WASHINGTON — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday of “complications of metastatic pancreas cancer,” the Supreme Court announced.
“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.”
The development will give President Trump the opportunity to name her successor, 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 middle of a pandemic and a presidential election, is sure to be titanic.
In 2016, Senate Republicans refused to consider President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland, saying that holding hearings in the last year of a president’s term would deprive voters of a role in the process.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, led the effort to block Judge Garland’s nomination. But he has said he will press to fill any vacancy that might arise in the last year of Mr. Trump’s first term.
Mr. McConnell and his allies say the two situations are different. Where one party controls the Senate and the other the presidency, as in 2016, they say, vacancies should not be filled in a presidential election year. Where the same party controls both the Senate and presidency, they argue, confirmations may proceed.
Democrats say this is hairsplitting hypocrisy that damages the legitimacy of the court. But they may have little practical power to stop a third Trump nominee after changes in Senate rules on filibusters on nominations. All it takes now is a majority vote to confirm judicial nominees.