Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg does not have plans to step down from the nation’s highest court anytime soon.
During an event in New York City on Sunday, Ginsburg said she has “at least five more years” to serve on the Supreme Court, according to CNN. The justice spoke with director Molly Smith following a performance of “The Originalist,” an Off-Broadway show about her former colleague, Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016.
“I’m now 85,” Ginsburg said, per CNN. “My senior colleague, Justice John Paul Stevens, he stepped down when he was 90, so think I have about at least five more years.”
Focus on Ginsburg’s plans came into sharp view last month when Justice Anthony Kennedy, often considered a swing vote on the increasingly conservative bench, announced his retirement. His departure after 30 years of service gave President Donald Trump the opportunity to nominate Brett Kavanaugh, a jurist who could further cement the court’s right-wing leanings and shape the bench for decades. According to Axios, Trump has privately predicted Ginsburg would be one of four judges he plans to replace during his first term in office.
Republicans are seeking to confirm Kavanaugh before the midterm elections. Democrats are fighting for a lengthier confirmation process.
Last year, Trump nominated conservative judge Neil Gorsuch to fill Scalia’s vacant seat.
Ginsburg, a barrier-breaking liberal icon, is the focus of a documentary currently in theaters titled “RBG.” Though she differed ideologically from Scalia, one of the court’s most conservative judges, she enjoyed a close friendship with her former colleague.
“I miss the challenges and the laughter he provoked, his pungent, eminently quotable opinions, so clearly stated that his words rarely slipped from the reader’s grasp,” Ginsburg said of Scalia a few months after his death. “The court is a paler place without him.”
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