The prospect of appointing a Supreme Court justice so close to a presidential election has roiled political discourse. Is such a move unprecedented? Is it even possible? Here are the facts you need to know. Background Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, just 46 days before the presidential election on November 3. President Donald Trump has said he will fill the vacancy, “most likely” with a female, naming his nominee at a press conference on Saturday...

It is extremely mon for me to read anything published by Glamour. In 2018, however, a first-person profile by Clara Spera caught my attention. Spera, a Harvard-trained attorney, shared with readers a personal portrait of her grandmother, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Over the course of the last several months as Justice Ginsburg’s health began to fade more rapidly, and then again last week when news of her death was announced, I remembered this article and the humane sincerity...

President Donald Trump has decided to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just weeks before the 2020 election. Does he have the legal and constitutional power to do so? What if he loses the election? What have other presidents done? And what about the “Biden” or “Thurmond” Rule? Here are the facts you need to know. Does the president have the power to appoint a Supreme Court justice in his final...

In recognition of Gregory M. Collins’ outstanding research in the fields of ethics, politics and economics, the Acton Institute will be awarding him the 2020 Novak Award. Gregory M. Collins is a postdoctoral associate and lecturer in the program on ethics, politics, and economics at Yale University. His book on Edmund Burke’s economic thought,Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke’s Political Economy, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020 and has already garnered significant attention inside and outside the munity....

President Donald Trump has nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. The 48-year-old will fill the seat left vacant by the death of 87-year-old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18. President Trump called Barrett “a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution,” as he introduced hthe nominee in a ceremony in the White House’s Rose Garden at 5 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. He reminded the nation of the impact a...

This week, Alejandro Chafuen – the Acton Institute’s Managing Director, International – reflects in Forbes about parisons between Sweden’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and that of other countries. Sweden has been held up as a model by those who favor less exacting responses to the coronavirus and condemned by those who advocate for more severe measures. parison and data suggest that it is too early to hand down a judgment one way or the other, and his verdict is...

After some delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the newest issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality is live on our website here. Print issues should be in the mail to subscribers sometime in the next few weeks. This issue marks the final issue for executive editor and longtime Acton research fellow Dr. Kevin Schmiesing. In his editorial to the issue, he highlights the perennial difficulty plex and important ideas: Spoken or written language is of course the medium...

This year Yom Kippur begins at sundown on Sunday, September 27, and lasts until sundown on Monday, September 28. Here are the facts you need to know about the holiest of Jewish holidays. What is Yom Kippur? Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day in Judaism. es 10 days after the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. Together, they are known as the “High Holy Days,” “Days of Awe” (Yamim Noraim), or “Days of Repentance.” It is traditionally...

With fusionism – the strategic alliance of conservative foreign policy hawks, social conservatives and economic libertarians knitted together in the last half of the 20th century in opposition to munism – crumbling after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the modern conservative movement has been remaking itself in effort to address the problems of the current day. One of these seemingly ascendant factions are the mon good conservatives. In an article in the October 2020 edition of Reason magazine, managing...

Given the recent passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, public conversation has swirled with speculation about President Donald Trump’s list of potential replacements. Leading the pack is Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a circuit judge and former Notre Dame law professor, who has attracted significant heat from progressives due to her devout Catholicism, pro-life beliefs, and fondness for originalism. Beginning with Sen. Diane Feinstein’s concern that Barrett’s Roman Catholic “dogma lives loudly within her” – expressed during her confirmation...