Dinners With Ruth

The author admits that when a Supreme Court vacancy opened during President Clinton’s administration, she did not expect Ginsburg to be nominated as a potential Justice, partly because she was 60 years old, but also because some women’s groups felt she was too critical of the Roe v. Wade decision, which the Court had already made. Totenberg explains that while Ginsburg supported Roe in principle, she argued that abortion legalization should have passed with a case that provided better legal and political grounds. Totenberg claims that President Clinton was at first unsupportive of nominating Ginsburg due to the impression that women’s groups would be upset by the choice. Hearing this news through his friend Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Marty Ginsburg began canvassing support for Ginsburg’s nomination through his network of friends and acquaintances in the White House and Congress. After interviewing several other potential nominees, President Clinton asked to meet Ginsburg; later that day, he called to inform her that he would nominate her.

In her confirmation hearings, Ginsburg was confident and composed, and Totenberg claims that she was very responsive and honest about her interpretations of the law. Once Ginsburg was confirmed, Totenberg found it interesting to cover her cases on the Court but notes that they usually kept their professional lives separate from their friendship.