Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has carried on a notable (and adorable) bromance with the current president, has hopes about his successor. In an interview with the Associated Press, Ginsburg discussed the future of the Supreme Court, including how the next president will shape the bench.
“It’s likely that the next president, whoever she will be, will have a few appointments to make,” Ginsburg told the AP “with a smile,” referencing Antonin Scalia’s death and the fact that she and two other justices are in their late 70s or 80s. She then said outright that she’s assuming Hillary Clinton will be the next president, and that either Judge Merrick Garland (who Republicans have so far refused to grant a hearing) or a Clinton nominee will take Scalia’s place.
Asked what would happen if Donald Trump won the presidency instead, Ginsburg said, “I don’t want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs.”
She also explained her decision to write a concurring opinion in the case in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Texas bill restricting abortion clinics, HB2, was unconstitutional. “It is beyond rational belief that HB2 could genuinely protect the health of women,” she wrote at the time. “Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers laws like HB2 that do little or nothing for health, but rather strew impediments to abortion, cannot survive judicial inspection.”
