Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is recovering from cancer, will be absent from the bench on Monday — the first time in her quarter century on the Supreme Court she has missed an oral argument.
Ginsburg, 85, underwent surgery last month to remove two malignant nodules from her left lung and has since been recuperating at home. She was discharged from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York on Christmas.
Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Ginsburg continues to recuperate from her cancer surgery and is working from home. The justices are scheduled to hear arguments in two cases Monday.
The cancerous growths on Ginsburg’s lung were discovered after she underwent testing after she fell and fractured three ribs in November. Ginsburg’s surgeon said last month while the nodules were malignant, there was “no evidence of any remaining disease” following her surgery.
Ginsburg was nominated to the Supreme Court by former President Bill Clinton in 1993 and recently celebrated her 25th anniversary on the high court. She had two previous bouts with cancer — in 1999, Ginsburg was treated for colon cancer, and in 2009, she was treated for pancreatic cancer.
Ginsburg is the senior member and anchor of the liberal voting bloc on the court, which has grown smaller the past couple of years through two appointments by President Trump. Her pre-Supreme Court career is the subject of a new film, “On the Basis of Sex,” and a CNN documentary, “RBG.”
At 85, Ginsburg is the oldest member of the court, though she has indicated she has no intention of retiring.
“As long as I can do the job full steam, I will do it,” Ginsburg said during an event last year.
However, if Ginsburg were to step down and the Senate confirm a third nominee from Trump, he would be the first president to have appointed three justices since former President Ronald Reagan, who named four justices to the Supreme Court.
If Ginsburg were to leave the court in the near future, she would not be the oldest justice to have done so. Justices John Paul Stevens and Oliver Wendall Holmes retired at 90.
Among the most recent justices who have retired, Justice David Souter was 69 when he decided to leave the Supreme Court and Sandra Day O’Connor was 75.
The Supreme Court is currently made up of five justices who were nominated by Republican presidents and four nominated by Democratic presidents.
Trump has named two justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, to the court and has predicted he could nominate as many as four.
The addition of Kavanaugh, Trump’s most recent nominee, shifted the court’s ideological leanings decisively to the right and solidified a conservative majority.
