Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lives up to her "Notorious R.B.G." nickname in a new interview with Elle magazine.
The 81-year-old still has no plans to retire, and in the interview, she dismissed calls for her to step down to make room for President Obama to pick her replacement as “misguided.”
“Who do you think President Obama could appoint at this very day, given the boundaries that we have? If I resign any time this year, he could not successfully appoint anyone I would like to see in the court,” Ginsburg told writer Jessica Weisberg. “[The Senate Republicans] took off the filibuster for lower federal court appointments, but it remains for this court.”
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Yet another one of Obama’s judicial nominees, conservative Georgia Democrat Michael Boggs, ran into a dead end this week. Boggs was selected as part of a deal between Obama and Georgia’s Republican Senators, and progressives in Congress and advocates for LGBT and womens’ rights fiercely opposed his nomination.
Ginsburg was also clear about who she thinks is to blame for the gap between judicial rulings on women’s rights and gay rights. “To be frank, it’s one person who made the difference: Justice [Anthony] Kennedy. He was a member of the triumvirate used to [reaffirm] Roe v. Wade in the Casey case, but since then, his decisions have been on upholding restrictions on access to abortion,” Ginsburg said.
This term, the Supreme Court will hear a case on pregnancy discrimination, and it could also decide to hear a challenge to state bans on same-sex marriage.