twenty-year controversy we have witnessed?" she said. "[Judges] do not alone shape legal doctrine but ... they participate in a dialogue with other organs of government, and with the people as well. ... Measured 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."
'I wish her well'
After Ginsburg's fall in her office in November 2018, Trump wished her a speedy recovery from the broken ribs. "I wish her well," Trump told reporters at the White House. "I hope she serves on the Supreme Court for many, many years." But during the 2016 presidential campaign, he called on her to resign after she broke from the tradition of Supreme Court justices avoiding commenting on elections. When asked by The Associated Press during a July 2016 interview about the implications of a Trump victory for the Supreme Court, she said: "I don't want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs." In a subsequent interview with The New York Times, she went further, saying: "I can't imagine what this place would be — I can't imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president. ... For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don't even want to contemplate that." She went even further with CNN, saying Trump was "a faker." Then-candidate Trump called on her to resign. The flap calmed down after Ginsburg apologized, saying in a statement: "On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them. ... Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect."
Notorious R.B.G.
In pop culture, Ginsburg became an icon. Fellow liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor nicknamed her "The Steel Magnolia" because she was "delicate on the outside, but she has an iron rod behind it." Ginsburg's opinions, including her searing dissent in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, inspired NYU law school student Shana Knizhnik in 2013 to create a Tumblr blog she called "Notorious R.B.G.," a takeoff of the nickname of the late rapper The Notorious B.I.G. The blog, later compiled into a book, is filled with Ginsburg memes, aided by her reputation as a workout queen. Caricatures of her image have gone viral, showing up on record albums, T-shirts, book covers, tattoos and even the 2019 "The Lego Movie 2."
But it wasn't all lowbrow culture. She was a classical music maven — she played the cello "not well," she said, in high school and piano from ages 8 to 16. Her son founded the classical recording label Cedille Chicago. Her first outing following her lung surgery was to attend a concert in her honor, performed by musicians including her daughter-in-law, soprano/composer Patrice Michaels, at Washington's National Museum of Women in the Arts. Before the concert, James Ginsburg said his mother was walking a mile a day and meeting with her personal trainer twice a week. Her love of opera earned her a cameo appearance in a nonsinging role on the stage of the Washington National Opera in 2016. Her legal opinions, and those of conservative rival and fellow opera aficionado Antonin Scalia, inspired Derrick Wang to write the comic opera "Scalia/Ginsburg," which premiered in 2015.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg appears as the Duchess of Krakenthorp in a nonsinging role in a Washington National Opera production of Donizetti's "The Daughter of the Regiment" in 2016. Scott Suchman | The Washington National Opera


cnbc--2020-09-19--Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dying wish was not to be 'replaced' until there's a new president

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivers remarks at the Georgetown Law Center on September 12 , 2019 , in Washington , DC .
( Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images ) Just days before her death Friday evening , Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that her `` most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed , '' according to an NPR report .
Ginsburg , 87 , died of complications from pancreatic cancer , the Court said in a statement .
Her death comes less than seven weeks before the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic nominee Joe Biden .
NPR , which first broke the news of Ginsburg 's passing , reported that the liberal associate justice dictated her wish to her granddaughter Clara Spera .
The new vacancy on the court gives Trump a chance to add another conservative justice to the nine-member bench of the highest court in the United States .
Trump has touted his previous nominees , Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh , as being among the major accomplishments of his first term in office .
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would seek to confirm another justice to the bench if the opportunity arose , even in an election year .
That statement of intent immediately drew accusations of hypocrisy .
In 2016 , after the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia , McConnell had blocked then-President Barack Obama from filling that vacancy .
`` The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice .
Therefore , this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president , '' McConnell said in 2016 .
After @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Minority Leader Chuck SChumer , D-N.Y. , tweeted those exact words .

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen as she presents the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Inaugural Woman of Leadership Award to Agnes Gund at The Library of Congress on February 14, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Just days before her death Friday evening, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that her "most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed," according to an NPR report.
Ginsburg, 87, died of complications from pancreatic cancer, the Court said in a statement. Her death comes less than seven weeks before the 2020 election between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
NPR, which first broke the news of Ginsburg's passing, reported that the liberal associate justice dictated her wish to her granddaughter Clara Spera.
The new vacancy on the court gives Trump a chance to add another conservative justice to the nine-member bench of the highest court in the United States. Trump has touted his previous nominees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, as being among the major accomplishments of his first term in office.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement Friday night that Trump's next nominee "will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate."
McConnell said last year that he would seek to confirm another justice to the bench if the opportunity arose, even in an election year.
That statement of intent immediately drew accusations of hypocrisy. In 2016, after the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, McConnell had blocked then-President Barack Obama from filling that vacancy.
"The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president," McConnell said in 2016.
After Ginsburg's death was announced, Senate Minority Leader Chuck SChumer, D-N.Y., tweeted those exact words.
But in his statement Friday, McConnell laid out why he would not wait until after the election to attempt to fill Ginsburg's seat.
"In the last midterm election before Justice Scalia's death in 2016, Americans elected a Republican Senate majority because we pledged to check and balance the last days of a lame-duck president's second term. We kept our promise. Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president's Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year," McConnell said.
"By contrast, Americans reelected our majority in 2016 and expanded it in 2018 because we pledged to work with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary. Once again, we will keep our promise," he said.


cnbc--2020-09-19--'Thank you, RBG': Leaders react with sadness, shock to Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death

U.S. leaders and top politicians responded with shock and sadness Friday evening after the Supreme Court announced that Associate Justice @ @ @ @ @ at the age of 87 .
Here is a collection of the sentiments shared by @ @ @ @ @ former and current officials .
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered Capitol Hill 's flags be @ @ @ @ @ White House did the same , according to spokespersons .

"Sixty years ago, Ruth Bader Ginsburg applied to be a Supreme Court clerk. She'd studied at two of our finest law schools and had ringing recommendations. But because she was a woman, she was rejected. Ten years later, she sent her first brief to the Supreme Court — which led it to strike down a state law based on gender discrimination for the first time. And then, for nearly three decades, as the second woman ever to sit on the highest court in the land, she was a warrior for gender equality — someone who believed that equal justice under law only had meaning if it applied to every single American.
Over a long career on both sides of the bench — as a relentless litigator and an incisive jurist — Justice Ginsburg helped us see that discrimination on the basis of sex isn't about an abstract ideal of equality; that it doesn't only harm women; that it has real consequences for all of us. It's about who we are — and who we can be.
Justice Ginsburg inspired the generations who followed her, from the tiniest trick-or-treaters to law students burning the midnight oil to the most powerful leaders in the land. Michelle and I admired her greatly, we're profoundly thankful for the legacy she left this country, and we offer our gratitude and our condolences to her children and grandchildren tonight.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought to the end, through her cancer, with unwavering faith in our democracy and its ideals. That's how we remember her. But she also left instructions for how she wanted her legacy to be honored.
Four and a half years ago, when Republicans refused to hold a hearing or an up-or-down vote on Merrick Garland, they invented the principle that the Senate shouldn't fill an open seat on the Supreme Court before a new president was sworn in.
A basic principle of the law — and of everyday fairness — is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what's convenient or advantageous in the moment. The rule of law, the legitimacy of our courts, the fundamental workings of our democracy all depend on that basic principle. As votes are already being cast in this election, Republican Senators are now called to apply that standard. The questions before the Court now and in the coming years — with decisions that will determine whether or not our economy is fair, our society is just, women are treated equally, our planet survives, and our democracy endures — are too consequential to future generations for courts to be filled through anything less than an unimpeachable process."


cnbc--2020-09-19--Ruth Bader Ginsburg's biggest cases: Equal pay, Bush v. Gore and insider trading

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 's dedication to the law was perhaps best illustrated by the fact that she always kept a `` pocket Constitution '' in her handbag .
Ginsburg died Friday , at the age of 87 .
• The 1996 landmark United States v. Virginia , in which she wrote the majority opinion striking down Virginia Military Institute 's traditional male-only admission policy .
The 7-1 ruling said VMI violated the Fourteenth Amendment 's Equal Protection Clause .
`` Women seeking and fit for a VMI quality education can not be offered anything less , under the State 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , '' Ginsburg wrote .
• The 1997 ruling in United States v. O'Hagan , in which she wrote that `` a person who trades in securities for personal profit , using confidential information misappropriated in breach of a fiduciary duty to the source of the information '' can be found guilty of violating Securities and Exchange Commission rules .
• The 1999 Olmstead v. L.C .
decision , in which she said states under the Americans for Disabilities Act `` are required to place persons with mental disabilities in community settings rather @ @ @ @ @ @ @ treatment professionals have determined that community placement is appropriate , the transfer from institutional care to a less restrictive setting is not opposed by the affected individual , and the placement can be reasonably accommodated , taking into account the resources available to the State and the needs of others with mental disabilities . ''
• In the 2000 Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Environmental Services ruling , Ginsburg 's majority opinion said residents in the area of the North Tyger River in South Carolina had standing to sue Laidlaw based on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from using the waterway for recreation .
• During her convalescence from lung surgery , she wrote the 2019 ruling in Timbs v. Indiana that the Eighth Amendment 's ban on excessive fines applies to states and local governments , not just federal government .
At issue was the confiscation of a $ 42,000 Land Rover from an Indiana man who pleaded guilty to selling $ 225 of heroin to undercover police officers .
`` For good reason , the protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' Ginsburg wrote in the 9-0 ruling .
`` Excessive fines can be used , for example , to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies . ''
Some of her most memorable opinions were dissents .
Among them : Gonzales v. Carhart , in which the court in 2007 upheld Congress ' Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 .
Opponents of the ban contended that the procedure , also known as `` intact dilation and extraction , '' was the safest way to avoid damaging a woman 's uterus when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first time the court had banned a specific abortion method and the first time it did not include an exception for the woman 's health , according to The Washington Post .
Writing for the majority in the 5-4 decision , Justice Anthony Kennedy said Congress may regulate an area where doctors have not reached a consensus about the necessity of the procedure in protecting the woman 's health .
`` Respondents have not demonstrated that the Act , as a facial matter , is void for vagueness , or that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception , '' he wrote .
In her dissent , Ginsburg wrote that the majority ruling `` tolerates , indeed applauds , federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists . ''
`` In candor , the Act , and the Court 's defense of it , can not be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increasing comprehension of its centrality to women 's lives . ''
She added : `` The court deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice , even at the expense of their safety .
This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women 's place in the family and under the Constitution — ideas that have long since been discredited . ''
She also was among the four-justice minority in the 2007 Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. , and she took the rare step of reading her dissent from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lilly Ledbetter in her claim of unequal pay because of her sex .
As an area manager , Ledbetter was paid $ 3,727 per month compared with $ 4,286 for the lowest paid male counterpart .
The majority on the court did not rule on the merits of Ledbetter 's claim made under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act .
The five justices rejected it on grounds that it was filed too long from the time the original decision was made about her pay .
Citing the often secret nature of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In our view , the court does not comprehend , or is indifferent to , the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination . ''
`` The ball is in Congress ' court ... to correct this Court 's parsimonious reading of Title VII , '' she wrote .
Two years later , Congress took such action , passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act , which said each discriminatory paycheck resets the 180-day limit to file a claim .
It was the first law signed by President Barack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the 2009 law on a wall in her chambers .
In the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores case , the court for the first time recognized a for-profit corporation 's claim of religious belief .
The store chain , owned by the Evangelical Green family , challenged an Affordable Care Act mandate that employers cover the cost of certain contraceptives for their female employees .
In a 5-4 ruling , the high court ruled that the mandate violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act .
In her dissent , Ginsburg said : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this Court recognized a for-profit corporation 's qualification for a religious exemption from a generally applicable law , whether under the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA .
The absence of such precedent is just what one would expect , for the exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons , not artificial legal entities .
...
Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another , ' the very 'risk the Establishment Clause was designed to preclude . '
The Court , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minefield . ''
In another minefield , the outcome of the 2000 presidential election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore was thrust into the court 's domain following the chaotic results in Florida .
By one vote , 5-4 , the Supreme Court abruptly stopped a vote recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court .
In her dissent , Ginsburg criticized the majority 's willingness to interpret Florida law .
''The extraordinary setting of this case has obscured the ordinary principle that dictates its proper resolution : federal courts defer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their state 's own law .
This principle reflects the core of federalism , on which all agree , '' she wrote .
''Were the other members of this court as mindful as they generally are of our system of dual sovereignty , they would affirm the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court . ''
The other dissenters , Justices John Paul Stevens , David Souter and Stephen Breyer , said they had voted against the majority `` respectfully , '' but Ginsburg singed off by saying only : `` I dissent .
@

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dedication to the law was perhaps best illustrated by the fact that she always kept a "pocket Constitution" in her handbag.
Notable Supreme Court rulings by Ginsburg, who died Friday night at age 87, included:
The 1996 landmark United States v. Virginia, in which she wrote the majority opinion striking down Virginia Military Institute's traditional male-only admission policy. The 7-1 ruling said VMI violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. "Women seeking and fit for a VMI quality education cannot be offered anything less, under the State's obligation to afford them genuinely equal protection," Ginsburg wrote.
The 1997 ruling in United States v. O'Hagan, in which she wrote that "a person who trades in securities for personal profit, using confidential information misappropriated in breach of a fiduciary duty to the source of the information" can be found guilty of violating Securities and Exchange Commission rules.
The 1999 Olmstead v. L.C. decision, in which she said states under the Americans for Disabilities Act "are required to place persons with mental disabilities in community settings rather than in institutions when the State's treatment professionals have determined that community placement is appropriate, the transfer from institutional care to a less restrictive setting is not opposed by the affected individual, and the placement can be reasonably accommodated, taking into account the resources available to the State and the needs of others with mental disabilities."
In the 2000 Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Environmental Services ruling, Ginsburg's majority opinion said residents in the area of the North Tyger River in South Carolina had standing to sue Laidlaw based on the argument that its pollution prevented them from using the waterway for recreation.
During her convalescence from lung surgery, she wrote the 2019 ruling in Timbs v. Indiana that the Eighth Amendment's ban on excessive fines applies to states and local governments, not just federal government. At issue was the confiscation of a $42,000 Land Rover from an Indiana man who pleaded guilty to selling $225 of heroin to undercover police officers. "For good reason, the protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history: Exorbitant tolls undermine other constitutional liberties," Ginsburg wrote in the 9-0 ruling. "Excessive fines can be used, for example, to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies."
Some of her most memorable opinions were dissents. Among them:
Gonzales v. Carhart, in which the court in 2007 upheld Congress' Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. Opponents of the ban contended that the procedure, also known as "intact dilation and extraction," was the safest way to avoid damaging a woman's uterus when ending a late-term pregnancy. It was the first time the court had banned a specific abortion method and the first time it did not include an exception for the woman's health, according to The Washington Post.
Writing for the majority in the 5-4 decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy said Congress may regulate an area where doctors have not reached a consensus about the necessity of the procedure in protecting the woman's health. "Respondents have not demonstrated that the Act, as a facial matter, is void for vagueness, or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception," he wrote.
In her dissent, Ginsburg wrote that the majority ruling "tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists."
"In candor, the Act, and the Court's defense of it, cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court — and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives."
She added: "The court deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice, even at the expense of their safety. This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women's place in the family and under the Constitution — ideas that have long since been discredited."
She also was among the four-justice minority in the 2007 Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., and she took the rare step of reading her dissent from the bench. The majority ruled against Lilly Ledbetter in her claim of unequal pay because of her sex. As an area manager, Ledbetter was paid $3,727 per month compared with $4,286 for the lowest paid male counterpart.
The majority on the court did not rule on the merits of Ledbetter's claim made under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The five justices rejected it on grounds that it was filed too long from the time the original decision was made about her pay.
Citing the often secret nature of salary levels, Ginsburg said: "In our view, the court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination."
"The ball is in Congress' court ... to correct this Court's parsimonious reading of Title VII," she wrote.
Two years later, Congress took such action, passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which said each discriminatory paycheck resets the 180-day limit to file a claim. It was the first law signed by President Barack Obama. Ginsburg kept a framed copy of the 2009 law on a wall in her chambers.
In the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores case, the court for the first time recognized a for-profit corporation's claim of religious belief. The store chain, owned by the Evangelical Green family, challenged an Affordable Care Act mandate that employers cover the cost of certain contraceptives for their female employees. In a 5-4 ruling, the high court ruled that the mandate violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
In her dissent, Ginsburg said: "Until this litigation, no decision of this Court recognized a for-profit corporation's qualification for a religious exemption from a generally applicable law, whether under the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA. The absence of such precedent is just what one would expect, for the exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons, not artificial legal entities. ... Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.' The Court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield."
In another minefield, the outcome of the 2000 presidential election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore was thrust into the court's domain following the chaotic results in Florida. By one vote, 5-4, the Supreme Court abruptly stopped a vote recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court.
In her dissent, Ginsburg criticized the majority's willingness to interpret Florida law.
''The extraordinary setting of this case has obscured the ordinary principle that dictates its proper resolution: federal courts defer to state high courts' interpretations of their state's own law. This principle reflects the core of federalism, on which all agree," she wrote. ''Were the other members of this court as mindful as they generally are of our system of dual sovereignty, they would affirm the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court.''
The other dissenters, Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Stephen Breyer, said they had voted against the majority ''respectfully,'' but Ginsburg singed off by saying only: ''I dissent.''
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cnbc--2020-09-18--Scranton vs. Park Avenue: Biden leans into his working-class roots to draw a contrast with Trump

Democratic U.S. presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden takes part in an outdoor town hall meeting in Scranton , Pennsylvania , U.S. September 17 , 2020 .
WASHINGTON — Joe Biden embraced his blue-collar roots and his political centrism during a town hall hosted by CNN in his hometown of Scranton , Pennsylvania .
On question after question Thursday night , Biden replied with answers aimed directly at potential `` Trump-Biden voters , '' whose defection from the Democratic Party in 2016 helped deliver narrow victories to Donald Trump in key battleground states .
`` I view this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Avenue , '' said Biden , drawing a contrast between his industrial hometown and Trump 's lavish Manhattan lifestyle .
`` All that President Trump could see from Park Avenue is Wall Street .
All he thinks about is the stock market , '' said Biden .
`` How many of you all own stock in Scranton ?
Not a whole lot of people own stock . ''
As president , Trump has often used equity markets as a barometer for the nation 's overall economic health .
He argues that millions of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ k ) s or pensions , even if they do n't necessarily consider themselves investors in the stock market .
Following the town hall , the Trump campaign claimed in a statement that `` virtually every question for Joe Biden was an invitation for him to attack President Trump . ''
And it accused CNN of `` giving Biden a total pass on his lies and misrepresentations . ''
Over the course of more than an hour on Thursday , Biden repeatedly painted Trump as an elite Manhattan mogul , detached and uninterested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It 's a tactic Trump himself used to great effect in his 2016 campaign , to undermine Democrat Hillary Clinton .
Biden also noticeably moved away from a number of issues that animate the left wing of the Democratic Party , most notably the Black Lives Matter movement and the Green New Deal .
Biden defended and sympathized with law enforcement officers , saying `` the vast majority of police are decent , honorable people '' who do n't embrace brutality .
He also called for a `` much more transparent means by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ departments . ''
But Biden did not use the kind of impassioned language about systemic racism in policing that many on the left might have wanted to hear .
And when host Anderson Cooper asked him whether he had personally benefited from `` White privilege , '' Biden said he had but quickly pivoted away from race to talking about privilege as a class issue .
`` Growing up in Scranton , we were used to guys who looked down their noses at us .
Look at us and think we 're not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ n't have a college degree , you must be stupid .
If , in fact , you did n't go to an Ivy League school , '' Biden said in response to the question about privilege .
The former vice president said he was bothered by journalists noting that he could be the first president in decades without an Ivy League degree .
Trump has a degree from the University of Pennsylvania .
`` What the hell makes you think I need an Ivy League degree to be president ?
Guys like me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go to college … we are as good as anybody else , '' he said .
`` And guys like President Trump , who inherited everything and squandered what they inherited , are the people I 've always had a problem with .
Not the people who are busting their necks . ''
Biden also broke with the left flank of his party on the question of fracking , a key source of jobs in northern and western Pennsylvania .
`` There is no rationale right now to eliminate fracking , '' he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ climate change aims to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 , and it includes a full plan to retrain drillers and miners to work in clean energy fields .
Instead of denying global warming , said Biden , he would approach it as an opportunity to embrace new industries .
`` When Trump hears global warming , he thinks , 'Hoax ! '
When I hear global warming , I think , 'Jobs , ' '' he said .
If it were n't clear enough from his answer about fracking , when the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he supported the Green New Deal , Biden did not say yes .
Instead , he said `` I 've got my own deal . ''
Overall , Biden sought to downplay the divide between the parties that Trump foments with his constant attacks on `` the radical left . ''
`` I 'm running as a Democrat , but I 'm going to be everyone 's president , '' he said .
`` I 'm not going to be a Democratic president .
I 'm going to be America 's president .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's pitch to the Trump-Biden voters on Friday , when the former vice president travels to Duluth , Minnesota , to tour a union training center and give a speech .
Duluth is a former industrial city that has branched out into new industries , but remains a key shipping hub for the products mined in Minnesota 's Iron Range .
Trump will also be traveling to Minnesota on Friday , a reflection of the state 's outsized significance in a race that both candidates believe will be won or lost in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fewer than 2 points in 2016 , and his campaign has zeroed in on the state as a potential buttress against an electoral college defeat in the event that the president loses states he won four years ago .
Biden leads Trump in polls in Minnesota by a comfortable margin .
Any hopes the president has of winning the state would require a big surge in support for Trump from the same blue-collar voters Biden will be targeting Friday .

Democratic U.S. presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden takes part in an outdoor town hall meeting in Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S. September 17, 2020.
WASHINGTON — Joe Biden embraced his blue-collar roots and his political centrism during a town hall hosted by CNN in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
On question after question Thursday night, Biden replied with answers aimed directly at potential "Trump-Biden voters," whose defection from the Democratic Party in 2016 helped deliver narrow victories to Donald Trump in key battleground states.
"I view this as a campaign between Scranton and Park Avenue," said Biden, drawing a contrast between his industrial hometown and Trump's lavish Manhattan lifestyle.
"All that President Trump could see from Park Avenue is Wall Street. All he thinks about is the stock market," said Biden. "How many of you all own stock in Scranton? Not a whole lot of people own stock."
As president, Trump has often used equity markets as a barometer for the nation's overall economic health.
He argues that millions of Americans own stocks through their 401(k)s or pensions, even if they don't necessarily consider themselves investors in the stock market.
Following the town hall, the Trump campaign claimed in a statement that "virtually every question for Joe Biden was an invitation for him to attack President Trump." And it accused CNN of "giving Biden a total pass on his lies and misrepresentations."
Over the course of more than an hour on Thursday, Biden repeatedly painted Trump as an elite Manhattan mogul, detached and uninterested in the challenges facing everyday Pennsylvanians. It's a tactic Trump himself used to great effect in his 2016 campaign, to undermine Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Biden also noticeably moved away from a number of issues that animate the left wing of the Democratic Party, most notably the Black Lives Matter movement and the Green New Deal.
Biden defended and sympathized with law enforcement officers, saying "the vast majority of police are decent, honorable people" who don't embrace brutality. He also called for a "much more transparent means by which we provide for accountability within police departments."
But Biden did not use the kind of impassioned language about systemic racism in policing that many on the left might have wanted to hear. And when host Anderson Cooper asked him whether he had personally benefited from "White privilege," Biden said he had but quickly pivoted away from race to talking about privilege as a class issue.
"Growing up in Scranton, we were used to guys who looked down their noses at us. Look at us and think we're not equivalent to them. If you don't have a college degree, you must be stupid. If, in fact, you didn't go to an Ivy League school," Biden said in response to the question about privilege.
The former vice president said he was bothered by journalists noting that he could be the first president in decades without an Ivy League degree. Trump has a degree from the University of Pennsylvania. "What the hell makes you think I need an Ivy League degree to be president? Guys like me, the first in my family to go to college … we are as good as anybody else," he said.
"And guys like President Trump, who inherited everything and squandered what they inherited, are the people I've always had a problem with. Not the people who are busting their necks."
Biden also broke with the left flank of his party on the question of fracking, a key source of jobs in northern and western Pennsylvania.
"There is no rationale right now to eliminate fracking," he said, adding that his proposal on climate change aims to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and it includes a full plan to retrain drillers and miners to work in clean energy fields.
Instead of denying global warming, said Biden, he would approach it as an opportunity to embrace new industries.
"When Trump hears global warming, he thinks, 'Hoax!' When I hear global warming, I think, 'Jobs,'" he said.
If it weren't clear enough from his answer about fracking, when the next participant asked him point blank whether he supported the Green New Deal, Biden did not say yes. Instead, he said "I've got my own deal."
Overall, Biden sought to downplay the divide between the parties that Trump foments with his constant attacks on "the radical left."
"I'm running as a Democrat, but I'm going to be everyone's president," he said. "I'm not going to be a Democratic president. I'm going to be America's president."
Expect to hear more of Biden's pitch to the Trump-Biden voters on Friday, when the former vice president travels to Duluth, Minnesota, to tour a union training center and give a speech. Duluth is a former industrial city that has branched out into new industries, but remains a key shipping hub for the products mined in Minnesota's Iron Range.
Trump will also be traveling to Minnesota on Friday, a reflection of the state's outsized significance in a race that both candidates believe will be won or lost in the upper Midwest.
Clinton won Minnesota by fewer than 2 points in 2016, and his campaign has zeroed in on the state as a potential buttress against an electoral college defeat in the event that the president loses states he won four years ago.
Biden leads Trump in polls in Minnesota by a comfortable margin. Any hopes the president has of winning the state would require a big surge in support for Trump from the same blue-collar voters Biden will be targeting Friday.


cnbc--2020-09-18--TikTok deal still has a chance but WeChat 'dead' in the U.S., says senior administration official

Despite a Commerce Department announcement of a ban on transactions , a deal that would allow TikTok to remain operating in the U.S. could still happen , a senior Trump administration official told CNBC on Friday .
However , the official said WeChat , the social messaging app owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent , is `` dead in the United States . ''
Earlier Friday , the Commerce Department announced it was banning U.S. business transactions involving the TikTok and WeChat .
Beginning Sunday , American companies will no longer be able to distribute WeChat and TikTok , taking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ libraries .
WeChat will be able to continue operating for people who have it installed on their devices , according to department officials who spoke with reporters on the condition of anonymity .
But issues may arise because WeChat uses services run by U.S. firms to deliver data in the app .
More stringent restrictions on TikTok , which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance , in the U.S. are set to go into effect Nov. 12 , based on the Commerce moves Friday .
The actions are the latest developments in weeks of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ claims that the Chinese-owned apps present national security risks to American users .
It is still possible a deal involving Oracle and Walmart to take stakes in TikTok can happen .
Oracle said earlier in the week it had a deal in place with TikTok , but Trump said days later he was not ready to sign off on the proposal to make the California-based cloud company a technology partner with the social media app .
Trump indicated he wanted a larger portion of the entity to be owned by U.S. partners .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ through the weekend , as `` a lot of major pieces '' need to be resolved , including ownership structure and questions over TikTok 's software .
However , the official said there is a chance for a transaction to be finalized before the Commerce Department 's latest restrictions go into effect .
There is no appetite in the Trump administration for a separate deal involving WeChat , which is a vital app for people in the U.S. to communicate with friends and family in China .
In a statement Friday , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ incorporated the highest standards of user privacy and data security '' and called the Commerce Department 's restrictions `` unfortunate . ''
`` But given our desire to provide ongoing services to our users in the U.S. — for whom WeChat is an important communication tool — we will continue to discuss with the government and other stakeholders in the U.S. ways to achieve a long-term solution , '' the spokesperson said .

Despite a Commerce Department announcement of a ban on transactions, a deal that would allow TikTok to remain operating in the U.S. could still happen, a senior Trump administration official told CNBC on Friday.
However, the official said WeChat, the social messaging app owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent , is "dead in the United States."
Earlier Friday, the Commerce Department announced it was banning U.S. business transactions involving the TikTok and WeChat. Beginning Sunday, American companies will no longer be able to distribute WeChat and TikTok, taking away their availability in U.S. app store libraries.
WeChat will be able to continue operating for people who have it installed on their devices, according to department officials who spoke with reporters on the condition of anonymity. But issues may arise because WeChat uses services run by U.S. firms to deliver data in the app.
More stringent restrictions on TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, in the U.S. are set to go into effect Nov. 12, based on the Commerce moves Friday. The actions are the latest developments in weeks of uncertainty stemming from President Donald Trump's claims that the Chinese-owned apps present national security risks to American users.
It is still possible a deal involving Oracle and Walmart to take stakes in TikTok can happen. Oracle said earlier in the week it had a deal in place with TikTok, but Trump said days later he was not ready to sign off on the proposal to make the California-based cloud company a technology partner with the social media app. Trump indicated he wanted a larger portion of the entity to be owned by U.S. partners.
Negotiations for a TikTok deal may persist through the weekend, as "a lot of major pieces" need to be resolved, including ownership structure and questions over TikTok's software. However, the official said there is a chance for a transaction to be finalized before the Commerce Department's latest restrictions go into effect.
There is no appetite in the Trump administration for a separate deal involving WeChat, which is a vital app for people in the U.S. to communicate with friends and family in China.
In a statement Friday, a Tencent spokesperson said it "has always incorporated the highest standards of user privacy and data security" and called the Commerce Department's restrictions "unfortunate."
"But given our desire to provide ongoing services to our users in the U.S. — for whom WeChat is an important communication tool — we will continue to discuss with the government and other stakeholders in the U.S. ways to achieve a long-term solution," the spokesperson said.
—CNBC's Steve Kovach contributed to this article.


cnbc--2020-09-18--Metrics show consumers pulling back on spending in September as Congress debates second stimulus

That may have implications for top U.S. lawmakers , who despite recent encouragement from President Donald Trump remain unable to come to an agreement over additional stimulus .
Though not yet an established trend , the decline in consumer spending may represent a concerning early sign that the effects of federal support for the U.S. economy amid the coronavirus pandemic made be starting to fade .
And , since consumer spending represents about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity , economists worry that a more persistent decline could lead to a slump in GDP at the end of the third quarter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use Chase cards last week spent 6.5 % less than they did one year ago , marking a fall from the prior week 's print that showed a year-over-year decline of about 3.5 % .
JPMorgan , which tracks the amount its card users purchase from restaurants to grocery stores , said in a note published Friday that its tracker of consumer spending declined 3 percentage points from the prior week .
After spending more throughout the summer as economies reopened and stimulus checks hit their bank accounts , U.S. consumers have again @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from lawnmowers to movie rentals .
`` National accounts data reveal that most of the initial reduction in GDP following the COVID-19 shock came from a reduction in consumer spending ( rather than business investment , government purchases , or exports ) , '' Brown University economist John Friedman wrote in a paper published earlier this month .
Consumer spending first fell back in March , when Covid-19 and government efforts to contain its spread brought the U.S. economy to an abrupt standstill .
Year-over-year data shows that spending on Chase cards in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 40 % compared with the same time in 2019 .
Tracking that steep decline in consumer spending , U.S. GDP fell at an annual rate of 31.7 % in the second quarter of 2020 .
Of that 31.7 % drop , personal consumption expenditures — spending by average American households — accounted for 24.76 percentage points annualized .
But the initial fall in spending quickly reversed course as the summer began , with $ 1,200 stimulus checks from the federal government helping everyday Americans resume some of their normal habits and purchases .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a modest improvement to a resumption of normal consumer shopping .
That echoes the results of comprehensive calculations Friedman , Harvard 's Raj Chetty and their team have conducted in the aftermath of the disease 's outbreak .
Friedman and Chetty have constructed a novel database that complies millions of anonymous transactions reported by credit card processors , payroll firms and banks since January .
Their public database , housed on tracktherecovery.org , provides granular statistics on consumer spending , business revenues , employment rates , job postings , and other key indicators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ county ) , industry , income level and business size .
Using their data based on New York City commerce yields results strikingly similar to JPMorgan 's .
Their website shows national consumer spending is down 7.3 % as of the end of August compared with January and also shows a deceleration around the start of September .
In New York City , as of the end of August , total spending by all consumers decreased by 12.6 % compared with January 2020 .
Consumer spending at restaurants and hotels in New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ % while spending at grocery stores is up 14 % .
`` Because the root cause of the shock is self-isolation driven by health concerns , there is limited capacity to restore economic activity without addressing the virus itself , '' Friedman added .
`` In particular , we find that state-ordered reopenings of economies have only modest impacts on economic activity ; stimulus checks increase spending particularly among low-income households . ''
But since consumers still fear contracting Covid-19 , Americans will still ultimately spend less after the one-time boost of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will likely continue , Friedman wrote , until Americans are comfortable returning to crowded restaurants , salons or subways at the levels they were before the pandemic .

That may have implications for top U.S. lawmakers, who despite recent encouragement from President Donald Trump remain unable to come to an agreement over additional stimulus.
Though not yet an established trend, the decline in consumer spending may represent a concerning early sign that the effects of federal support for the U.S. economy amid the coronavirus pandemic made be starting to fade. And, since consumer spending represents about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, economists worry that a more persistent decline could lead to a slump in GDP at the end of the third quarter and into the fourth.
Americans who use Chase cards last week spent 6.5% less than they did one year ago, marking a fall from the prior week's print that showed a year-over-year decline of about 3.5%.
JPMorgan, which tracks the amount its card users purchase from restaurants to grocery stores, said in a note published Friday that its tracker of consumer spending declined 3 percentage points from the prior week.
After spending more throughout the summer as economies reopened and stimulus checks hit their bank accounts, U.S. consumers have again started rein in their budgets on everything from lawnmowers to movie rentals.
Source: Opportunity Insights, tracktherecovery.org
"National accounts data reveal that most of the initial reduction in GDP following the COVID-19 shock came from a reduction in consumer spending (rather than business investment, government purchases, or exports)," Brown University economist John Friedman wrote in a paper published earlier this month.
Consumer spending first fell back in March, when Covid-19 and government efforts to contain its spread brought the U.S. economy to an abrupt standstill. Year-over-year data shows that spending on Chase cards in late March 2020 was down more than 40% compared with the same time in 2019.
Tracking that steep decline in consumer spending, U.S. GDP fell at an annual rate of 31.7% in the second quarter of 2020. Of that 31.7% drop, personal consumption expenditures — spending by average American households — accounted for 24.76 percentage points annualized.
But the initial fall in spending quickly reversed course as the summer began, with $1,200 stimulus checks from the federal government helping everyday Americans resume some of their normal habits and purchases. Gradual reopening of state economies also contributed a modest improvement to a resumption of normal consumer shopping.
That echoes the results of comprehensive calculations Friedman, Harvard's Raj Chetty and their team have conducted in the aftermath of the disease's outbreak. Friedman and Chetty have constructed a novel database that complies millions of anonymous transactions reported by credit card processors, payroll firms and banks since January.
Their public database, housed on tracktherecovery.org, provides granular statistics on consumer spending, business revenues, employment rates, job postings, and other key indicators specific to geography (ZIP code or county), industry, income level and business size.
Using their data based on New York City commerce yields results strikingly similar to JPMorgan's. Their website shows national consumer spending is down 7.3% as of the end of August compared with January and also shows a deceleration around the start of September.
In New York City, as of the end of August, total spending by all consumers decreased by 12.6% compared with January 2020. Consumer spending at restaurants and hotels in New York over the same period decreased by 36% while spending at grocery stores is up 14%.
"Because the root cause of the shock is self-isolation driven by health concerns, there is limited capacity to restore economic activity without addressing the virus itself," Friedman added. "In particular, we find that state-ordered reopenings of economies have only modest impacts on economic activity; stimulus checks increase spending particularly among low-income households."
But since consumers still fear contracting Covid-19, Americans will still ultimately spend less after the one-time boost of a stimulus check wears off. This trend will likely continue, Friedman wrote, until Americans are comfortable returning to crowded restaurants, salons or subways at the levels they were before the pandemic.


cnbc--2020-09-19--Trump nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Supreme Court will get Senate vote, McConnell says

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Friday that he will hold a vote on President Donald Trump 's nominee to fill the vacancy left by the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court .
In a statement issued just over an hour after the Supreme Court said that Ginsburg had passed , McConnell said the nominee , who has not been named , `` will receive a vote on the floor . ''
McConnell 's pledge puts in motion what is likely to be a historic battle over the court in the heat of an already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had a 5-4 majority of Republican appointed justices .
A 6-3 majority could have a dramatic impact on the shape of the law on business and social issues for a generation to come .
Trump , battling against former Vice President Joe Biden ahead of November 's presidential election , is expected to move quickly to name a conservative replacement .
The president did n't comment much Friday night beyond telling reporters that Ginsburg `` led an amazing life .
She was an amazing woman . ''
Biden , for his part , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ days should be on Ginsburg 's legacy , but added that `` the voters should pick a president . ''
`` This was the position of Republican Senate took in 2016 .
When they were almost 10 months to go before the election .
That 's the position the United States Senate must take today , and election is only 46 days off , '' Biden said .
Read more : ‘ Thank you , RBG ’ : Leaders react with sadness , shock to Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’ s death McConnell 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last election cycle , in which he refused to hold hearings for former President Barack Obama 's nominee , but is consistent with statements he has made since Trump was elected .
It came despite reports that Ginsburg told her family before she died that it was her `` fervent wish '' that she not be replaced until a new election is held .
The timing of Ginsburg 's death ensured that mourning in Washington would be combined with political calculations .
The justice , who sat on the bench for 27 years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the top court , passed after suffering from pancreatic cancer just 46 days before Election Day .
Even before Ginsburg 's passing , Trump was seeking to win over conservatives with the promise of new justices who would be sympathetic on issues like gun rights and abortion .
Earlier in September , Trump added 20 new names to his Supreme Court shortlist , including three GOP senators .
If Trump nominates a replacement for Ginsburg by Tuesday , and that nominee is confirmed before Election Day , it will mark the quickest period @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was appointed by former President Bill Clinton in 1993 .
On average , it takes about 70 days from the date of nomination to the confirmation vote , according to the Congressional Research Service .

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Friday that he will hold a vote on President Donald Trump's nominee to fill the vacancy left by the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.
In a statement issued just over an hour after the Supreme Court said that Ginsburg had passed, McConnell said the nominee, who has not been named, "will receive a vote on the floor."
McConnell's pledge puts in motion what is likely to be a historic battle over the court in the heat of an already intense election year. The Supreme Court had a 5-4 majority of Republican appointed justices. A 6-3 majority could have a dramatic impact on the shape of the law on business and social issues for a generation to come.
Trump, battling against former Vice President Joe Biden ahead of November's presidential election, is expected to move quickly to name a conservative replacement. The president didn't comment much Friday night beyond telling reporters that Ginsburg "led an amazing life. She was an amazing woman."
Biden, for his part, said that the focus in the coming days should be on Ginsburg's legacy, but added that "the voters should pick a president."
"This was the position of Republican Senate took in 2016. When they were almost 10 months to go before the election. That's the position the United States Senate must take today, and election is only 46 days off," Biden said.
Read more: ‘Thank you, RBG’: Leaders react with sadness, shock to Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death
McConnell's statement marks a contrast to his position last election cycle, in which he refused to hold hearings for former President Barack Obama's nominee, but is consistent with statements he has made since Trump was elected.
It came despite reports that Ginsburg told her family before she died that it was her "fervent wish" that she not be replaced until a new election is held.
The timing of Ginsburg's death ensured that mourning in Washington would be combined with political calculations. The justice, who sat on the bench for 27 years and was the second woman confirmed to the top court, passed after suffering from pancreatic cancer just 46 days before Election Day.
Even before Ginsburg's passing, Trump was seeking to win over conservatives with the promise of new justices who would be sympathetic on issues like gun rights and abortion. Earlier in September, Trump added 20 new names to his Supreme Court shortlist, including three GOP senators.
If Trump nominates a replacement for Ginsburg by Tuesday, and that nominee is confirmed before Election Day, it will mark the quickest period between nomination and confirmation since Ginsburg herself was appointed by former President Bill Clinton in 1993. On average, it takes about 70 days from the date of nomination to the confirmation vote, according to the Congressional Research Service.