Top Republicans McConnell and McCarthy Snub Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Skip Ceremony Honoring Justice as She Lies in State

One week after her passing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is being honored Friday morning with a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda. Justice Ginsburg becomes the first woman and the first person of Jewish faith to lie in state in Statuary Hall.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi honored the beloved jurist, and welcomed attendees come to pay their respects.

The casket of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is carried up the steps of the U.S. Capitol, past House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, where she will be the first woman to lie in state. https://t.co/FZh8qHi8MG pic.twitter.com/ESeiEsmSbb

— ABC News (@ABC) September 25, 2020

Conspicuous in their absence are the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California.

“Normally, a ceremony of this magnitude is a bipartisan affair where the so-called Big Four (w Pelosi & Schumer) present a united front,” NBC News’ Peter Alexander observed.

MSNBC’s Chris Jansing called it “remarkable for a ceremony of this magnitude to be missing two top congressional leaders.”

Today’s ceremony comes just one day before President Donald Trump will announce his nominee to sit in the chair Ginsburg held for 27 years. By most accounts he will nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a far right wing religious extremist who has made clear she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and void the Affordable Care Act.

One Capitol Hill staffer notes McConnell’s office “is on the same floor, just a few hundred feet from the rotunda where this ceremony is occurring.”

The more I think about this, more irate I become. Please tell your family, friends & neighbors about their snub. This storyline must be reported nationwide. #RBG honorably & publically served our nation for 40 years. This isn’t about party. This is about what is right.

— Chris Schloesser (@TheSchlewis) September 25, 2020

NBC News’ David Gura notes:

A woman is lying in state in the United States Capitol for the first time in American history, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy decided not to attend her memorial.

— David Gura (@davidgura) September 25, 2020

On social media some called the Republicans’ snub of Justice Ginsburg anti-Semitic. Others called it political and lamented the end of bipartisanship.