Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday, at the age of 87, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah,

the Jewish New Year.

She spent 27 years solidifying her place in history as an associate justice of the United

States Supreme Court.

I am proud to nominate this path-breaking attorney, advocate and judge, to be the 107th

Justice to the United States Supreme Court.

It was June of 1993, when President Bill Clinton stood in the Rose Garden to introduce his

nominee.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg would become the second woman to join the country's highest court,

following Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981, and the court's first Jewish woman justice.

The announcement the President just made is significant, I believe, because it contributes

to the end of the days when women, at least half the talent pool in our society, appear

in high places only as one at a time performers.

As she accepted the nomination, Ruth Bader Ginsburg dedicated the moment to her mother,

who died just as Ginsburg was graduating high school.

I pray that I may be all that she would have been had she lived in an age when women could

aspire and achieve, and daughters are cherished, as much as sons.

And in her Senate confirmation hearings, she passionately defended women's rights, including

the rights when abortion.

This is something central to a woman's life, to her dignity.

It's a decision that she must make for herself.

For Justice Ginsburg, the fight for women's rights was lived.

...