Editor's Note: (Jeffrey Toobin is CNN's senior legal analyst and author of "The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.)
(CNN) Supreme Court justices, like everyone else, become more like themselves as they get older. That's the real lesson of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's recent series of partisan observations.
In a series of interviews over the past week, the 83-year-old Ginsburg let loose with several howitzers aimed at Donald Trump. Asked by a reporter from The Associated Press what would happen to the court if Trump could make nominations, she said, "I don't want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs."
Supreme Court issues in 2016
Texas abortion law: Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman's Health, gestures to the crowd as she and Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, walk down the steps of the Supreme Court in March. They challenged parts of a Texas law --
struck down by the Supreme Court in June -- that required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The law also mandated that clinics upgrade their facilities to hospital-like standards. Supporters of the law argued that it was meant to protect women's health, but opponents said it was instead a disguised attempt to end abortion and that women would find it harder to end a pregnancy legally.
Obama's immigration actions: Demonstrators gather for a pro-immigration rally outside the Supreme Court in January. In June,
the court was deadlocked on executive actions President Barack Obama imposed two years ago on immigration.
The actions, blocked from going forward in February 2015, were meant to enable millions of eligible undocumented immigrants to receive temporary relief from the threat of deportation. The immigrants would also be allowed to apply for programs that could qualify them for work authorization and associated benefits. June's ruling means that the programs will remain blocked and the issue will return to the lower court.
Obamacare contraception mandate: Catholic nuns from the Little Sisters of the Poor walk down the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court in March. The group was challenging the government's new health-care regulations. Lawyers for the nuns and other religious nonprofits told the court that the so-called contraceptive mandate forces these groups to either violate their religious beliefs or pay ruinous fines. The justices, in a unanimous decision in May,
sent the case back down to the lower courts for opposing parties to work out a compromise.
Affirmative action: Abigail Fisher, a Texas woman who challenged the use of race in college admissions, speaks to reporters outside the Supreme Court in December. That month, Supreme Court justices
appeared divided about a program at the University of Texas that takes race into consideration as one factor of admissions. In June, the court
upheld the program in a 4-3 ruling. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case, presumably because she dealt with it in her previous job as solicitor general.
Public-sector unions: Rebecca Friedrichs, lead plaintiff in the case Friedrichs v. the California Teachers Association, walks with lead counsel Michael Carvin after the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing arguments on the case in January. The ruling in March
was split 4-4, so the lower-court decision was affirmed in a victory for public-sector unions. At issue was whether non-members of a public-sector union could still be compelled to pay fees for collective bargaining that goes to issues such as wages and grievances.
Scalia's replacement: Obama joins his Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, in the Rose Garden of the White House in March. But Republicans
have vowed to block any replacement for Antonin Scalia until a new President takes office.
In an interview with The New York Times, she said, "I can't imagine what this place would be -- I can't imagine what the country would be -- with Donald Trump as our president," she said. "For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be -- I don't even want to contemplate that." She joked -- it seemed like a joke, anyway -- that she might move to New Zealand if Trump were to win.
She expanded on this in a CNN interview: "He is a faker...He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego. ... How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns? The press seems to be very gentle with him on that."
Ginsburg's judicial politics are no secret. She became famous as the leading lawyer of the feminist movement in the 1970s; as a litigator, she won some of the biggest women's rights cases in the Supreme Court. Since her appointment to the court by Bill Clinton, in 1993, she has been its leading liberal -- a fierce defender of women's rights, including abortion rights, and a supporter of affirmative action and the traditional civil rights agenda. Her integrity -- like her intelligence and her energy -- has been beyond reproach.
But traditionally, there's been a difference between judicial politics and partisan politics, at least as far as judges are concerned. Like all the justices, Ginsburg is expected to render decisions in line with her judicial ideology, that is, her understanding of how the Constitution should be interpreted. This matter of interpretive style is as much a political judgment as a legal one.
Female firsts in politics
Hillary Clinton, a former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state, claims her place in history on Tuesday, July 27, after becoming the Democratic Party's nominee for U.S. President. She would be the first woman in U.S. history to lead the ticket of a major political party.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the first woman to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. She was a leader of the suffragette movement along with Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony. She was also the editor of the feminist magazine "Revolution."
In 1916, Jeannette Rankin was the first woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. The Republican from Montana was the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. entry in both World War I and World War II.
Feminist reformer Victoria Claflin Woodhull was the first woman to run for U.S. President from a nationally recognized ticket. She was the candidate of the Equal Rights Party in 1872.
Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve as a member of the President's Cabinet. She was appointed labor secretary by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.
Shirley Chisholm, a Democrat from New York, was the first African-American woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She was elected in 1968.
Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. She was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
In 1984, Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman to run on a major party's national ticket. She was Walter Mondale's running mate.
U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Florida, was elected in 1989. She is the first Hispanic woman and Cuban-American to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Carol Moseley Braun, a Democrat from Illinois, was the first African-American woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate. She served from 1993 to 1999.
Dee Dee Myers was the first woman to serve as White House press secretary. She was appointed by President Bill Clinton and held the position from January 1993 to December 1994.
Madeleine Albright was the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state. She was appointed to the position by President Bill Clinton in 1997.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, is the first openly gay woman to be elected to Congress. She was elected to the House in 1999 and to the Senate in 2012.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, is the first woman to lead a party in Congress.
Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2009.
U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, is the first woman of color to serve in both chambers of Congress. Hirono was elected to the House in 2007 and to the Senate in 2012.
But electoral politics have long been off-limits for sitting judges, including justices. They are expected to refrain from telling us their opinions -- in part because they are expected to be above such considerations but also because they rule on cases that have a strong political content. And all presidents have lots of business before the Supreme Court.
The line between judicial politics and partisan politics can seem artificial, and Ginsburg, in her ninth decade, has decided to pretend that the line doesn't exist. There's a bracing honesty to this kind of candor, but it's clear she's chosen to express herself in a way that justices traditionally have not.
At the practical level, Ginsburg will certainly have to recuse herself if any Bush v. Gore-style lawsuit comes before the court during this election season. She's made her views too clear about Clinton v. Trump to sit as an impartial judge. (In 2003, Justice Antonin Scalia recused himself in a case challenging the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance because he had expressed support for those words in public speeches.)
More than that, though, Ginsburg's statements have set a precedent that the court as an institution will want to avoid.
Imagine if all nine justices announced their presidential preferences in the advance of each election. Imagine further that they took sides in primary battles, too. It's folly to pretend that judges and justices have no political views, or that their legal views are entirely separate from their judicial philosophies. But there is value in at least formal neutrality in these most partisan battles. Any smart lawyer -- or smart citizen -- can see that. So, in short order, will Ginsburg.