Are Republicans banking on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsberg’s death?

Shortly after President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace Justice Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate announced that Garland would not get a hearing. He went on to say that he and other Republicans wanted the voters in November 2016 to pick a president who would then nominate someone to replace Scalia. In short, McConnell and his comrades were saying “Let the Voters Decide.”

When it became somewhat clear that Hillary Clinton was going to win the Presidency, numerous members of the Senate “Let the Voters Decide” group began to change their tune. This monumental admission in refusing to do their jobs in holding hearings and casting votes regarding Supreme Court nominations is unprecedented.

Senator John McCain said he would block any Clinton nomination for the Court. This obstructionism was echoed by Sen. Ted Cruise. The latest Senator to join the obstructionist choir is Sen. Burr of North Carolina who may well lose his reelection bid who said:

• “If Hillary Clinton becomes president, I am going to do everything I can do to make sure four years from now, we still got an opening on the Supreme Court.”

With the current 8 justices, 4 republicans and 4 democrats, any ties will lead to a lower court’s ruling being upheld. Therefore, the court needs to have an uneven number for rulings to have any legal impact.

Since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be 84-years-old in March 2017 there’s a good chance that she will either retire or succumb to old age. This would result in a one-vote advantage for Republicans on the court, which will have the same result if Justice Scalia was resurrected.

Even better for the GOP than Ginsburg’s age is the state of her health. In 1999 she received chemotherapy and radiation therapy for colon cancer. In early 2009, she underwent surgery related to pancreatic cancer. And in late 2014, she had a stent placed in her right coronary artery.

It certainly appears that the Republican members of the U.S. Senate are pulling for Ginsburg’s demise so they will again have control of the Supreme Court during the first four-year term of a Clinton presidency.

History tells us that most first-term presidents are reelected (Eisenhour, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush II), which means that no would likely win a second four-year term beginning in 2020.

Hillary’s reelection would mean that the Republicans would mean nine (9) years (2016 to 2024) wherein nobody would be approved by the Senate for a seat on the Supreme Court.

One can only imagine what would happen if a Democrat won the presidency in 2024 and was reelected in 2028. With promised Republican obstructionism, we could then be looking at seven (17) years of this kind of crap.