Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg doesn’t have plans to leave the Supreme Court any time soon. In an interview with CNN on Sunday, she said she hopes to stay on until she’s 90.
“I’m now 85,” Ginsburg said. “My senior colleague, Justice John Paul Stevens, he stepped down when he was 90, so think I have about at least five more years.”
According to CNN, Ginsburg has already hired law clerks for at least two more terms. She’s currently in her 25th year of serving on the Supreme Court — just under a decade shy of William O. Douglas, who served for a record 36 years.
Also on Sunday, the justice spoke to a crowd in New York after a production of “The Originalist,” a play about the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
“If I had my choice of dissenters when I was writing for the court, it would be Justice Scalia,” Ginsburg said, because debating helped her prepare and form her arguments. “Sometimes it was like a ping-pong game.”
Ginsburg’s intention to stay on the Supreme Court until she’s 90 sparked a few different responses on social media — including offers of organs.
is there a way to change my organ donor status to “please give Ruth Bader Ginsburg dibs on these?”
— Kat Turk (@turkish_gothic) July 30, 2018
Ruth Bader Ginsburg can have one of my kidneys, I’m not using it
— Molly (@Molly_Kats) July 30, 2018
i will literally give ruth bader ginsburg years of my life
— marcel the shell™ (@itsmemarcel_) July 30, 2018
Others, however, thought that Ginsburg’s attempts to stay on the Court until she’s almost physically unable are why term limits should be set.
The law is so imbalanced in the highest court in the land when people are celebrating an octogenarian “holding on” for five more years when SCOTUS judges should have set term limits. #ruthbaderginsburg
— Not Your Woke Bae (@josephlboston) July 30, 2018
Ruth Bader Ginsburg may stay on the court until she is 90. I would say this about a conservative justice as much as a liberal justice: This isn’t how a judicial system in a democracy should operate. https://t.co/msjp4n5y0E
— Alex Berezow (@AlexBerezow) July 30, 2018
Ginsburg weighed in on the idea on Sunday, ruling it out for the most part.
“You can’t set term limits, because to do that you’d have to amend the Constitution,” Ginsburg said. “Article 3 says … we hold our offices during good behavior.”
She followed up with a laugh, “And most judges are very well behaved.”