The United States has lost an icon.
A big loss for our nation.
Huge.
RBG.
First of all, I want to say that I hate the political storm her passing will inevitably cause.
One of the things that law school has taught me is that, many times, our hard and fast notions of what side of the aisle people are on is totally untrue.
You hear so much about getting “conservative, constitutional” judges on the court. On the flip side you hear so much about getting “progressive” judges seated, or else we’ll lose our democracy.
The truth is, judicial philosophy is a bit more complicated than most of us realize.
Having something of a conservative upbringing, I would have imagined a Supreme Court where the justices were so far to the right and so far to the left, that there would be a constant voting block of four on each side, with maybe one more “moderate” swing vote that would really decide things.
Imagine my surprise when I started reading Supreme Court cases in my Constitutional Law class and seeing a decision where Justice Gorsuch, a supposed “staunch conservative” judge and Trump appointee, joins in an opinion with Justice Sotomayor, a supposed “far-left” Obama appointment.
Or how about a case where the only two dissenters were Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Neil Gorsuch?
Or how about the fact that Justice Kagan and Justice Kavanaugh agree on nearly 3 of every 4 decisions?
Occasionally, you’ll see a decision that does break down along more political lines, where all of the liberals and all of the conservatives oppose each other. Many times it’s because one side wants to be sure a certain right is protected, while the other side is concerned about the precedent being set. It happens both ways.
My point is, the questions we face as a nation are often a lot more complex than we like to imagine.
But we are dealing with an enormous loss today.
Whatever side of the coin you find yourself on, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a person to be admired and mourned by the whole nation.
It goes without saying that she was an absolutely brilliant legal mind. Her extraordinary work ethic helped her make the Harvard Law Review, while caring for a small daughter and a husband with cancer. RBG was a cancer survivor herself—a fighter and a winner. She worked tirelessly for the cause justice and liberty.
Perhaps what I’m most thankful for, however, is the way she spent her entire career fighting for a better world for my wife and my daughters.
For that, I’ll be eternally grateful to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
And if you’re worried about what happens next, know how many people she inspired to fight for what is truly right, and remember the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
