Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Supreme Court Justice Dies at 87, Who Will Replace Her?

By Mary Anne R. First Posted: Sep 19, 2020 12:22 AM EDT

Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spearheaded gender equality and became the second woman to serve the nation's highest court.

Ginsburg died of complications from cancer at her home in Washington, D.C., surrounded by family, on Friday. She was 87 years old.

Her death follows her announcement in July that she had suffered from a recurrence of cancer and that lesions had been found on her liver.

She was diagnosed and treated for the early stages of pancreatic cancer in 2009 and completed radiation treatment for the disease in 2019. She also was diagnosed with lung cancer and colon cancer in 2018.

Associate Justice Elena Kagan said back in 2014 that as a litigator and then as a judge, Ginsburg changed the face of American anti-discrimination law. Kagan noted that Ginsburg could take credit for making the law of this country work for women.

Ginsburg became known for her opinion as a justice that came just three years after she joined the court. It was also when she authored the 7-1 ruling that opened the Virginia Military Institute doors to women.

"There is no reason to believe that the admission of women capable of all the activities required of VMI cadets would destroy the institute rather than enhance its capacity to serve the 'more perfect union,'" she noted.

Who Will Succeed Her?

President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said they would move soon to start the process of filling the Supreme Court vacancy left by Ginsburg's death.

McConnell said he intended to bring a Trump nominee to the Senate floor for a vote.

A senior administration official, who declined to be named, said that Trump is eyeing to choose a nominee soon. However, the official declined to discuss a specific timeline.

McConnell said that Trump's nominee would receive a vote on the floor of the Senate. He noted that Americans reelected their majority in 2016 and expanded it in 2018 because they vowed to work with Trump and his agenda, particularly his outstanding federal judiciary appointments. He added that they would keep their promise.

The choosing likely starts with these federal appeals court judges' nomination, namely, Amy Coney Barrett, Joan Larsen, Allison Eid, Britt Grant, and Amul Thapar.

Barrett ranked at the top of Trump's list of potential nominees after her 2-17 confirmation hearing for a seat on the Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.

In 2017, Barrett wrote that Chief Justice John Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning in order to save it.

Meanwhile, Larsen spent much of her career as a professor at the Univesity of Michigan Law School. She was appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court in 2015 and was nominated by Trump to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 2017.

Eid is a formal law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas and graduated from Stanford University and the University of Chicago Law School. She made to Trump's original list of potential high court nominees in 2016.

Grant, on the other hand, is a former Georgia Supreme Court justice and solicitor general. He was also nominated to the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in April 2018.

Thapar is a Kentucky protégé of McConnell. He would be the first Indian American to reach the nation's highest court. He was a former Kentucky judge and U.S. attorney with a trial court experience.