Sept. 18, 2020, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died at her home in Washington, DC at the age of 87. Ginsberg was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court and always advocated for women’s rights. She supported the Democratic party and during her job she sought to speak from all four corners to give all the distinctive views. But her death leaves an open spot in the Supreme Court that needs to be fulfilled. 

After Ginsberg’s death, President Donald J. Trump proposed a plan to refill the spot with United States Federal Judge, Amy Coney Barrett. Federal Judge Barret has been in office as a judge for three years and is now trying to join the Supreme Court with Trump’s help. But this is not the first time a president has tried to get a spot filled in the court without a problem rising. 

Back in 2016 former President Barack Obama dealt with the same issue. Obama had to fill in a seat after former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Antonin Gregory Scalia died from natural causes. 

Obama nominated Merrick Garland at the age of 63 to fill the spot nine months before the upcoming election with Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump. Garland was serving as chief judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, so he had the experience of dealing with the courts. 

Without any hesitation, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared Obama’s pick to be null and void. With McConnell not allowing Obama to fill the spot, he encouraged 11 Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to sign a letter saying they had no intention of consenting to any nominee from Obama.

After Obama was pushing for Garland’s election into the courts before he left office, the Senate never even got around to vote for his nomination. 

With Trump being president in 2020 and the election coming up, he has the same is

sues as Obama. But this time around, the Senate is looking forward to Trump’s nomination and not saying a word about it. The only people speaking out about this issue are the Democrats.

 The only reason they didn’t let Garland go through to the Senate was because it was majority Republican. And now with President Trump’s nominee, the Senate wants to go through with Amy Coney Barrett and allow her to fill the spot in the court system because it’s Republican based. 

Now this completely shows unfairness and inequality, based on how they completely blocked out Obama’s nominee, but wants to fully go through Trump’s plan a month before election. With the Democrats hearing about this, the majority of them are trying to delay the Senate from going through and being able to cast votes to elect Coney moments before Trump’s re-election or the election of Joe Biden. 

Compared to Obama’s nominee, they had many months of planning and getting the word out in order to get the people’s opinions. The fact that they couldn’t even get Garland to the Senate in order to cast a vote shows how the courts are showing political views against democrats. Within one or two months, Coney got into the questioning by the Senate in order for them to cast their votes and for the public to hear her opinion on what she is going to change and do. So at this point, political views are clearly shown based on how Garland had many months to have a decision but was cut short by McConell. So with only a month or two before the election Coney got passed through McConell to the Senate in order to cast their votes.