Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a long-serving Supreme Court Justice who has survived several bouts with cancer, has announced another resurgence of cancer. Ginsburg, 87, has announced that she is undergoing chemotherapy to keep the disease under control. In an official statement, she notes that her cancer is responding well to the treatments.
In spite of the disease, she announced that she will be able to maintain her post on the Supreme Court. This is hardly the first time Ginsburg has fought through illness to stay active in the Supreme Court. The famously tough justice heard arguments from the hospital in April when she was undergoing surgery to remove a benign tumor.
Ginsburg’s ongoing battles with cancer are of much interest in the political sphere. While no one hopes for her to fall ill, the prospect of President Donald Trump nominating an historic third justice to the court could be massive. Currently, five of the nine justices were nominated by conservative presidents. A sixth justice entering the court could be a massive shift in the court’s makeup.
As it stands, Chief Justice John Roberts often rules in favor of progressive cases that have to do with sexuality, race and gender. However, he rules in favor of conservative cases when topics focus on religion. As such, he has been the tie-breaking vote on many major cases this session alone, often siding with the court’s liberal wing on massive decisions.
In recent months, President Trump has clashed openly with the court, including with a justice he nominated. An historic case relating to the Civil Rights Act was decided in favor of LGBT workers this session. The case was decided 6-3, with Justices John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, ruling against the Trump administration.
In the case, the court found that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act does protect LGBT workers from discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender. Gorsuch applied his trademark textualist approach to the exact wording of the original law when judging the case. Roberts, on the same token, has ruled in favor of cases concerning DACA, siding against the president’s administration.
Later in the session, the court wholly dismissed the president’s claims to widespread immunity to Congressional oversight. This bumped cases relating to the president’s finances back to the lower courts. This move incensed the president. So, he took to Twitter to vent his frustrations with justices he perceived as being disloyal.
