Justice Ginsburg Resists Pressure to Resign While Obama is Still President

Some of the left fear a Republican president will name her successor

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Tuesday that Supreme Court justices should work as long as they can and shouldn't manipulate their retirement so a like-minded president can appoint their successor.

Some liberals have recently called on the 80-year-old Ginsburg to retire so that President Barack Obama can choose her replacement. If she stays beyond his term, it would leave open the possibility that a Republican would name the liberal justice's successor.

But Ginsburg, the oldest justice on the court, cited Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall as two justices appointed by Democratic presidents who left their replacement to Republican successor presidents. Ginsburg said she supposed many people wanted both men to leave when a Democrat was president, but she noted that neither did.

Brennan was appointed by Dwight D. Eisenhower and announced his retirement in 1990 at the age of 84 for health reasons. Marshall retired in 1991 at the age of 82. George H.W. Bush chose David Souter and Clarence Thomas as their respective successors.