PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Hundreds gathered in Portland to honor the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and speakers made it clear that the Senate should wait until after the election to vote on her successor.
“Honor her wish. Wait to replace,” said Marie Follayttar, a founder of Mainers for Accountable Leadership, referring to Ginsburg’s dying wish that she should not be replaced until a “new president is installed.”
The Portland gathering in Monument Square was one of several vigils across the state, including Bangor, Augusta and Bar Harbor.
Republican President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have vowed to have a speedy vote to fill the Supreme Court vacancy.
At least two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have said that the vote should wait until after the election. It would take two more GOP defections to delay a vote.
Democratic activists are angry that McConnell, who delayed then-President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee in 2016, would do an about-face on allowing a vote on a Supreme Court vacancy in an election year.
“We are staring down authoritarianism as it barrels toward us like a freight train,” Follayttar said. “We are striving for a more perfect union, a country that works for all of us. A system of true checks and balances and when that system fails, who is the final check on unchecked power? We, the people.”
The rally wasn’t all about Ginsburg’s replacement, the Portland Press Herald reported.
Nyamuon “Moon” Nguany Machar of Portland wrote a poem in honor of the woman dubbed the “magnetic warrior.”
“May we find a Ruth in each one of us, that holds her death as a calling for a changing tide,” Machar recited.
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