The Supreme Court balance

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is one tough cookie.   At 81, she works out regularly with a trainer at a gym, doing elipticals and weights.   She has survived both colorectal and pancreatic cancers.   And just last week, she was briefly hospitalized to have one of her coronary arteries propped open with a stent.

She was back at her desk at the court on Monday.

The current balance of SCOTUS is 5 conservatives and 4 liberals, with conservative Anthony Kennedy the sometimes swing vote.   But, considering my blog yesterday about the near vanishing chances that a Republican can win the presidency in 2016, it looks like a good bet that we will have a Democrat in the White House for the next 10 years  (2 more for Obama, then 8 for Clinton).

So, by the end of that second Clinton term, Ginsburg will be 91.   Scalia and Kennedy will both be 88 and Breyer will by 86.

Let's be realistically optimistic:   much better than a 50/50 chance that a Democratic president will replace at least two of those four --  and perhaps a 50/50 chance that the senate will shift back to Democratic control (easier confirmations).    So it seems a safe bet that we can expect a shift -- at a minimum -- to a 5-4 liberal advantage.   And it could be better than that.

Don't count unhatched chickens, of course.  If a Republican beats Hillary (perish the thought), then it could go the other way to a solid 6-3 conservative balance.    But . . . our dark days may be short-lived.

Ralph