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The ‘Ginsburg Rule’ Is Not An Excuse To Avoid Answering The Senate’S Questions, Lori A. Ringhand, Paul M. Collins Jr.
The ‘Ginsburg Rule’ Is Not An Excuse To Avoid Answering The Senate’S Questions, Lori A. Ringhand, Paul M. Collins Jr.
Popular Media
An op-ed by Lori Ringhand and Paul M. Collins Jr. on Supreme Court nominees' unwillingness to provide answers on cases under the wrongly named "Ginsburg Rule." Nominees since the 1930s have balanced the competing needs of the Senate and the Judiciary by claiming a privilege to not opine on currently contested cases while freely offering their opinion about cases that used to be controversial but are no longer.
Neil Gorsuch And The Ginsburg Rules, Lori A. Ringhand, Paul M. Collings Jr.
Neil Gorsuch And The Ginsburg Rules, Lori A. Ringhand, Paul M. Collings Jr.
Scholarly Works
Supreme Court nominees testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee frequently invoke the so-called “Ginsburg Rule” to justify not answering questions posed to them. According to this “rule,” nominees during their testimony must avoid signaling their preferences about previously decided Supreme Court cases or constitutional issues. Using empirical data on every question asked and answered at every hearing from 1939–2017, we explore this “rule,” and its attribution to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We demonstrate three things. First, the Ginsburg Rule is poorly named, given that the practice of claiming a privilege to not respond to certain types of questions predates the …