Well, we had put this podcast to bed on Friday a few hours before the news of Justice Ginsburg's passing.

And I wanted just to add something before you hear the show that we had put together with James Carville and Philippe Rines.

I like almost anyone who pays attention to our justice system was a huge admirer of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I was a member of the Judiciary Committee during my years in the Senate, and though I wasn't a lawyer, I did play one in a sketch.

And I had a very deep appreciation for who Ruth Bader Ginsburg was and for the

soaring contributions that she made not just in expanding the rights of women, but for her being

just a warrior for economic and environmental justice, for voting rights,

her fierce opposition to Citizens United, and just her amazing energy and tenacity and

brilliance.

She was a powerful writer.

You may remember her famous dissent of the just horrible 5-4 Shelby County decision that unraveled the

1965 Civil Rights Act because it got rid of preclearance. The preclearance remedy was basically

that any changes in election laws made by states and other jurisdictions, say counties, which had been shown to be discriminatory

in the past, any changes in election laws that those jurisdictions were proposing had to be reviewed

and approved or pre-clear by the Justice Department before they could take effect.

Because these were places that had had a history of making it

harder for, say, people of color to vote, any changes they made in their election laws had to

pass scrutiny. Now, Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion for the majority, which got rid of preclearance.

He said that the, wrote that the preclearance remedy had worked so well that there are no longer,

just there's no longer any need for it.

That has shown to be complete bullshit.

And since, and in her dissent at the time, Justice Ginsburg wrote that,

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