Ginsburg: Congress ‘not equipped’ to do anything

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is lamenting increasing partisanship in Congress that she says makes it harder to address important civil rights issues.

{mosads}“The current Congress is not equipped really to do anything, so the kind of result that we got in the Ledbetter case is not easily achieved today,” she said during an interview that aired late Monday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” mentioning how Congress passed laws expanding equal pay for women after the Lilly Ledbetter Supreme Court case.

“Someday, we will go back to having the kind of legislature that we should, where members, whatever party they belong to, want to make the thing work and cooperate with each other, with each other to see that that will happen,” she added.

Ginsburg’s interview also touched on gender equality, abortion rights, and the 81-year-old justice’s health. She’s had two bouts with cancer and needed a stent put into her heart last Thanksgiving, but has said she’ll remain on the bench as long as she can go “full steam.”

In the interview, she defended abortion rights as a number of states pass laws restricting the practice. Ginsburg said those state laws only hurt poor women, which she called a “crying shame.”

“We will never see a day when women of means are not able to get a safe abortion in this country,” she said.

“The situation with abortion right now, with all the restrictions, they operate against the woman that does not have freedom to move to go where she is able to get safely what she wants.”

She also addressed U.S. race relations, as tensions continue to simmer after grand juries declined to indict two white police officers in New York and Missouri in the deaths of unarmed black men.

“People who think you could wave a magic wand and the legacy of the past will be over are blind,” she said.

“So again, we’ve come a long way from the days where there was state enforced segregation. But we still have a way to go.”

Ginsburg penned a strong dissent in the court’s 2013 case that struck down a piece of the Voting Rights Act. That measure previously determined which areas must clear any voting law changes by the Justice Department before enactment to be sure the policy didn’t impact minority voting rights.

The interview also touched on lighter topics, including the recent fuss over her comments to Bloomberg that she hadn’t been completely sober during January’s State of the Union address.

“What I meant was that I had a glass of wine with dinner,” she said, laughing and adding that she stayed up the previous night writing.

She’s also been caught nodding off during previous addresses. Former Justice David Souter would pinch her when he noticed her head begin to slip. Now, Justices Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy do the honors.

“One of the difficulties at the State of the Union, everybody’s bobbing up and down all around us. And we have to sit there stone sober and not stand up and clap,” she said.

“So it’s an ordeal for me.”

“And I did get, immediately after the State of the Union, a call from my granddaughter, who said, ‘Grammy, you looked sleepy.’ ”