The thought of retirement is on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's mind, she told The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin in an interview for an upcoming profile. But while she's clearly contemplating the timing of her departure, the 79-year-old cancer survivor says she won't be going anywhere just yet.
"There will come a point when I -- It's not this year. You can never tell when you're my age," Ginsburg said. "But, as long as I think I have the candlepower, I will do it. And I figure next year for certain. After that, who knows?"
Ginsburg will turn 80 later this month, and despite battling through two bouts of cancer, has never missed a day on the bench in her nearly 20 years of service. She's maintained that she won't step aside as long as her health allows her to serve to the fullest ability.
“I will stay in this job as long as I can do it full steam,” Ginsburg said last month during a speech before the San Diego Association of Business Trial Lawyers. She repeated this pledge to Toobin.
One of the court's four liberal-leaning justices, Ginsburg also told Toobin that the party of the president would play into her decision about stepping down, perhaps suggesting that she'd retire at some point during President Barack Obama's second term.
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