L.A. officials pay tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Wave Wire Services

LOS ANGELES — Tributes continue to pour in for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who lost her battle with cancer Sept. 18.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and county Supervisor Janice Hahn were among those hailing her as a legal pioneer who fought for women’s rights and gender equality for decades.

This is a tragedy for all those who believe in our Constitution, who believe in equality and who believe our daughters can grow up to whatever they want to be,” Garcetti said on Twitter. “This is a profound loss for America. RIP Justice Ginsburg.”

Hahn wrote: “To say I am heartbroken isn’t enough. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a brilliant legal mind and an extraordinary champion for women. She gave us everything she could and her death is devastating.”

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, called her death “a devastating loss for our country.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a visionary leader on the Supreme Court, and a champion of equality and equity,” he said. “She changed America for the better. Her work will live on for many decades to come.”

County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said Ginsburg “tried so hard to hold on. May she rest in peace. May we honor her legacy by voting in record numbers.”

Supervisor Kathryn Barger said the jurist “will be remembered for the way she inspired, encouraged, and advocated. She leaves an unforgettable legacy that will be carried on by courageous women and girls for generations to come.”

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, call Ginsburg “a titan and legend on the Supreme Court whose undeniably brilliant legal mind and dedication to justice and equality moved our country forward. We’ve lost a champion tonight, but her legacy lives on.”

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, said the nation “lost a giant. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was shunned from courtrooms when she began her career because she was a woman. But she persisted, blazing a trail for millions of women and others who had been excluded or oppressed. RBG is a lioness of the law. She is irreplaceable.”

Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said Ginsbergpaved the path for and inspired women, like me, to attend law school and later break glass ceilings when we became the firsts in our chosen professions.”

Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez said: “It’s hard to overstate the incredible impact she had on women across the United States. Throughout her life she fought for equal rights for women, as a mother, an attorney, a professor and during her 27 years as a Supreme Court Justice.

She was a pioneer, a role model and a warrior. There isn’t a woman in America who has not benefited and lived a better life because of her vast contributions to the women’s movement,” Martinez said. “She was a giant for women’s rights, and set an example for what can be achieved by the will and determination of a single woman. It is our collective responsibility and duty to follow in her footsteps.”

Ginsburg, who was 87, died at her Washington home of complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer, the Supreme Court announced Sept. 1.

The second woman to serve on the high court was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993. The Columbia Law School graduate taught at Rutgers and Columbia and was a fierce courtroom advocate of women’s rights, making her an iconic figure to feminists and earned her the nickname “Notorious RBG.”

While at the helm of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1970s, the Brooklyn native brought a series of cases before the court that helped establish constitutional protections against sex discrimination.

The leader of the court’s four-member liberal wing had repeatedly vowed to stay on the bench as long as her health permitted. In a statement she dictated to her granddaughter within days of her death, Ginsburg said her fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”

But President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, signaled they would try to seize the opportunity to name and confirm her successor in the final days of Trump’s first term.

Their intentions appear to contradict a precedent set by McConnell in 2016, when the Kentucky Republican refused to allow the Senate to vote on Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee to fill the open seat left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Garland was nominated by Obama in March 2016, but McConnell insisted it wasn’t appropriate for the Senate to vote on a nominee in an election year and the seat remained vacant until it was filled by Trump’s nominee Neil Gorsuch in 2017.

McConnell is taking a different position in 2020.

President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate,” McConnell said.