DCCHS Oral History of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The D.C. Circuit Historical Society has just released the Oral History of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals from 1980-1993. The oral history consists of eight interviews conducted by Dr. Maeva Marcus. By agreement, the interviews were not to be released until five years after Justice Ginsburg’s death (or ten years after her judicial service ended).

I have not yet had the chance to go through all of the interviews, but did notice this tidbit in the last interview, from 2014.

Dr. Marcus: Is there much place for discussion other than in conference?

Justice Ginsburg: It’s up to the Justices. There can be as much or as little as they want. The conference is concise. Let me explain the difference between when we get
together and when we don’t. The dissenters had no time to get together in Bush v. Gore, so there were four separate dissents, vastly confusing to the press. In the Affordable Care Act case and the Voting Rights Act case, we had time to meet together and discuss what the dissenting opinion should include. After the discussion, I asked my colleagues on the dissent side if they had anything they particularly wanted me to cover, please send me a memo. It’s not often that that will happen for the majority opinion, because people agree on the main lines of the opinion at conference. But
yes. Discussion continues after the conference. When a draft opinion is circulated, the Justices are more active than court of appeals judges in suggesting changes. Whoever circulates the first opinion in October knows that her colleagues will weigh in on it, sometimes heavily. But by April, people are so busy with the opinions they’re writing themselves, they have less time to comment on a colleague’s opinion. The chances of having your opinion released just as you wrote it are much better in April than in October.

Dr. Marcus: If you get to assign the opinion, you can override such a thing?

Justice Ginsburg: I have never assigned a majority opinion. Now I’ve succeeded to Justice Stevens’ job in assigning dissenting opinions. He assigned most of them to himself. The other dissenters agreed that in the healthcare case and Hobby Lobby, as the senior of the four of us, I should write the dissent.

Former FCC Chair Ajit Pai highlights several other tidbits from the interviews in this Twitter thread.

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