Commissioners touch on death of Ginsburg

Lincoln County Commissioner Mark Peck (D-1) paused to laud Ruth Bader Ginsberg just days after the U.S. Supreme Court justice’s passing.

“I admired her,” Peck said during the Sept. 23 meeting of the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners. “I didn’t agree with her on a lot of her positions, but I admired her.”

Ginsberg, who died Sept. 18 of cancer, had served as an associate justice on the high court for 27 years. Her casket was on public display in the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., earlier this week. Ginsberg will lie in state at the Capitol on Sept. 25.

A leading member of the liberal faction of the court, Ginsberg was more recently known as “the notorious RBG.” Her death, and the open seat it has left on the court so near to Election Day, has thrown Washington, D.C., into turmoil.

While praising Ginsberg, Peck offered a blunter assessment of the politicking surrounding the process to replace the justice.

“It kills me — it’s just so obvious. The American people on both sides of this thing are just like salmon,” Peck said, referring to the switch in positions both major parties have made in whether to confirm a new justice in an election year.

“Guys, they’re all full of B.S,” Peck said of the politicians on either side of the aisle.

After Peck highlighted the friendship Ginsburg shared with former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was known as one of the court’s most staunch conservatives before his 2016 death, County Commissioner Jerry Bennett (D-2) praised the political odd-couple.

“I think our politicians could learn a lot from [a relationship] like that,” Bennett said.