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ruth bader ginsburg
How to Know When to Retire, If You Can Even Afford It
From the highest offices in politics to the smallest janitorial offices, older Americans are delaying retirement for a host of reasons from pride to financial precarity to a fear of being left behind.
Sep 11, 2024
The Washington Post headline reads: “A big problem for young workers: 70- and 80-year-olds who won’t retire.” For the first time in history, reports Aden Barton, five generations are competing in the same workforce. His article laments a “demographic traffic jam” at the apexes of various employment pyramids, making it ever harder for young people “to launch their careers and get promoted” in their chosen professions. In fact, actual professors (full-time and tenure-track ones, presumably, rather than part-timers like me) are Exhibit A in his analysis. “In academia, for instance,” as he puts it, “young professionals now spend years in fellowships and postdoctoral programs waiting for professor jobs to open.”
I’ve written before about how this works in the academic world, describing college and graduate school education as a classic pyramid scheme. Those who got in early got the big payoff—job security, a book-lined office, summers off, and a “sabbatical” every seven years (a concept rooted in the Jewish understanding of the sabbath as a holy time of rest). Those who came late to the party, however, have ended up in seemingly endless post-doctoral programs, if they’re lucky, and if not, as members of the part-time teaching corps.
Too Broke to Retire
For the most part, I’m sympathetic to Barton’s argument. There are too many people who are old and in the way at the top of various professional institutions—including our government (where an 81-year-old, under immense pressure, just reluctantly decided not to try for a second term as president, while a 77-year-old is still stubbornly running for that same office). But I think Barton misses an important point when he claims that “older workers are postponing retirement… because they simply don’t want to quit.” That may be true for high earners in white-collar jobs, but many other people continue working because they simply can’t afford to stop. Research described in Forbes magazine a few years ago showed that more than one-fifth of workers over age 55 were then among the working poor. The figure rose to 26% for women of that age, and 30% for women 65 and older. In other words, if you’re still working in your old age, the older you are, the more likely it is that you’re poor.
Older workers also tend to be over-represented in certain low-paying employment arenas like housecleaning and home and personal healthcare. As Teresa Ghilarducci reported in that Forbes article:
Nearly one-third of home health and personal care workers are 55 or older. Another large category of workers employing a disproportionate share of older workers is maids and housekeeping cleaners, 29% of whom are 55 or older and 54% of whom are working poor. And older workers make up 34% of another hard job: janitorial services, about half of whom are working poor. (For a benchmark, 23% of all workers are 55 and up.)
We used to worry about “children having children.” Maybe now we should be more concerned about old people taking care of old people.
Why are so many older workers struggling with poverty? It doesn’t take a doctorate in sociology to figure this one out. People who can afford to retire have that option for a couple of reasons. Either they’ve worked in high-salary, non-physical jobs that come with benefits like 401(k) accounts and gold-plated health insurance. Or they’ve been lucky enough to be represented by unions that fight for their members’ retirement benefits.
However, according to the Pension Rights Center, a nonprofit organization working to expand financial security for retirees, just under half of those working in the private (non-governmental) sector have no employment-based retirement plan at all. They have only Social Security to depend on, which provides the average retiree with a measly $17,634 per year, or not much more than you’d earn working full-time at the current federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009. Worse yet, if you’ve worked at such low-paying jobs your entire life, you face multiple obstacles to a comfortable old age: pay too meager to allow you to save for retirement; lower Social Security benefits, because they’re based on your lifetime earnings; and, most likely, a body battered by decades of hard work.
Many millions of Americans in such situations work well past the retirement age, not because they “simply don’t want to quit,” but because they just can’t afford to do so.
On the Road Again
It’s autumn in an even-numbered year, which means I’m once again in Reno, Nevada, working on an electoral campaign, alongside canvassers from UNITE-HERE, the hospitality industry union. This is my fourth stint in Washoe County, this time as the training coordinator for folks from Seed the Vote, the volunteer wing of this year’s political campaign. It’s no exaggeration to say that, in 2022, UNITE-HERE and Seed the Vote saved the Senate for the Democrats, reelecting Catherine Cortez Masto by fewer than 8,000 votes—all of them here in Washoe County.
This is a presidential year, so we’re door-knocking for Vice President Kamala Harris, along with Jacky Rosen, who’s running for reelection to Nevada’s other Senate seat.
Government, especially at the federal level, is clearly an arena where (to invert the pyramid metaphor) too many old people are clogging up the bottom of the funnel.
When I agreed to return to Reno, it was with a heavy heart. In my household, we’d taken to calling the effort to reelect Joe Biden “the death march.” The prospect of a contest between two elderly white men, the oldest ever to run for president, both of whom would be well over 80 by the time they finished a four-year term, was deeply depressing. While defeating Donald Trump was—and remains—an existential fight, a Biden-Trump contest was going to be hard for me to face.
Despite his age, Joe Biden has been an effective president in the domestic arena. (His refusal to take any meaningful action to restrain the Israeli military in Gaza is another story.) He made good use of Democratic strength in Congress to pass important legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act. That kitchen-sink law achieved many things, including potentially reducing this country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030, allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies (while putting a $2,000 annual cap on Medicare recipients’ outlays for drugs), and lowering the price of “Obamacare” premiums for many people.
Still, Biden’s advanced age made him a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” candidate for president. Admittedly, a win for 59-year-old Kamala Harris in Nevada won’t be a walk in the park, but neither will it be the death march I’d envisioned.
Old and In the Way?
Government, especially at the federal level, is clearly an arena where (to invert the pyramid metaphor) too many old people are clogging up the bottom of the funnel. Some of them, like House Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), remain in full possession of their considerable faculties. She’s also had the grace to pass the torch of Democratic leadership in the House to the very able (and much younger) Hakeem Jeffries, representing the 8th district of New York. Others, like former California Senator Dianne Feinstein, held on, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, long after they were gone. Had my own great heroine Ruth Bader Ginsberg had the grace to retire while Barack Obama was still president, we wouldn’t today be living under a Supreme Court with a six-to-three right-wing majority.
What about the situation closer to home? Have I also wedged myself into the bottom of the funnel, preventing the free flow of younger, more vigorous people? Or, to put the question differently, when is it my turn to retire?
I haven’t lived out the past three stints in Reno alone. My partner and I have always done them together, spending several months here working 18 hours a day, seven days a week. That’s what a campaign is, and it takes a lot out of you. I’m now 72 years old, while my partner is five years older. She was prepared to come to Reno again when we thought the contest would be Trump versus Biden. Once we knew that Harris would replace him, however, my partner felt enormous relief. Harris’ chances of beating Trump are—thank God—significantly better than Biden’s were. “I would have done it when it was the death march,” she told me, “but now I can be retired.”
Even when people’s material needs are met, as is the case for the luckiest retirees in this country, they can suffer profound loneliness and an unsettling disconnection from the social structures in which meaningful human activity takes place.
Until Harris stepped up, neither of us could imagine avoiding the battle to keep Trump and his woman-hating, hard-right vice presidential pick out of office. We couldn’t face a Trump victory knowing we’d done nothing to prevent it. But now my 77-year-old partner feels differently. She’s at peace with retirement in a way that, I must admit, I still find hard to imagine for myself.
I haven’t taught a college class since the spring semester of 2021. For the last few years, I’ve been telling people, “I’m sort of retired.” The truth is that while you’re part of the vast army of contingent, part-time faculty who teach the majority of college courses, it’s hard to know when you’re retired. There’s no retirement party and no “emerita” status for part-timers. Your name simply disappears from the year’s teaching roster, while your employment status remains in a strange kind of limbo.
Admittedly, I’ve already passed a few landmarks on the road to retirement. At 65, I went on Medicare (thank you, LBJ!), though I held out until I reached 70 before maximizing my Social Security benefits. But I find it very hard to admit to anyone (even possibly myself) that I’m actually retired, at least when it comes to working for pay.
For almost two decades I could explain who I am this way: “I teach ethics at the University of San Francisco.” But now I have to tell people, “I’m not teaching anymore,” before rushing to add, “but I’m still working with my union.” And it’s true. I’m part of a “kitchen cabinet” that offers advice to the younger people leading my part-time faculty union. I also serve on our contract negotiations team and have a small gig with my statewide union, the California Federation of Teachers. But this year I chose not to run for the policy board (our local’s decision-making body), because I think those positions should go to people who are still actually teaching.
Those small pieces of work are almost enough to banish the shame I’d feel acknowledging that I’m already in some sense retired. I suspect my aversion to admitting that I don’t work for pay anymore has two sources: a family that prized professional work as a key to life satisfaction and—despite my well-developed critique of capitalism—a continuing infection with the productivity virus: the belief that a person’s value can only be measured in hours of “productive” labor.
Under capitalism, a person who has no work—compensated or otherwise—can easily end up marginalized and excluded from meaningful participation in society. The political philosopher Iris Marion Young considered marginalization one of the most ominous forms of oppression in a liberal society. “Marginals,” she wrote, “are people the system of labor cannot or will not use,” a dangerous condition under which a “whole category of people is expelled from useful participation in social life and thus potentially subjected to severe material deprivation and even extermination.”
Even when people’s material needs are met, as is the case for the luckiest retirees in this country, they can suffer profound loneliness and an unsettling disconnection from the social structures in which meaningful human activity takes place. I suspect it’s the fear of this kind of disconnection that keeps me from acknowledging that I might one day actually retire.
Jubilation and Passing the Torch
The other fear that keeps me working with my union, joining political campaigns, and writing articles like this one is the fear of the larger threats we humans face. We live in an age of catastrophes, present or potential. These include the possible annihilation of democratic systems in this country, the potential annihilation of whole peoples (Palestinians, for example, or Sudanese), or indeed, the annihilation of our species, whether quickly in a nuclear war or more slowly through the agonizing effects of climate change.
But even in such an age, I suspect that it’s time for many of my generation to trust those coming up behind us and pass the torch. They may not be ready, but neither were most of us when someone shoved that cone of flame into our hands.
Still, if I can bring myself to let go and trust those coming after me, then maybe I’ll be ready to embrace the idea behind one of my favorite Spanish words. In that language, you can say, “I’m retired” (“retirada”), and it literally means “pulled back” from life. But in Spanish, I can also joyfully call myself “jubilada,” a usage that (like “sabbatical”) also draws on a practice found in the Hebrew scriptures, the tradition of the jubilee, the sabbath of sabbaths, the time of emancipation of the enslaved, of debt relief, and the return of the land to those who work it.
Maybe it’s time to proudly accept not my retirement, but my future jubilation. But not quite yet. We still have an election to win.
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The Second Amendment and Gun Violence in the US
The loose interpretation of the Second Amendment is responsible, to a great extent, for thousands of lives lost every year.
Jul 11, 2022
It has been a particularly sad 4th of July. In Highland Park, Illinois, a young gunman opened fire on a parade with a high-caliber rifle, killing 7, wounding at least 47 others and traumatizing many more. In the same weekend, more than 50 people were shot in New York City. It is conceivable that those shootings were made possible because of a loose interpretation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
A fair textual and contextual reading of the Second Amendment clearly indicates that those entitled to claim a constitutional right to bear arms are not average citizens, but rather those belonging to a group of civilians trained as soldiers.
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on December 15, 1791, reads: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. This amendment was inspired by the right to keep and bear arms recognized in the English common law, and by the English Bill of Rights of 1689 that prevailed in the American colonies. The scope and prerogatives arising under the Second Amendment have been the subject of considerable controversy, and its vague interpretation has had serious legal consequences.
Opponents of gun control emphasize the last part of the sentence, "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed," neglecting that this constitutional entitlement is centered on a "well regulated militia," which at the time was deemed "necessary to the security of a free state." As noted by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, a well regulated militia is "the most natural defense of a free country."
The intimate connection between the right to bear arms and the natural rights of self-defense and resistance to oppression noted by Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780,) an English jurist known for writing the Commentaries on the Laws of England, is critical to understand the meaning and purpose of the Second Amendment. The civic duty to act in concert with fellow citizens to defend the state is also at the core of the right to bear arms under the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776: "the people have the right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state."
Obviously, the exacting circumstances to defend the state during the American Revolution were totally different from those existing now. On September 17, 2013, during an interview with John Hockenberry in WNYC radio, former Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, discussed her dissent in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), where the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within a home.
Justice Ginsburg said, "The Second Amendment has a preamble about the need for a militia...Historically, the new government had no money to pay for an army, so they relied on the state militias. And the state required men to have certain weapons and they specified in the law what weapons these people had to keep in their home so that when they were called to do service as militiamen, they would have them. That was the entire purpose of the Second Amendment... So, the Second Amendment is outdated in the sense that its function has become obsolete."
Also in a dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens stated that the court's judgement was a "strained and unpersuasive reading" which overturned longstanding precedent. He stated that the court had "bestowed a dramatic upheaval in the law".
Thus, a fair textual and contextual reading of the Second Amendment clearly indicates that those entitled to claim a constitutional right to bear arms are not average citizens, but rather those belonging to a group of civilians trained as soldiers who, in case of an emergency--such as a threat to the state--must become available to supplement the regular army.
At the time the second amendment was enacted, the Founding Fathers couldn't have predicted the tremendous technological advances in modern weaponry. There are considerable differences between the muskets used during revolutionary times and assault weapons readily available today, capable of killing scores of people, including children, in a matter of seconds.
The erroneous identification of the "right to bear arms" with an individual right finds unfortunate support in a misguided, but culturally entrenched, understanding of virility. Far too many individuals equate gun possession with manhood. But, as New York journalist Michael Hart observes, "The adults who promote gun culture need to be understood and I'm not sure that as a society we've come close to doing that yet. I don't understand at all why men - and it's overwhelmingly men - feel that owning a gun is something they need to do. It's somehow a part of their identity - but what does that mean? Is that identity so hollowed out, so fearful, so worshipful of absolute deadly power that guns supply a missing link? Do these men feel bigger, stronger, more themselves by owning a gun? Does the prospect of killing another human being draw them?"
The loose interpretation of the Second Amendment is responsible, to a great extent, for thousands of lives lost every year. The absence of effective legal restraints to the marketing of arms in this country, resulting from this misguided understanding, will continue to cast a shadow over our survival as a truly civilized society.
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Biden Creates Commission to Study Supreme Court Expansion, Other Reforms
"To restore our democracy, we must expand the Supreme Court," said Rep. Mondaire Jones.
Apr 09, 2021
President Joe Biden won praise Friday for signing an executive order to create a 36-member commission that will analyze arguments for and against reforming the U.S. Supreme Court.
The White House announced that a "bipartisan group of experts" will spend the next six months considering the "merits and legality" of increasing the number of justices on the high court and imposing term limits, among other possible changes.
"Congress has the power, and the constitutional duty, to set the size of the court, as it has seven times throughout our history."
--Rep. Mondaire Jones
Although the commission "will not make final recommendations for reform," CNN reported, many, including Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), applauded the president's move.
Biden "acknowledged that it is time to reform the Supreme Court, following the example of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant," Jones said Friday in a statement. "The question is no longer if we will reform the Supreme Court, but how we will reform the Supreme Court."
"The answer to that question is clear," Jones continued. "To restore our democracy, we must expand the Supreme Court. Anything less would leave the future of our nation, our planet, and our fundamental civil rights at the whim of a far-right supermajority that is hostile to democracy itself."
As CNN noted, "The long-awaited commission announcement developed from a pledge Biden made as a candidate last October, as liberals were calling for additional seats to be added to America's high court, to try to bring greater balance to a bench dominated 6-3 by conservatives poised to continue its right turn on abortion rights, religious liberty, and voting restrictions."
While right-wing media personalities like Sean Hannity accused Biden--who has said he's "not a fan" of expansion--of flip-flopping on the issue and GOP lawmakers such as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asserted that "Democrats want pack the Supreme Court," advocates for reform argue that the high court must be unrigged after Republicans distorted its makeup while benefitting from anti-democratic institutions like the Electoral College and antiquated rules in the U.S. Senate.
Former President Donald Trump--who lost the popular vote to 2016 Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by nearly three million ballots--appointed three justices to lifetime positions on the Supreme Court during his one term; that includes far-right Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was nominated following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18 of last year.
Even though then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had refused in 2016 to seat Merrick Garland, former President Barack Obama's pick to replace Justice Antonin Scalia following his passing on February 13 of that year--claiming that doing so would be inappropriate when the president was "on his way out the door"--McConnell rushed through Barrett's confirmation just days before the 2020 election.
Earlier this week, Justice Stephen Breyer--an 82-year-old liberal who is facing calls to retire so that Biden and the Democratic-led Senate can fill his seat with a progressive--warned that "if the public sees judges as politicians in robes, its confidence in the courts, and in the rule of law itself, can only diminish, diminishing the court's power, including its power to act as a check on other branches."
Breyer said that reformists should think "long and hard" about their proposals for "structural change or other similar institutional change."
MSNBC opinion columnist Medhi Hasan ridiculed Breyer's remarks, which he called "naive, misguided, and self-serving."
As Hasan wrote:
[W]here on Earth has he been over the past two decades as the Supreme Court delivered one partisan decision after another? Napping? Sen.Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, has tallied "80 5-4 partisan decisions by Republican Justices giving victories to big Republican donor interests" in the 15 years since Chief Justice John Roberts was sworn in in 2005. Does Breyer really believe these rulings--in which he dissented!--were all guided by "legal principle, not politics"?
... As for "confidence" in the Supreme Court, how about the fact that a majority of the nine justices were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote? Or that one of those five, Neil Gorsuch, is sitting in a blatantly stolen seat? Or that two of the nine justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct?
... It feels odd for me to have to remind a sitting justice that nowhere in the Constitution does it say there should be nine justices on the court. The court's own website says, "The Constitution places the power to determine the number of Justices in the hands of Congress." In fact, if Biden does eventually yield to pressure from liberal activists and Democratic lawmakers and decides to change the size of the court, backed by a congressional majority, he will be following in the footsteps of five previous presidents.
As AP noted Friday: "The size of the court has been set at nine members since just after the Civil War. Any effort to alter it would be explosive, particularly at a moment when Congress is nearly evenly divided. Changing the number of justices would require congressional approval."
In his statement, Jones noted that "many Americans will rightly be skeptical of a commission composed almost entirely of people protected from the real-life consequences of the Supreme Court's right-wing extremism."
"Nevertheless," he said, "I remain hopeful that the commission will join our rising movement for court expansion."
"In the meantime, Congress has the power, and the constitutional duty, to set the size of the court, as it has seven times throughout our history," Jones added. "My colleagues and I need not wait for the findings of a commission. We know the obvious: we must expand the Supreme Court before it's too late."
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'Retire, Breyer': Progressive Group Joins Growing Call for SCOTUS Justice to Step Down
"We cannot afford to risk Democrats losing control of the Senate before a Biden nominee can be confirmed," asserted Demand Justice director Brian Fallon.
Apr 09, 2021
A left-leaning advocacy group on Friday joined the growing chorus of calls for U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer to retire so that President Joe Biden can nominate a liberal replacement while Democrats control the Senate.
"We need to start the process of confirming a Black woman justice now. Tell Justice Breyer: Put the country first. Don't risk your legacy to an uncertain political future. Retire now."
--Demand Justice
Demand Justice published a statement Friday urging Breyer "to retire so that President Biden can appoint the first-ever Black woman Supreme Court justice."
The group--founded in 2018 by former Obama administration staffers amid then-President Donald Trump's successful effort to pack federal courts with far-right judges--launched an online petition declaring that "it's time for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to announce his retirement."
The petition states that Breyer "has been a distinguished justice, but now is risking the Senate falling into Republican hands before Democrats can confirm Biden's nominee."
"We have waited long enough for a Black woman Supreme Court justice," the petition asserts. "And with a 50-50 Senate, there is no time to waste. We need to start the process of confirming a Black woman justice now. Tell Justice Breyer: Put the country first. Don't risk your legacy to an uncertain political future. Retire now."
Demand Justice also hired a billboard truck that was spotted circling the Supreme Court with the "Breyer, Retire" message.
"We are now firmly in the window when past justices have announced their retirement, so it's officially worrisome that Justice Breyer has not said yet that he will step down," said Demand Justice executive director Brian Fallon. "The only responsible choice for Justice Breyer is to immediately announce his retirement."
"We cannot afford to risk Democrats losing control of the Senate before a Biden nominee can be confirmed," Fallon added. "Justice Breyer is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt at this point. Those worried about the court's future should speak up to ensure he understands the need for him to time his retirement wisely."
While campaigning for president, Biden repeatedly said he would nominate a Black woman to the nation's highest court if he had the opportunity--a step he called "long overdue."
"I'm looking forward to making sure there's a Black woman on the Supreme Court," the former vice president said days before the 2020 South Carolina Democratic presidential primary.
The risk of Democrats losing control over the Senate--which confirms Supreme Court nominees--is not limited to the outcome of the 2022 midterm elections. The Hill notes that if any member of the Senate Democratic caucus from a state with a GOP governor leaves office for any reason, their replacement would most likely be a Republican.
The Senate is currently evenly split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting a tie-breaking vote in the case deadlock.
According to The Hill:
Ketanji Brown Jackson, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia appointed by former President Obama, is considered a top candidate to make history on the high court. Biden recently nominated her to fill Merrick Garland's open seat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
While Demand Justice is the latest group to urge Breyer's retirement, there have been calls for the 82-year-old to retire since Biden's election. In January, University of California, Berkeley constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky told The Washington Post that "stepping down when there is a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate to replace him... is his best way of ensuring that someone with his values and his views takes his place."
In 2014, Chemerinsky published an op-ed urging the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire while Obama was in office. She did not, and since she was still serving on the bench when she died last September, Trump was able to replace her with far-right nominee Amy Coney Barrett--his third successful appointment to the high court.
The Demand Justice campaign launched on the same day that Biden signed an executive order establishing a commission to explore possible Supreme Court reforms--including increasing the number of justices as allowed by the Constitution. Breyer's opposition to "court-packing" has been cited by some of those who are calling on him to retire.
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Boulder: Is it Time to End the Second Amendment?
American mass murders are a remnant of our slave patrols; RBG was right that Heller was wrongly decided and needs to be overturned.
Mar 23, 2021
Another mass gun murder just happened in America, the seventh in 7 days, and already "Second Amendment legislators" are offering the 2021 version of thoughts and prayers. Lauren Boebert just tweeted, "May God be with them." Standing in front of her wall of assault weapons, most likely.
And, of course, today on rightwing talk radio and Fox News they've already begun lengthy bloviation about the Second Amendment. So, let's just clear a few things up.
The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the difference--see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, an action necessary to get Virginia's vote to ratify the Constitution.
It had nothing whatsoever to do with making sure mass murderers could shoot up public venues and schools. Founders including Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that, and we all should be too.
In today's America, you have the "right" to a gun, but no "right" to healthcare or education. In every other developed country in the world, the reality is the exact opposite.
In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South they were called "slave patrols," and were regulated by the states.
In Georgia, for example, a generation before the American Revolution, laws were passed in 1755 and 1757 that required all plantation owners or their male white employees to be members of the Georgia Militia, and for those armed militia members to make monthly inspections of the quarters of all slaves in the state. The law defined which counties had which armed militias and required armed militia members to keep a keen eye out for slaves who may be planning uprisings.
As Dr. Carl T. Bogus wrote for the University of California Law Review in 1998, "The Georgia statutes required patrols, under the direction of commissioned militia officers, to examine every plantation each month and authorized them to search 'all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition' and to apprehend and give twenty lashes to any slave found outside plantation grounds."
It's the answer to the question raised by the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained when he asks, "Why don't they just rise up and kill the whites?" It was a largely rhetorical question, because every southerner of the era knew the answer: Well-regulated militias kept enslaved people in chains.
Sally E. Haden, in her brilliant and essential book Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas, notes that, "Although eligibility for the Militia seemed all-encompassing, not every middle-aged white male Virginian or Carolinian became a slave patroller." There were exemptions so "men in critical professions" like judges, legislators and students could stay at their work. Generally, though, she documents how most southern men between ages 18 and 45--including physicians and ministers--had to serve on slave patrol in the militia at one time or another in their lives.
And slave rebellions were keeping the slave patrols busy.
By the time the Constitution was ratified, hundreds of substantial slave uprisings had occurred across the South. Blacks outnumbered whites in large areas, and the state militias were used to both prevent and to put down uprisings by enslaved men and women. As I detail in my book The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment, slavery can only exist in a police state, which the South had become by the early 1700s, and the enforcement of that police state was the explicit job of the militias.
Southerners worried that if the anti-slavery folks in the North could figure out a way to disband--or even move out of the state--those southern militias, the police state of the South would collapse. And, similarly, if the North were to invite into military service enslaved men from the South, then they could be emancipated, which would collapse the institution of slavery, along with the southern economic and social "ways of life."
These two possibilities worried southerners like slaveholder James Monroe, George Mason (who owned over 300 enslaved humans) and the southern Christian evangelical, Patrick "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death" Henry (Virginia's largest slaveholder).
Their main concern was that Article 1, Section 8 of the newly-proposed Constitution, which gave the federal government the power to raise and supervise an army, could also allow that federal army to subsume their state militias and change them from slavery-enforcing institutions into something that could even, one day, free their enslaved men, women and children.
This was not an imagined threat. Famously, 12 years earlier, during the lead-up to the Revolutionary War, Lord Dunsmore offered freedom to slaves who could escape and join his forces. "Liberty to Slaves" was stitched onto their jacket pocket flaps. During the War, British General Henry Clinton extended the practice in 1779. And numerous freed slaves served in General Washington's army.
Thus, southern legislators and plantation owners lived not just in fear of their own slaves rebelling, but also in fear that their slaves could be emancipated through the newly-forming United States offering them military service.
At the ratifying convention in Virginia in 1788, Henry laid it out:
"Let me here call your attention to that part [Article 1, Section 8 of the proposed Constitution] which gives the Congress power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States. . . .
"By this, sir, you see that their control over our last and best defence is unlimited. If they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia, they will be useless: the states can do neither ... this power being exclusively given to Congress. The power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed is ridiculous; so that this pretended little remains of power left to the states may, at the pleasure of Congress, be rendered nugatory."
George Mason expressed a similar fear:
"The militia may be here destroyed by that method which has been practised in other parts of the world before; that is, by rendering them useless, by disarming them. Under various pretences, Congress may neglect to provide for arming and disciplining the militia; and the state governments cannot do it, for Congress has an exclusive right to arm them [under this proposed Constitution]..."
Henry then bluntly laid it out:
"If the country be invaded, a state may go to war, but cannot suppress [slave] insurrections [under this new Constitution]. If there should happen an insurrection of slaves, the country cannot be said to be invaded. They cannot, therefore, suppress it without the interposition of Congress . . . . Congress, and Congress only [under this new Constitution], can call forth the militia."
And why was that such a concern for Patrick Henry?
"In this state," he said, "there are 236,000 Blacks, and there are many in several other states. But there are few or none in the Northern States. ... May Congress not say, that every Black man must fight? Did we not see a little of this last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general; but acts of Assembly passed that every slave who would go to the army should be free."
Patrick Henry was also convinced that the power over the various state militias given the federal government in the new Constitution could be used to strip the slave states of their slave-patrol militias. He knew the majority attitude in the North opposed slavery, and he worried they'd use the new Constitution they were then debating ratifying to free the South's slaves (a process then called "Manumission").
The abolitionists would, he was certain, use that power (and, ironically, this is pretty much what Abraham Lincoln ended up doing):
"[T]hey will search that paper [the Constitution], and see if they have power of manumission," said Henry. "And have they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the 'general defence and welfare'? May they not think that these call for the abolition of slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be warranted by that power?
"This is no ambiguous implication or logical deduction. The paper [the Constitution] speaks to the point: they have the power in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it."
He added: "This is a local [Southern] matter, and I can see no propriety in subjecting it to Congress."
James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution" and a slaveholder himself, basically called Patrick Henry paranoid.
"I was struck with surprise," Madison said, "when I heard him express himself alarmed with respect to the emancipation of slaves. . . . There is no power to warrant it, in that paper [the Constitution]. If there be, I know it not."
But the southern slavemasters' fears wouldn't go away.
Patrick Henry even argued that southerner's "property" (enslaved humans) would be lost under the new Constitution, and the resulting slave uprising would be less than peaceful or tranquil:
"In this situation," Henry said to Madison, "I see a great deal of the property of the people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their peace and tranquility gone."
So Madison, who had (at Jefferson's insistence) already begun to prepare proposed amendments to the Constitution, changed his first draft of one that addressed the militia issue to make sure it was unambiguous that the southern states could maintain their slave patrol militias.
His first draft for what became the Second Amendment had said: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country [emphasis mine]: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person."
But Henry, Mason and others wanted southern states to preserve their slave-patrol militias independent of the federal government. So Madison changed the word "country" to the word "state," and redrafted the Second Amendment into today's form:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State [emphasis mine], the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Little did Madison realize that one day in the future weapons-manufacturing corporations would use his slave patrol militia amendment to protect their "right" to manufacture and sell assault weapons used to murder people in schools, theaters and stores, and use the profits to own their own political party.
In today's America, you have the "right" to a gun, but no "right" to healthcare or education. In every other developed country in the world, the reality is the exact opposite.
Pointing out how ludicrous this has become, David Sirota (and colleagues) writes in his Daily Poster newsletter today: "Last week, the National Rifle Association publicly celebrated its success in striking down an assault weapons ban in Boulder, Colorado. Five days later, Boulder was the scene of a mass shooting, reportedly with the same kind of weapon that the city tried to ban."
The Second Amendment was never meant to make it easier for mass shooters to get assault weapons, and America needs rational gun policy to join the other civilized nations of this planet who aren't the victims of daily mass killings.
It's long past time to overturn Heller, which Ruth Bader Ginsberg repeatedly argued the Court should do, and abolish today's bizarre interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.
This post originally appeared at hartmannreport.com, but is published here with permission of the author.
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In 'Partisan Power Grab,' Republican Senators Confirm Third Trump Nominee Amy Coney Barrett to Supreme Court
Critics warn that she "will only embolden the court's most conservative judges to further gut protections for Americans' healthcare, free speech, and the environment, and unleash a new wave of corporate greed."
Oct 26, 2020
With just over a week until Election Day and despite protests from rights advocates and Democrats, the Republican-held Senate on Monday night confirmed President Donald Trump's third nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, filling the vacancy created by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death in September.
Only Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who faces a tough reelection race this year, joined Democrats in opposing Barrett's nomination to the nation's highest court, which now has six right-wing members and only three left-leaning justices. The final vote was 52-48--meaning although Vice President Mike Pence had headed to D.C. in case Republicans required his deciding vote, his help wasn't needed.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was set to administer the official constitutional oath to Barrett at the White House late Monday. Trump planned the swearing-in ceremony even though his announcement of her nomination in the Rose Garden last month was described as a "superspreader event" after which various attendees, including the president, tested positive for Covid-19.
As Common Dreams reported earlier Monday, Democrats held a talkathon ahead of the vote in which Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) declared on the chamber's floor that the GOP "is a party beholden to billionaires and extremists that is desperate to keep its grasp on power and willing to break any rule, any precedent, or any principle to hold onto that power just a little longer."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has come under fire for not only prioritizing Barrett's speedy confirmation over long-delayed Covid-19 relief and in the midst of early voting for the November election but also for pushing through Trump's nominee in direct defiance of the standard he set in 2016 when refusing to hold a vote on then-President Barack Obama's nominee to the court, Merrick Garland, several months before that year's election.
In a statement Monday night, Tax March executive director Maura Quint said that Barrett's confirmation "will only embolden the court's most conservative judges to further gut protections for Americans' healthcare, free speech, and the environment, and unleash a new wave of corporate greed."
"This confirmation was a partisan power grab," Quint continued. "Mitch McConnell violated all precedent and ignored or changed Senate rules to force through a justice who will legislate from the bench. Instead of delivering aid to the millions of Americans out of work, hungry and struggling during this pandemic, Senate Republicans made this illegitimate nomination their only priority."
"They rushed Barrett onto the court in less than 30 days, but those same senators still stand idly by as Americans struggle to survive this pandemic, claiming their hands are tied. It's beyond shameful, it's outright disgusting," she added, underscoring the importance of the upcoming election in terms of restoring the court's "credibility with the American people."
Over the past month, Democrats, progressive advocacy organizations, and even thousands of attorneys across the country have raised concerns about Barrett's legal record, asserting that the 48-year-old former clerk of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia--who died in February 2016, sparking the fight over Garland--poses a serious threat to Americans' fundamental rights.
"Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation is a direct assault on our climate and our communities," Natalie Mebane, U.S. policy director of the environmental group 350.org, said in a statement Monday before the vote. "This push of an anti-choice, anti-equality, anti-healthcare, and climate denier nominee is part of a dangerous strategy to further diminish our democracy, and prioritize fossil fuel executives and corporations, all at the expense of our health and safety."
Warning that "Barrett could ram through toxic and unnecessary fossil fuel projects, perpetuating systems of white supremacy, colonialism, and violence that Black, Indigenous, and communities of color bear the brunt of," Mebane declared: "From her refusal to acknowledge climate science, to her disturbingly intimate ties to fossil fuel groups, we demand Barrett immediately recuse herself of any and all cases concerning climate and the fossil fuel industry."
Earthjustice senior vice president of programs Sam Sankar similarly expressed disappointment with the vote and alarm about what Barrett's confirmation means for the planet.
"We know what the environment needs from the next Supreme Court justice," said Sankar. "Judge Amy Coney Barrett's answers during the confirmation process left us concerned about her respect for the federal government's responsibility to protect people, and her commitment to keeping the courtroom doors open for everyone."
Considering that Barrett's confirmation solidified the court's 6-3 conservative majority, "potentially giving Republican litigants an additional ally as the justices review the various requests," CNN on Monday detailed various petitions the new justice could soon weigh in on, from the fights over Trump's taxes and Pennsylvania's ballot extensions to Wisconsin's ballot counting and requests, Minnesota's congressional election date, and Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban.
Critics of Barrett have emphasized worries that her joining the court could impact the presidential election and reproductive freedom, particularly the court's landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that affirmed the constitutional right to abortion.
In protest of Barrett's nomination, activists in over 100 communities across the country took to the streets on Sunday dressed in black and red robes. As Ms. Magazine reported, "Those in black robes with white laced collars dressed as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Those in red robes with white bonnets were dressed as handmaids from Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel and series The Handmaid's Tale."
The battle over Barrett's confirmation has renewed discussions about reforms, drawing attention to proposals such as term limits for justices and expanding the court. Democratic House candidate Mondaire Jones, who is expected to win his race in New York's 17th District next week, highlighted the latter on Monday.
"We must act--before Amy Coney Barrett and the Supreme Court do," Jones wrote for The Nation, recalling his grandparents' struggles to vote. "There is no other practical choice. We must expand the court. If we don't, a return to the Jim Crow regime under which my grandparents and tens of millions of Black people suffered is inevitable."
In a series of tweets Monday, Slate staff writer Mark Joseph Stern also argued that if Democrats win control of Congress in November, they should expand the court.
"Everybody responding that Democrats are cowards should channel their energy into organizing and lobbying your representatives," Stern added. "Right now many Democratic lawmakers are scared to expand the court. Your job is to make them scared of what will happen if they DON'T expand the court."
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Constitutional Law Experts Endorse Democrats' Bill to Create 18-Year Term Limits for Supreme Court Justices
The called it "a critical piece in prescribing how our country's leaders can work to depoliticize the Supreme Court and its confirmation process."
Oct 23, 2020
Over two dozen constitutional law experts on Friday endorsed legislation recently introduced by a trio of House Democrats that would establish 18-year term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices.
The endorsement letter (pdf) signed by professors and scholars across the country, along with a former U.S. senator and a former chief justice of theUtah Supreme Court, comes as the Senate GOP is trying to confirm right-wing Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump's third nominee to the high court, before the November general election.
The ongoing political battle over the Supreme Court vacancy that resulted from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death has elevated discussions and proposals to reform the high court. The term limits bill (pdf) was unveiled last month by Reps. Khanna (D-Calif.), Don Beyer (D-Va.), and Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.).
"We can't face a national crisis every time a vacancy occurs on the Supreme Court," Khanna said while announcing the Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act (H.R. 8424), which would allow presidents to nominate two new appointees per four-year term.
The legal experts said in their endorsement:
We are pleased that a formal legislative proposal to limit future justices to 18 years of high court service has been introduced and is advancing public discourse on court reform.
Though the bill is not perfect, we believe it to be a critical piece in prescribing how our country's leaders can work to depoliticize the Supreme Court and its confirmation process.
Their support for the bill came just a day after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and the rest of the panel's Republicans flouted their own rules--in the face of a boycott by Democratic members--and voted to advance Barrett to the full chamber.
Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said earlier this week that he expects Trump's nominee to be confirmed on Monday, just over a week before Election Day, when Trump formally faces off against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who is leading in national polls.
Biden explained in a promotional clip of a forthcoming "60 Minutes" interview released Thursday that if he is elected, he will form a bipartisan commission of constitutional scholars to offer recommendations for "how to reform the court system," which he said is "getting out of whack."
While the former vice president said the possible reforms would "go well beyond packing" the court, attorney and activist Miles Mogulescu declared in an opinion piece for Common Dreams last week: "It's time for Biden and the Dems to call bullshit! It's Republicans who are the true court-packers."
Mogulescu also detailed various ways that a victorious Biden and Democratic lawmakers could "begin to unpack the courts," from increasing the number of Supreme Court justices to introducing term limits for those appointed to the nation's highest court, noting Khanna's bill.
"A more indirect way would be to grant statehood to the District or Columbia and Puerto Rico," Mogulescu wrote. "This would represent justice in its own right, since residents of those jurisdictions are tax-paying American citizens without voting representation in Washington."
"But it would also add four new senators," he explained, "diminishing the impact of the current situation where the Republican Senate 'majority,' which is about to confirm Barrett on a party-line votes, was elected by nearly 15 million fewer voters than the Democratic 'minority.'"
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Rights Advocates and Dems Reiterate Calls to #BlockBarrett as McConnell Vows to Confirm Trump Nominee on Monday
"If we're to have courts that protect equal justice for everyone, we need a nominee who will defend our civil and human rights. Amy Coney Barrett is not that nominee."
Oct 20, 2020
Human and civil rights advocates joined with Democratic lawmakers Tuesday in reiterating their concerns about and opposition to U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett as GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the chamber will vote on President Donald Trump's pick for the high court on Monday.
"With regard to the Supreme Court justice... we'll be voting to confirm justice-to-be Barrett next Monday," the Kentucky Republican said during a weekly press conference, according to The Hill. The outlet reported that "McConnell is expected to tee up Barrett's nomination Friday, a day after the Judiciary Committee is expected to sign off on her nomination. The Senate will then hold a procedural vote Sunday. After that, senators could still debate her nomination for an additional 30 hours."
Both McConnell and Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)--who is locked in a tight race to hold onto his seat--have faced relentless criticism over how they have aided Trump's effort to fill the spot left vacant by the September death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a right-wing nominee before Election Day.
Rights activists, lawmakers, and even thousands of lawyers across the country have warned that "rushing to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett will cause irreparable damage to the public's faith in the Supreme Court, the rule of law, and our democracy." They have also taken aim at Barrett, calling her a threat to fundamental rights.
Quite simply, the fate of the next 50 years of civil rights, the rule of law, and legitimate democracy is at stake.
We will fight this nominee with everything we can.
This injustice must not come to pass. #BlockBarrett pic.twitter.com/Sixt2dmFuf
-- Alliance for Justice (@AFJustice) October 20, 2020
During a virtual town hall on Barrett's nomination Tuesday, Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, declared that McConnell and Graham "insult Justice Ginsburg's legacy as they recklessly push through this Supreme Court nominee." She accused the pair, plus the rest of the Senate GOP and the president, of refusing to listen to voters, noting that millions of Americans have already cast their ballots for the November general election.
Voters know "that healthcare is at stake," Gupta said while also arguing that Barrett is unfit to serve on the nation's highest court. "They know Roe v. Wade is at stake. They know that voting rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, and so many more are at stake. It is truly reprehensible to move forward before the next president is installed."
Gupta's group co-hosted the town hall with People For the American Way, Alliance for Justice, National Education Association, and Planned Parenthood Action Fund--which have all raised alarm about Barrett since Trump announced her as his third nominee for the court.
The event featured Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) as well as "individuals who would be harmed by Barrett's confirmation to answer questions about what's at stake with this Supreme Court nomination."
Critics of Barrett and the president also took to the pages of major national newspapers on Tuesday to warn about the consequences of the judge's potential confirmation next week, just days before Trump faces off against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who is currently leading in several polls.
Washington Post senior political reporter Aaron Blake wrote that a 4-4 split on the high court Monday--which let stand a previous ruling allowing Pennsylvania election officials to count mail-in ballots that arrive up to three days after November 3--is "somewhat ominous for Democrats, in that it reinforces the impact Amy Coney Barrett's ascension could have on the court, rather quickly."
Responding to Blake's piece, the advocacy organization Demand Justice tweeted that "Donald Trump has been crystal clear: he wants Amy Coney Barrett confirmed because he wants the Supreme Court to overturn the results of an election he loses."
Noting Demand Justice's warning, the reproductive rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America declared, "That's why we have to be clear: no confirmation until after inauguration. #BlockBarrett."
In an interview with USA Today before a Tuesday press conference about Barrett, Jim Obergefell--who became a civil rights activist after the landmark 2015 Supreme Court case bearing his name as the plaintiff--said that it is "very realistic for us to be concerned about what could happen to our right to marry or our families" if she is confirmed.
As USA Today detailed:
He and the man on the other side of the v, Richard Hodges, former director of the Ohio Department of Health, have developed a friendship.
"It is awfully fun to surprise people when they find out we're friends," Obergefell said.
More surprising: They share "the same commitment to equal rights for all," Hodges said.
The two litigants teamed up at a press conference for Family Equality, an organization advocating for LGBTQ families. This time, they had an urgent message: That the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court is rushed--and it's "very threatening" to the LGBTQ community.
Both Demand Justice and Gupta shared the newspaper's report on social media.
"THIS," Gupta tweeted, directing her followers to the piece. "Jim Obergefell and Rick Hodges, the lead plaintiff and defendant in the 2015 Supreme Court case that made marriage equality the law of the land, came together today to OPPOSE Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation. #BlockBarrett."
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Women-Led Marches and Rallies in US Cities Nationwide Call for Trump's Ouster and GOP Defeat
"His presidency began with women marching and now it's going to end with women voting," said head of the Women's March.
Oct 18, 2020
Thousands of people--mostly young women, some in costumes, many donning signs, and all wearing masks--marched and rallied Saturday in Washington, D.C. and in cities around the U.S. to voice opposition to President Donald Trump as well as his latest Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, and to urge voters to soundly defeat the Republican Party's congressional candidates at the ballot box.
This weekend's nationwide protest was the latest in a series of women's marches that began the day after Trump's inauguration in 2017.
Rachel O'Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women's March, told the crowd in the nation's capitol: "His presidency began with women marching and now it's going to end with women voting. Period."
"From Denver to Durham to D.C., women sent an unmistakable message," the Women's March Twitter account noted on Saturday night. "We've had enough. We reject Trump's agenda that doesn't include all of us, and we will unite across our differences to vote him out."
In a video shared by the New York Times, women described their motives for attending the protest. Natalie Gates told reporters that she wanted to use her voice to oppose the appointment of Barrett to the high court, since Trump's nominee "will affect my children and the future."
Chants of "Vote him out!" and "Donald Trump has got to go!" can be heard throughout.
Another recording shared by the Washington Post shows evidence of clashes between women's rights advocates and a small group of right-wing counterprotesters.
There were far more opponents of the reactionary agenda of Trump, Barrett, and the GOP than supporters. "I will NOT go quietly back to the 1950s!" read one protester's sign.
A young woman from West Virginia named Taylor told a reporter that "I am marching because access to reproductive healthcare is a human right."
"Women showed up in force on day one of Trump's presidency for the first Women's March," Carmona said at the D.C. rally, "and now we're mobilizing to finish what we started."
"People need to get out and vote," Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, told attendees. "Protesting is good but if we don't take it to the polls we're really not going to make the change we want and need."
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Dianne Feinstein Was Harder on Preteen Climate Activists Than She Was on Amy Coney Barrett
The contrast makes it clear that Feinstein prioritizes an outdated model of bipartisanship over engaging a passionate, young, left-leaning voter base.
Oct 17, 2020
When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) eroded political norms by refusing to hold a vote on Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court in March of 2016, he set a precedent. The precedent was not, "A Supreme Court justice shouldn't be appointed in the last year of a president's term." The precedent was, "Republicans can do whatever they want."
That fact was made obvious by the GOP's rush to fill the seat left empty by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death a mere 46 days before the 2020 election. The hypocrisy was clear, but that hardly mattered. Republicans control the Senate now, just as they did when President Obama nominated Garland. Few of them are likely to defect. Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's nominee to replace Ginsburg, will almost certainly be confirmed.
But did Democrats -- and Sen. Dianne Feinstein in particular -- really need to give in so easily?
Feinstein, California's senior senator and the highest-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, questioned Barrett on abortion access, the Affordable Care Act and gun control during this week's Senate hearings. But her questions weren't particularly tough, and she didn't say anything that invoked the single biggest issue with Barrett's nomination: that it's a blatant Republican power grab threatening to hopelessly politicize and destabilize the Supreme Court, and it shouldn't be happening in the first place.
Instead, Feinstein thanked Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey "I want you to use my words against me" Graham (R-S.C.) for his leadership during the hearing. "This has been one of the best set of hearings that I've participated in, and I want to thank you for your fairness and the opportunity of going back and forth," she said.
There's bipartisanship, and then there's bringing a pillow to a gun fight. The Republican Party has gotten very good at playing constitutional hardball. If Democrats can't or won't match that energy, there won't be a prize for maintaining the moral high ground. There will just be a lot of predictable political impotence.
Adding insult to injury for progressives is the fact that Feinstein can be ferocious with political opponents. She just saves it for the real threats to our democracy -- like, say, 11-year-old climate activists.
A video of Feinstein speaking dismissively to a group of tweenaged Sunrise Movement activists who asked her to support the Green New Deal went viral in February 2019, and it resurfaced this week as many liberals heavily criticized the senator. The contrast between the Feinstein of the Barrett hearings and the Feinstein of the Sunrise Movement encounter is jarring.
Compare friendly questions like "You don't have a magic formula for how you do it and handle all the children and your job and your work and your thought process, which is obviously excellent, do you?" with curt remarks like "You come in here, and you say it has to be my way or the highway. I don't respond to that." Or "I was elected by almost a million-vote plurality. And I know what I'm doing. So maybe people should listen a little bit." Who does Feinstein seem to hold in more disdain: a judge whose nomination is an affront, or a bunch of kids who are afraid of dying in a climate apocalypse?
Of course Feinstein's (very, very, very) long political career can't be adequately summed up by a handful of quotes from two events. But for young progressives, it's deeply disappointing for one of the most senior Democrats in Congress to treat the Republicans rushing Barrett's confirmation with kid gloves -- after treating young Californians concerned about climate change with open contempt.
The contrast makes it clear that Feinstein prioritizes an outdated model of bipartisanship over engaging a passionate, young, left-leaning voter base. Reaching across the aisle might once have been a noble impulse. But when the Republican Party has more or less unanimously sworn fealty to a demagogic Republican president and the entire West Coast has caught fire, it's past time for long-serving senators like Feinstein to either adjust their sense of what's important or step aside.
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