Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died.
The court said that she died of metastatic pancreatic cancer on Friday evening at her home in Washington, D.C., where she was surrounded by her family. Ginsburg had announced over the summer that she had been undergoing treatment.
According to NPR, just days before her death, Ginsburg dictated a statement to her granddaughter.
“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,” she said.
Chief Justice John Roberts said, “Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature. 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.”
In recent years, Ginsburg, the second woman on the court, had obtained an iconic stature, the subject of an Oscar nominated documentary and a feature film last year. She obtained a nickname, Notorious RBG, which reflected her status as a career-long champion of women’s equality.
Her death likely will set up another confirmation battle on the eve of an election. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to consider Barack Obama’s nominee following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016, arguing that the nomination should wait because the vacancy occurred during an election year. But McConnell has indicated that should a vacancy occur this year, he would move it forward.
Ginsburg was the senior liberal justice on the court and, if Trump is able to fill the vacancy, it would solidify the court’s conservative majority.
Ginsburg was survived by her two children Jane Carol Ginsburg and James Steven Ginsburg, along with four grandchildren, two step-grandchildren and one great grandchild. Her husband, Martin Ginsburg, died in 2010.
The court said that a private interment service would be held at Arlington National Cemetery.
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