Senator Roy Blunt (R-M.O.) announced that he would not seek a fourth term in the U.S. Senate when his current term ends in 2022. 

A host of Missouri Republicans expressed interest after Blunt’s exit from the race. Most prominently, former governor Eric Greitens, who resigned amid scandal in 2018, declared that he would run for the seat. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt also announced that he will enter the primary. U.S. Reps. Ann Wagner and Jason Smith have not ruled out a 2022 bid. 

On the Democratic side of the aisle, the race is more fluid. Two of the most prominent Missouri Democrats, former senator Claire McCaskill and former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander, quickly made clear they would not run. 

State senator Brian Williams, former state senator Scott Sifton and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas are among those who have signaled interest in seeking the Democratic nomination. 

Blunt’s announcement comes amid a wave of retirements among senior Senate Republicans. Senators Portman (R-Ohio), Toomey (R-Penn.), Burr (R-N.C.) and Shelby (R-Ala.) also announced that they will retire in 2022 rather than seeking another term. Widespread speculation persists that Sens. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) may retire as well. 

These retirements complicate the map in the battle for Senate control in 2022. With both parties holding 50 seats, even a single seat change can be enough to flip control of the Senate. Though Missouri has swung to the right in the last decade, and Trump won it by more than 15 points, open seats are generally viewed as more competitive than seats held by incumbents. 

Moreover, there have been concerns that 2020 could repeat the volatile 2010 and 2012 Senate Republican primaries. In those cycles, Tea Party favored candidates won Republican primaries against more moderate candidates in multiple races, including Missouri. These more polarizing candidates allowed embattled Democratic incumbents to secure unlikely victories even in Republican-leaning states as Claire McCaskill did in 2012. 

Blunt’s retirement certainly sets the stage for a more turbulent Senate race in Missouri than previously expected.

TikTok goes through phases of obsession. One day the trending video is a catchy dance and the next it’s dalgona coffee. Recently, the obsession has moved to Jon Ossoff. One such TikTok had the caption of “Suddenly I love watching daily Senate debates #jonossoff.” The video itself shows Ossoff walking across the Senate room floor. Another video, posted by @simpforjonossoff, depicts Ossoff dancing with a fast-food worker. Another, with 1.1 Million likes, shows Ossoff winking at the camera during his swearing-in with the caption “mr. senator.” Another shows a girl who says, “When I say I’m bisexual, that means I like women and Jon Ossoff. My man, congrats on your win. My DMs are open.” So who exactly is the man behind this internet simp fest?

A Georgia native, Jon Ossoff ran for the Senate during the 2020 presidential election. Ossoff’s website presents his stances on several different policies. 

A statement on the website which sums up his political stances states, “I am fighting for great health care for every American with a strong Public Option and strengthened Affordable Care Act, to defend Medicare and Social Security, for historic investment in clean energy and infrastructure, to lower taxes for working families and small businesses, to defend Roe V. Wade and the privacy of women’s health care, to enact major criminal justice reform, to get dark money out of politics and end Citizens United.” 

The 2020 Senate race was an extremely important one. After the election, the 100 Senate seats are split 50/50 between the Democrats and Republicans. Jon Ossoff was the last Senator confirmed to the Senate. His confirmation came as a relief for the Democrats and a disappointment for the Republicans. 

Now, Vice President Kamala Harris is the tie-breaker in the Senate, thanks to Jon Ossoff’s election. His internet fanbase rallied behind him the whole time, a new wave of videos surfacing after news of his election.

Still to this day, TikTok shows its appreciation for Jon Ossoff after every Senate hearing he appears at.

On Aug. 18, the United States experienced a tremendous loss. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a feminist icon, key leader in the legal fight for women’s rights since the 1970s and a jurisprudential giant, died at age 87. Her death is unleashing a new fierce battle in an already badly divided country and renewing criticism of the Supreme Court structure. 

Nominated by President Bill Clinton and confirmed to the Court in 1993, Ginsburg served on the Supreme Court for 27 years, emerging as a leader of the Court’s liberal wing and amassing a devoted following around the country.

Yet, scarcely had word rippled out about the justice’s death when Washington began gearing up for a fraught political fight about filling Ginsburg’s seat.

President Trump tweeted out the same night that he intended to nominate a successor, throwing the country’s rapt attention to the Senate.

Democratic lawmakers, immediately recalling Senate Republicans’ treatment of President Obama’s nominee for Justice Scalia’s successor in 2016, began clamoring for their Senate colleagues to honor the new precedent they had established. Senate Republicans refused to conduct confirmation hearings for Garland more than eight months before the 2016 election, frequently citing the nearness of the election as the reason. 

Meanwhile, GOP leaders pivoted from the Garland case to the longer history of the Senate where there has been a history of the Senate confirming a Supreme Court justice in an election year.  

Given the current disposition of the Senate, if the Democratic Caucus and the Independents that caucus with them were to collectively oppose the nomination, four Republican Senators would have to defect in order to stall confirmation until after the presidential inauguration. 

Though the immediate question is who should name Justice Ginsburg’s successor, that question was effectively answered when Senator Romney (R-Utah), a potential defector, came out in favor of President Trump’s right to nominate a successor. 

Given the nearly unified stance the Senate Republican Caucus has taken on the issue, it is exceedingly improbable that the seat will go unfilled until after the next inauguration. 

The real question, then, is one over the Supreme Court selection process itself, which inspires nearly universal discontent. 

The fact that the country had to pivot to this fight with hardly a moment to simply mourn Justice Ginsburg and pay tribute to her many accomplishments is an egregious example of the brokenness of the Supreme Court nomination process.  

On the Left, this discontent was vividly on display in the days following Ginsburg’s death. Tributes for Ginsburg, celebrating all the causes she fought for and the advances she helped wrought were mingled with profound dread as to who President Trump and Senate Republicans would tap to replace her.  

This dread is not limited to the liberals, however. Republicans who are eager to solidify the conservative tilt of the high court should recall their initial fears when Justice Scalia died during President Obama’s term. Fear of a Democratic President replacing the influential conservative is what led Senate Republicans to take the norm-shattering step of refusing confirmation hearings to Judge Garland. 

It is shameful that any period of mourning for Ginsburg was preempted and that, instead, those who celebrate the justice had to prepare for an intense political fight over her successor.

Even worse is word from Ginsburg’s family that the justice herself had to worry on her deathbed about the effect her passing would have on the U.S. Any reasonable observer should agree that a dying 87-year-old being concerned about the political impact of her death is an arresting illustration of a broken process. 

Yet, she did. And as her granddaughter has shared, Ginsburg’s dying wish was to not be replaced until after the next inauguration. A dying wish that Senator McConnell and President Trump could not wait even a full day before announcing their intent to trample upon.

Outrage at how Senate Republicans handled the Garland nomination and how they are planning on handling the new vacancy has given fresh vitality to the idea of expanding the Supreme Court if the Democrats win control of Congress and the White House after the 2020 election. 

While this idea has merit, particularly when progressives imagine a reactionary Court striking down critical and time-sensitive climate change legislation, it carries risks.

Expanding the Supreme Court risks Republicans retaliating the next time they regain power. Even if they do not, considering that the Supreme Court is an institution that depends upon the recognition of its legitimacy, expanding the Court will almost assuredly damage the Court’s legitimacy in the eyes of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents even more than the treatment of Garland harmed it in the eyes of progressives. 

Furthermore, influential party leaders including former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have explicitly opposed the idea in the past.  

There are alternatives to the country having to undergo a polarizing and traumatic fight every time a Supreme Court seat becomes vacant. 

Indeed, most of the world’s liberal democracies have effectively taken steps to prevent such fraught processes. No other major democracy grants their version of the Supreme Court justices lifetime appointment.

Germany, for example, appoints justices for a single nonrenewable twelve-year term. Through the still considerable length of the term and the non-renewability, this concept still preserves judicial independence while conferring several frequently cited benefits.  

First, it helps regularize the appointment process. Barring deaths or unexpected retirements, presidents would be assured a stable number of appointments. As it stands now, the number of seats a president has the opportunity to fill is capricious and irregular. In a single term President Carter named zero in the same time President Trump will, in all likelihood, have named three. 

Secondly, it would halt the process of justices clinging to their seats well into their seventies and eighties. Even with Ginsburg’s death, four of the Supreme Court justices are above the age of 70. There have been real concerns before about justices serving to an advanced age. 

After Justice William Douglas had a stroke but refused to retire, seven of the other justices privately agreed that they would postpone any case where Douglas would be the decisive vote. The risk of such ad hoc decisions being necessary would likely be significantly reduced if the Supreme Court had term limits. 

Democratic lawmakers in the House plan to introduce a bill that would establish term limits in the Supreme Court. Though there is a question about the constitutionality of such a plan, and almost assuredly, it will not be taken up by the Senate, it may provide a valuable roadmap for Democrats if they regain the Senate and the White House in 2020. 

In a campus-wide email sent April 9, William Jewell College’s Student Senate cabinet announced that Student Senate campaigning and elections would be postponed to the fall of 2020. In addition, Mario Magana, Jr., 2019-2020 Senate Vice President and sophomore business administration major, was named acting president pending the fall elections. 

Student Senate ceased operations following Jewell’s transition to online classes and closure of campus. Hannah Keeney, 2019-2020 Senate President and senior psychological science and Applied Critical Thought and Inquiry major, noted that virtual operation of Senate would be limited at best. Magana said the Student Senate cabinet has deferred much of their regular responsibilities to College administration but still remain active in virtual campus task forces.

“Although Student Senate is responsible for representing the student body, this is a circumstance where we must trust in school administration to make executive decisions for the good of the students, as well as maintain academic integrity,” Magana said. “However, Student Senate is made-up of students with valuable on campus connections. So, even if we have not formally contributed to policy proposals, our presence and voice is available to our task-groups and committees.” 

Keeney mentioned that the cessation of Senate operations cut some major initiatives short – particularly plans for a food pantry for students – but she remains optimistic that first-year, sophomore and junior senators will be able to implement the plans in the coming year. 

One final Senate meeting was held digitally following spring break. Decisions about postponement and the designation of Magana as acting president were made in conjunction with class senators and Senate’s staff advisors, Dean of Students Shelly King and Associate Dean of Students Ernie Stufflebean.

“I feel at home by taking on the role of President, but I definitely feel the added pressure of continuing my term through these difficult times. I always have the best in mind for my fellow Cardinals, so that part of me will make it easy to proceed. It’s also exciting as I see this as an opportunity to demonstrate more leadership on campus and familiarize myself further with the school’s operations. I am very honored to be able to assume such responsibilities, especially when it matters most,” Magana said.  

As far as his plans go for his tenure as acting president, Magana’s only plans for the remainder of the academic year are to check back in with senators for input about how the year has gone and any other concluding thoughts they may have. Then, over the summer, Magana plans to reach out to connect with students and listen to any questions and concerns they may have had while Senate operations were halted. When school starts again in August, Magana’s primary focus will be to head a fluid transition of Senate back into campus life. He has plans to prepare an outline of issues that a new cabinet can immediately address. 

As far as plans for the fall elections go, Magana is prioritizing the smooth, comfortable transition of students back to the flow of campus life. Once students get settled, which Magana estimates will take approximately two weeks, he will release a finalized election timeline and notify students that they may start assembling their cabinets. After a week-long campaigning period, voting will take place and the new cabinet will be announced. 

Magana added that, despite their presence on campus at the time of elections, the Class of 2024 will not be eligible to run for Student Senate cabinet.

“These are already uneasy times and the transition is complicated as is. For this all to be done properly, we need people who are familiar with the school, students, and campus life. Although, I do highly encourage incoming [first-years] to run for a class Senator position,” Magana said. 

As Magana looks to the future of Senate, senior Hannah Keeney looks back at the abrupt end to her tenure as Senate president. Keeney was invited to be a student representative on Jewell’s Emergency Task Force in response to COVID-19. At an initial meeting, she felt alarmed by the rapidity with which COVID-19 disrupted university operations worldwide. 

“[I]t was easy to see the writing on the wall. My gut told me when I left for Spring Break that I wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon. For that reason, I packed up most of my items and fit as much as I could in my car to take home permanently. While there are many angles to speak from in the ways that COVID-19 has [affected] my senior year – the Senate presidency was certainly one of the most devastating. I felt as though we had finally started to get our groove as a Senate body and were making progress in tiny – but important – improvements around campus. I am saddened to think about projects cut short but am hopeful some of them can be carried forward by the next Senate body,” Keeney said. 

In a final statement, Magana praised the College for its decision-making during the pandemic. 

“Ultimately, I think every decision made has been for the best. These times are difficult for a lot of people, and we could only wish things could be normal. In an ideal situation, everyone is on campus, graduation is as planned, and the year is what we want it to be. However, I think Jewell has reacted appropriately and with empathy. I am very proud to be able to represent the Student Body for the meantime and I am excited to see how we transition into better days,” Magana said. 

In Keeney’s final remarks, she emphasized her confidence in Magana to lead the student body during this transitional period. 

“Mario will do an excellent job in assisting in the cabinet transition and striving to remain objective during the process,” Keeney said.