Nancy Pelosi Reveals Mitch McConnell Blocked Ruth Bader Ginsburg From Getting Capitol Rotunda Memorial

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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi revealed that Senator Mitch McConnell blocked a plan for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg from lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda following her death.

In an excerpt from Susan Page’s upcoming book “Madam Speaker,” Speaker Pelosi expresses some tough sentiments about the current Senate minority leader and reveals the debate over the handling of RBG’s memorial. From Punchbowl:

“Mitch McConnell is not a force for good in our country,” Pelosi told me. “He is an enabler of some of the worst stuff, and an instigator of some of it on his own.” The two congressional leaders had never had a particularly good relationship. Now there was bitterness from a new dispute between them, one not reported at the time. When Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September, Pelosi proposed that the groundbreaking feminist lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. She would have been the first woman in history to be so honored.

McConnell rejected the idea on the grounds that there was no precedent for such treatment of a justice. When William Howard Taft had lain in state in 1930, he had been not only the chief justice but also president, McConnell noted.

He wasn’t swayed by the argument that Ginsburg had achieved an iconic status in American culture, especially for women and girls. McConnell’s refusal meant that Ginsburg’s flag-draped coffin was placed not in the Rotunda, which connects the House and Senate, but in Statuary Hall, on the House side.

McConnell and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy didn’t accept invitations to attend the service for her.

Following RBG’s death, McConnell led the effort to rush through the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in a matter of weeks, shortly before the 2020 presidential election.

Page’s book will be released on April 20.