Justice Ginsburg Explains Why She Won't Retire Just Yet

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the oldest member of the Court, spoke to Bloomberg News and trumpeted her own achievements. She did this while stating she has no desire to step down so that Barack Obama can make certain her space on the Court will be filled by a liberal for the foreseeable future.

Ginsburg understands that moving the Court to the left incrementally is less likely to invite fierce opposition. She lauded the Court for its steps encouraging the growth of gay rights in two recent cases, asserting that a step-by-step approach was better than simply declaring a constitutional right for same-sex marriage. She said, “The court handled both of those cases just the way they should have,” adding that she believes the court moved too fast in Roe v. Wade.

Ginsburg asserted that despite bouts with pancreatic cancer and colon cancer, she will not step down amid fears that the next president would appoint a conservative. She said, “I’m hopeful about the next president.”

A huge fan of Barack Obama, she said he took a “brave” step by pushing for Obamacare.

She had unkind words for the conservative justices on the Court, citing the 2010 Citizens United ruling. She said:

You take the limits off and say, “You can spend as much as you want,” and people will spend and spend. People are appalled abroad. It’s a question I get asked all the time: Why should elections be determined by how much a candidate can spend and why should candidates spend most of their time these days raising the funds so that they will prevail in the next election?

Ginsburg was the only dissenter in the affirmative action case that ordered a lower court to monitor more closely a University of Texas admission policy that used race as a factor.

She boasted of her celerity in writing opinions, stating that when she wrote the majority opinion in cases before the Court, she wrote them more quickly than the other justices, adding, “As long as I can do this job full steam, I’d like to do it. But at my age you have to go year by year. So last year I thought I was fine.”

She concluded, “Do I think there should be mandatory retirement? I certainly do not.”