Ginsburg in statement before her death said she wished not to be replaced until next president is sworn in

The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said days before her death that her “most fervent wish” was that she not be replaced on the high court until a new president is sworn into the White House. 

“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,” Ginsburg dictated in a statement to her granddaughter that was obtained by NPR.

Ginsburg died Friday due to complications of metastatic pancreas cancer at the age of 87. The second woman appointed to the high court, she served as a justice for over 27 years.

Her death will instantly spark a partisan fight over the vacancy on the bench. 

Republicans infamously blocked former President Obama’s Supreme Court pick from receiving a confirmation hearing after Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016, the year of the last presidential election. GOP lawmakers maintained that a Supreme Court vacancy should not be filled the same year as a presidential race.

However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has maintained that he would fill a 2020 Supreme Court vacancy. He has said that the situation this year would be different than that in 2016 because in 2020 the White House and Senate are held by the same party. 

“Let me remind you what I said in 2016. I said you’d have to go back to the 1880s to find the last time a vacancy on the Supreme Court occurring during a presidential election year was confirmed by a Senate of a different party than the President. That was the situation in 2016. That would not be the situation in 2020,” he said in February.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) insisted Friday that Ginsburg’s vacancy not be filled until after the election. 

“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,” he tweeted, a verbatim remark from one McConnell gave in 2016 after Scalia’s death.

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.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) September 18, 2020