On Friday September 18th, the nation mourned the loss of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg who championed women’s rights as the liberal wing of the Court. In the time since her passing, the Republican-led Senate is moving swiftly to confirm a Supreme Court Justice, this being the second during Donald Trump’s first term in office. Though not unprecedented, the vacancy left by Ginsberg raises a similar issue from the 2016 Presidential Election year, wherein President Obama was barred from selecting a new associate justice at the time of Scalia’s death. Spearheaded by Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell, this dissent created an eight month postponement of selecting a Justice because of a little known Biden Rule.
This “rule” taken from a 1992 speech on the Senate floor argued “the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over.” McConnell utilized this language to delay the appointment of Merrick Garland and when Trump was elected he appointed Brett Kavanaugh.
Now in 2020, the Senate-majority leader is claiming that this scenario is different because the Senate and the Presidency are held by the same party, which wasn’t the case when there was a vacancy in the last year of Obama’s presidency. This justification relies on the already polarized political climate as well as the Senate’s new rules of a simple 51-vote majority to select a new Supreme Court Justice. This simple majority allows the Republican-led Senate unprecedented ease to select the next generation of judiciaries the highest court in the land.