Rossi: The Constitution and History Tell President Trump to Replace Justice Ginsburg

By Randy Rossi - 

It is absolutely amazing to hear Democrats scream at the top of their lungs that President Trump has no legal right to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in an election year. They even go so far to say that President Trump should not replace Justice Ginsburg because her last dying wish was that she not be replaced until a new president was elected. Seriously? Where is that in the Constitution?

Multiple Democrats have publicly proclaimed that it would be illegal for President Trump and the Republican controlled Senate to replace Justice Ginsburg during a presidential election year. Those claims are an insult to the Constitution and the intelligence of the American people since the Constitution and history make it perfectly clear that President Trump not only has the legal right to nominate a replacement for Justice Ginsburg, he has the obligation to do so. And the Senate  has the right to approve his nomination.

The U.S. Constitution clearly says that “The President shall appoint …. judges for the Supreme Court” and “The U.S. Senate role is to advise and consent”. Nowhere does the U.S. Constitution say that the president cannot nominate a Supreme Court judge during an election year. In fact, the Constitution clearly says that it is indeed President Trump’s duty to do so. The fact that Democrats claim the opposite is not only wrong, it is embarrassing. Anybody can read the Constitution for themselves to see that their claims are ignorant at best and an outright lie at worst.

History helps settle this argument as well. Ever since the Constitution was signed, Supreme Court judges have been nominated by presidents during presidential election years 29 times. 29 times! Democrats want to cancel our Constitution and over 231 years of history in order to get their way on a Supreme Court pick. Sound reasonable to you? In 19 of those cases in which a president nominated a Supreme Court candidate during an election year when the same party controlled the Senate, the Senate approved those nominees 17 times or 89% of the time. Therefore based on history, not only does President Trump have the right and obligation to nominate a Supreme Court replacement during a presidential election year, his nomination has an 89% chance of being approved since Republicans are the majority party in the Senate.  On the other hand, in the 10 cases in which a president nominated a Supreme Court candidate when the opposing party was the majority in the Senate, only 1 out of 10 was approved. The voters choose their president and the Senate and they expect them to keep the Supreme court fully staffed and functional, even during a presidential election year if their president and Senate are of the same party!

That is especially true this year as our great country is in truly difficult times. The primary reason people who voted for President Trump voted for him was to protect the Supreme Court from going further left with a goal of protecting our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. That was my primary reason for voting for President Trump. The great news for us is that not only did President Trump successfully appoint 2 conservative Supreme Court justices, he successfully appointed almost 300 conservative federal justices  that will protect our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the rule of law. Given the potential chaos of this election because of the dramatic increase in mail in votes and the fact that some state judges are extending vote counting of those mail in votes beyond election day, the odds are that the Supreme Court will play a role in deciding the outcome of that vote just like in the Bush Gore vote. Given what is at stake, President Trump must make sure that the Supreme Court is fully staffed with a majority who believe in the rule of law and our Constitution, not liberal beliefs.

A new Rasmussen poll shows that 83% of GOP voters want President Trump to nominate a replacement for Justice Ginsburg before the election and to get them approved by the Senate to protect our great Republic. They have every legal right to expect that and the good news is that President Trump agrees 100% and has promised that his nominee will be a conservative woman. It will be very interesting to see if the Democrats attack that conservative female nominee as viciously as they attacked Judge Kavanaugh as they try to get more women to vote Democrat!