Knowing when to call it quits takes courage and confidence - 3 case studies
Published in News & Features
It was time for someone else to have a turn.
As one of us recounts in his book, “A Supreme Court Unlike Any Other: The Deepening Divide Between the Justices and the People,” President Barack Obama invited Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for a private lunch at the White House in the summer of 2013.
Obama wanted to nudge Ginsburg into retirement. The 80-year-old justice was a two-time survivor of pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest of all cancers. She had already served on the high court for two decades and had carved out a legacy as a staunch liberal and champion of women’s equality.
Additionally, Obama was concerned about the upcoming midterm elections. If the Democrats lost the Senate, he would not be able to replace her with a like-minded justice, because a GOP-run Senate would not confirm such a nominee.
Ginsburg didn’t take Obama’s hint.
Soon after the lunch, she noted, “I think one should stay as long as she can do the job.” She added shortly after, “There will be a president after this one, and I’m hopeful that that president will be a fine president.”
That next president was Donald Trump.
Ginsburg died in mid-September 2020, just weeks before Joe Biden would oust Trump from the White House. But significantly, Trump had sufficient time to fill Ginsburg’s seat with the conservative Amy Coney Barrett.
In 2022, Barrett provided the fifth and decisive vote in the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade’s federal protection of abortion rights.
Deciding when to step away or stay may have deep consequences in the political world.
...continued
Comments