Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg doesn’t plan on retiring for at least another five years, according to CNN.
The 85-year-old spoke on Sunday following a production of “The Originalist,” a play about her former colleague and trusted friend Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. Speculation about Ginsburg’s potential retirement has been swirling for years, and has only intensified since Justice Anthony Kennedy stepped down earlier this summer, giving President Donald Trump the opportunity to nominate a second Supreme Court justice.
Ginsburg, who will be the subject of her own biopic later this year, said she was taking a page out of Justice John Paul Stevens’s book. He stepped down at the age of 90 in 2010. “I’m now 85,” she said, explaining “My senior colleague, Justice John Paul Stevens, he stepped down when he was 90, so I think I have about at least five more years.”
That timeline will please liberals, who worry that Trump is already turning the court conservative for a generation with his two nominees; a chance to nominate a third justice would veer it even more to the right. If Ginsburg serves another five years, she’d see the conclusion of Trump’s first term, and any additional years could see her tenure surpass Trump’s eligibility to be in office.
Trump’s latest nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, faces a fierce battle to get confirmed. Democrats in Congress have been trying to delay a vote on his nomination until after the midterm elections.