WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the oldest justice, will celebrate her 80th birthday on Friday, March 15.
She tells The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin that she plans to remain on the court at least another 18 months, which would take her through the end of the court’s next term in summer 2014.
After that, she said, “Who knows?” It all depends on her health, she said.
Four years ago, Ginsburg had surgery for pancreatic cancer and underwent a course of chemotherapy.
She has not missed any time on the bench and has traveled and spoken widely since then.
Her comments were roughly in line with her often-stated desire to serve as long as Louis Brandeis, the court’s first Jewish justice, who retired at the age of 82 after 22 years on the court. Ginsburg, who also is Jewish, would reach those milestones in 2015.
That year also might be the last one in which President Barack Obama can expect the Senate to confirm a high court nominee. 2016 is the year in which the nation will choose Obama’s successor.
Filling a Supreme Court vacancy in an election year can be tricky business, with the party that does not hold the White House preferring to delay in the hope that a like-minded president will be elected.
Ginsburg, named to the court in 1993 by Democratic President Bill Clinton, acknowledged in The New Yorker interview that who sits in the Oval Office is a factor in the timing of justices’ retirements.
The court’s other birthday this week belongs to Justice Antonin Scalia, who turned 77 on March 11.
He is the court’s longest-serving justice, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, in 1986.
It’s a safe bet that Scalia will not choose to retire while Obama is president.
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