2005—In a speech to the New York Bar Association, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg laments that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement might leave her as the only female justice. Ginsburg volunteers that she has “a list of highly qualified women,” but warns that there are “some women who might be appointed who would not advance human rights or women’s rights.” As if the job of a justice is to “advance” her particular conception of rights rather than to interpret the Constitution impartially.
2020—In Democratic National Committee v. Bostelmann, federal judge William M. Conley rules that the coronavirus pandemic entitles him to extend various statutory deadlines in Wisconsin election law, including the deadline for online and mail-in registration and for the receipt of mailed ballots. Two weeks later, a Seventh Circuit panel will stay Conley’s order.