'One of the very best decisions I ever made': Clinton honors Ginsburg on anniversary of nomination
14 June 2023
Former President Bill Clinton released a video paying tribute to the late United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died at the age of eighty-seven on September 18th, 2020 after a lengthy battle with cancer.
Ginsburg was nominated on June 14th, 1993, and sworn in on August 10th. Her nearly three-decade-long judicial service earned her a reputation for being a liberal "lion of equality" and champion of civil rights. Following her passing, however, then-Republican President Donald Trump nominated right-wing Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to fill Ginsburg's spot on the bench.
Barrett, Trump's third Supreme Court appointment in four years, was confirmed by the GOP-dominated Senate on October 26th, 2020, just two weeks before Trump's landslide loss to President Joe Biden in that year's quadrennial presidential election.
On Wednesday, Clinton recalled Ginsburg's service and what it meant to him and the country:
I have often said that nominating Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court was one of the very best decisions I ever made as president. All these years later, I'm grateful for all she accomplished in her incredible tenure on the Court.
Footage then rolled of a speech Clinton gave on September 3rd, 2019 honoring Ginsburg at the Clinton School of Public Service:
From the start of our first conversation in 1993, I just knew that she was the right person for the court. But I have to say in the last twenty-six years, she has far exceeded even my expectations. She spent a lifetime trying to give other people from the get-go, the opportunities she spent her early life struggling to reach. Ladies and gentlemen, Justice Ginsburg.
Ginsburg said at the event:
Thank you, thank you. The concept of we the people has become ever more inclusive. So people who were left out at the beginning — slaves, women, men without property, Native Americans — were not part of we people. Now, all the once left out people are part of our political constituency, and there are certainly a more perfect union as a result of that. Thank you, thank you.
Watch below or at this link.
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