• bobthecowboy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    That last paragraph is all sorts of reasons why she should have retired 15 years ago (at 75!) When voters would have easily voted in her (possibly even hand picked!) protege.

    We’re now left a mess because someone with an ego didn’t retire when they could have. Wait this is starting to sound familiar. Thankfully the consequences aren’t likely to be as dire this time.

    • Rapidcreek@reddthat.comOP
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      1 year ago

      15 years would mean that you would miss her vote for Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, plus Obamacare. We can play what if all day long.

      • idiomaddict@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Can we play what if all day long? Exactly what do you think a Californian congressperson was going to do when presented with Obamas candidates and health care? I’m certain enough to bet my car they would have approved it, especially if they would have been a tiebreaker.

      • bobthecowboy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        CA has only elected democratic (vaguely to the left of the median Democrat, if fairly rank-and-file) senators since 1992. As long as she didn’t leave it to chance and die during her term (…) while she coincided with the honestly fairly moderate-but-still-republican Gov Schwarzenegger, she could have had a hand in picking her replacement.

        As others (including myself) have noted, any Democrat-led SCOTUS nomination or major piece of Dem legislation would have passed more-or-less the same. I’d be curious if there was some analysis of where a particular Dem Senator from CA was a “swing vote”. Meanwhile now we’re in a vacancy and her missing vote definitely matters (again, thankfully likely with less impact than RBG’s).