Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died of "complications of metastatic pancreas cancer," the Supreme Court announced Friday. She was 87.
Ginsberg's dying message: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."
"Our nation has lost a jurist of historic stature," Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said in a statement.
"We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her — a tireless and resolute champion of justice."
From the New York Times:
The development will give President Trump the opportunity to name her replacement, and Senate Republicans have promised to try to fill the vacancy even in the waning days of his first term. The confirmation battle, in the midst of a pandemic and a presidential election, is sure to be titanic.
President Trump has appointed two members of the Supreme Court, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh. moving the court slightly to the right. The replacement of Justice Ginsburg, the leader of the court's four-member liberal wing, could transform the court into a profoundly conservative institution, one in which Republican appointees would outnumber Democratic ones six to three.
