Sandra Day o'connor grew up *** cowgirl from Arizona, 25 miles from the nearest town. I tend to be *** bit of *** pragmatist probably because we had to solve all our own problems out on the ranch. If the truck broke down, we had to fix it. If some animal needed medical attention, we had to provide it. There wasn't much we didn't have to do. She had the toughness ranch life can breed. She was incredibly fearless about life and part of that was because her early life was very hard. Her parents died, her grandmother died. She was shuttled back and forth between the ranch and relatives in Texas to go to school and she just became very self sufficient. O'connor went to Stanford in the same law class as future Chief justice William Rehnquist. They dated for *** time and he even proposed she turned him down but they stayed lifelong friends upon graduation. No law firm would hire o'connor. So she eventually helped start her own, later becoming *** powerful state lawmaker. Ben Judge President Reagan. Today settled the question of when he would nominate *** woman to the nation's highest court. She is truly *** person for all seasons, possessing those unique qualities of temperament, fairness, intellectual capacity, and devotion to the public good. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan nominated her to be the first woman on the Supreme court. The Senate confirmed o'connor unanimously 99 to 0. In 1988 the justice survived *** breast cancer scare and returned to work just 10 days after surgery. Her dry western wit remained intact. The worst was my public visibility. Frankly, there was constant media coverage. How does she look when, when is she gonna step down and give the president another vacancy on the court. Over time o'connor became known as *** moderate conservative on the court and often the swing vote on hot button social issues. *** reference she didn't like we have an equal voice and I'm no more powerful than anyone else on this court that's for sure. Some criticized her as *** fence sitter waiting to see which way the wind would blow. Those would be the people who have never met her. Anybody who's met her knows that she makes up her own mind and she's not at all concerned about where anybody else is on the spectrum. Her most well known votes upholding abortion rights in Planned Parenthood versus Casey, supporting the University of Michigan Law School's affirmative action program and siding with her conservative colleagues in favor of George W Bush in Bush versus Gore. In 2006, she stepped down from the court to care for her husband John who had Alzheimer's disease. She became *** passionate advocate for Alzheimer's research. It does take *** staggering toll on the families and the caregivers. I can certainly attest to that. In 2018 o'connor revealed she too, had been diagnosed with dementia and withdrew from public life. The retired justice was grateful. She wrote for her countless blessings and experiences including helping to break the glass ceiling. It wasn't too many years before I was born that women in this country got the right to vote for heaven's sakes. And in my lifetime, I have seen unbelievable changes in the opportunities for women. I think it's important women are well represented that it is not an all male governance as it once was.
Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, has died at age 93
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Updated: 11:02 AM CST Dec 1, 2023
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, an unwavering voice of moderate conservatism and the first woman to serve on the nation’s highest court, has died. She was 93. The court says she died in Phoenix on Friday, of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness.In 2018, she announced that she had been diagnosed with “the beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer’s disease.” Her husband, John O’Connor, died of complications of Alzheimer’s in 2009.O’Connor’s nomination in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan and subsequent confirmation by the Senate ended 191 years of male exclusivity on the high court. A native of Arizona who grew up on her family’s sprawling ranch, O’Connor wasted little time building a reputation as a hard worker who wielded considerable political clout on the nine-member court.The granddaughter of a pioneer who traveled west from Vermont and founded the family ranch some three decades before Arizona became a state, O’Connor had a tenacious, independent spirit that came naturally. As a child growing up in the remote outback, she learned early to ride horses, round up cattle and drive trucks and tractors.“I didn’t do all the things the boys did,” she said in a 1981 Time magazine interview, “but I fixed windmills and repaired fences.”On the bench, her influence could best be seen, and her legal thinking most closely scrutinized, in the court’s rulings on abortion, perhaps the most contentious and divisive issue the justices faced. O’Connor balked at letting states outlaw most abortions, refusing in 1989 to join four other justices who were ready to reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that said women have a constitutional right to abortion. Then, in 1992, she helped forge and lead a five-justice majority that reaffirmed the core holding of the 1973 ruling. “Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that can’t control our decision," O’Connor said in court, reading a summary of the decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. “Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.” Video below: Sandra Day O’Connor spoke of the importance of Supreme Court to law graduates in 1994Thirty years after that decision, a more conservative court did overturn Roe and Casey, and the opinion was written by the man who took her high court seat, Justice Samuel Alito. He joined the court upon O’Connor’s retirement in 2006, chosen by President George W. Bush. In 2000, O’Connor was part of the 5-4 majority that effectively resolved the disputed 2000 presidential election in favor of Bush, over Democrat Al Gore.O’Connor was regarded with great fondness by many of her colleagues. When she retired, Justice Clarence Thomas, a consistent conservative, called her “an outstanding colleague, civil in dissent and gracious when in the majority.”She could, nonetheless, express her views tartly. In one of her final actions as a justice, a dissent to a 5-4 ruling to allow local governments to condemn and seize personal property to allow private developers to build shopping plazas, office buildings and other facilities, she warned the majority had unwisely ceded yet more power to the powerful. “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property,” O’Connor wrote. “Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing ... any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.”O’Connor, whom commentators had once called the nation’s most powerful woman, remained the court’s only woman until 1993, when, much to O’Connor’s delight and relief, President Bill Clinton nominated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The current court includes a record four women.
WASHINGTON — Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, an unwavering voice of moderate conservatism and the first woman to serve on the nation’s highest court, has died. She was 93.
The court says she died in Phoenix on Friday, of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness.
In 2018, she announced that she had been diagnosed with “the beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer’s disease.” Her husband, John O’Connor, died of complications of Alzheimer’s in 2009.
O’Connor’s nomination in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan and subsequent confirmation by the Senate ended 191 years of male exclusivity on the high court. A native of Arizona who grew up on her family’s sprawling ranch, O’Connor wasted little time building a reputation as a hard worker who wielded considerable political clout on the nine-member court.
The granddaughter of a pioneer who traveled west from Vermont and founded the family ranch some three decades before Arizona became a state, O’Connor had a tenacious, independent spirit that came naturally. As a child growing up in the remote outback, she learned early to ride horses, round up cattle and drive trucks and tractors.
Ron Edmonds/AP
Supreme Court nominee Sandra Day O’Connor smiles during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sept. 9, 1981.
“I didn’t do all the things the boys did,” she said in a 1981 Time magazine interview, “but I fixed windmills and repaired fences.”
On the bench, her influence could best be seen, and her legal thinking most closely scrutinized, in the court’s rulings on abortion, perhaps the most contentious and divisive issue the justices faced. O’Connor balked at letting states outlaw most abortions, refusing in 1989 to join four other justices who were ready to reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that said women have a constitutional right to abortion.
Then, in 1992, she helped forge and lead a five-justice majority that reaffirmed the core holding of the 1973 ruling. “Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that can’t control our decision," O’Connor said in court, reading a summary of the decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. “Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.”
Video below: Sandra Day O’Connor spoke of the importance of Supreme Court to law graduates in 1994
Thirty years after that decision, a more conservative court did overturn Roe and Casey, and the opinion was written by the man who took her high court seat, Justice Samuel Alito. He joined the court upon O’Connor’s retirement in 2006, chosen by President George W. Bush.
In 2000, O’Connor was part of the 5-4 majority that effectively resolved the disputed 2000 presidential election in favor of Bush, over Democrat Al Gore.
O’Connor was regarded with great fondness by many of her colleagues. When she retired, Justice Clarence Thomas, a consistent conservative, called her “an outstanding colleague, civil in dissent and gracious when in the majority.”
She could, nonetheless, express her views tartly. In one of her final actions as a justice, a dissent to a 5-4 ruling to allow local governments to condemn and seize personal property to allow private developers to build shopping plazas, office buildings and other facilities, she warned the majority had unwisely ceded yet more power to the powerful. “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property,” O’Connor wrote. “Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing ... any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.”
O’Connor, whom commentators had once called the nation’s most powerful woman, remained the court’s only woman until 1993, when, much to O’Connor’s delight and relief, President Bill Clinton nominated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The current court includes a record four women.
