#NotoriousRBG #RuthBaderGinsburg #Feminist
This is pretty great!
Supreme Court justices aren’t supposed to be political actors, and they aren’t supposed to time their retirements to ensure they are replaced with a like-minded justice.
But Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s latest comment about when she will retire is almost impossible to separate from politics. Indeed, it almost seems to send a concerted signal to liberals not to worry about her handing President Trump another Supreme Court vacancy.
“I’m now 85,” Ginsburg said, according to CNN. “My senior colleague Justice John Paul Stevens, he stepped down when he was 90. So think I have about at least five more years.”
This is a message that understandably cheered liberals. While Neil Gorsuch was the appetizer for conservatives, and Brett Kavanaugh would be the first course, a Ginsburg vacancy would be the feast. Unlike Trump’s first two nominations to replace GOP appointees, replacing her with a conservative justice would clearly and unmistakably solidify the right’s hold on the nation’s highest court for years — and possibly decades. And given that Ginsburg is the court’s oldest member at 85, it’s a possibility that can’t be ignored.
But with one quote, Ginsburg set the goal posts for her retirement in a suspiciously convenient place for liberals: when Trump probably won’t be able to pick her replacement.
Five years from now puts us in late July 2023. That could still be during Trump’s presidency, if he’s reelected in 2020. But Ginsburg doesn’t say only five years; she says “about at least five more years.” That sounds as if she’s shooting for 2024.
~ From Youtube
