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Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930) is an American retired attorney and politician who served as the first female associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. She was the first woman nominated and subsequently the first woman confirmed.[5] Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, she was considered the swing vote for the Rehnquist Court and the first few months of the Roberts Court.
Prior to O'Connor's tenure on the Court, she was a judge and an elected official in Arizona, serving as the first female majority leader of a state senate as the Republican leader in the Arizona Senate.[6] Upon her nomination to the Court, O'Connor was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. On July 1, 2005, she announced her intention to retire effective upon the confirmation of a successor.[7] Samuel Alito was nominated to take her seat in October 2005 and joined the Court on January 31, 2006.
O'Connor most frequently sided with the Court's conservative bloc. She often wrote concurring opinions that limited the reach of the majority holding. Her majority opinions in landmark cases include Grutter v. Bollinger and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. She also wrote in part the per curiam majority opinion in Bush v. Gore, and was one of three co-authors of the lead opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
During her time on the Court, some publications ranked O'Connor among the most powerful women in the world.[8][9] Upon leaving the Court, she succeeded Henry Kissinger as Chancellor of the College of William and Mary. On August 12, 2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
On July 7, 1981, Reagan – who had pledged during his 1980 presidential campaign to appoint the first woman to the Court[34] – announced he would nominate O'Connor as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court to replace the retiring Potter Stewart.[35] O'Connor received notification from President Reagan of her nomination on the day prior to the announcement and did not know that she was a finalist for the position.[26]
Reagan wrote in his diary on July 6, 1981: "Called Judge O'Connor and told her she was my nominee for supreme court. Already the flak is starting and from my own supporters. Right to Life people say she is pro abortion. She declares abortion is personally repugnant to her. I think she'll make a good justice."[36] O'Connor told Reagan she did not remember whether she had supported repealing Arizona's law banning abortion.[37] However, she had cast a preliminary vote in the Arizona State Senate in 1970 in favor of a bill to repeal the state's criminal-abortion statute.[38] In 1974, O'Connor had opined against a measure to prohibit abortions in some Arizona hospitals.[38] Pro-life and religious groups opposed O'Connor's nomination because they suspected, correctly, she would not be willing to overturn Roe v. Wade.[39] U.S. Senate Republicans, including Don Nickles of Oklahoma, Steve Symms of Idaho, and Jesse Helms of North Carolina called the White House to express their discontent over the nomination; Nickles said he and "other profamily Republican senators would not support O'Connor".[39] Helms, Nickles, and Symms nevertheless voted for confirmation.[40]
Reagan formally nominated O'Connor on August 19, 1981.[41]
Conservative activists such as the Reverend Jerry Falwell, Howard Phillips, and Peter Gemma also spoke out against the nomination. Gemma called the nomination "a direct contradiction of the Republican platform to everything that candidate Reagan said and even President Reagan has said in regard to social issues."[42] Gemma, the executive director of the National Pro-Life Political Action Committee, had sought to delay O'Connor's confirmation by challenging her record, including support for the Equal Rights Amendment.[43]
O'Connor's confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee began on September 9, 1981.[44] It was the first televised confirmation hearing for a Supreme Court justice.[45] The confirmation hearing lasted three days and largely focused on the issue of abortion.[46] When asked, O'Connor refused to telegraph her views on abortion, and she was careful not to leave the impression that she supported abortion rights.[47] The Judiciary Committee approved O'Connor with seventeen votes in favor and one vote of present.[46]
On September 21, O'Connor was confirmed by the U.S. Senate with a vote of 99–0.[35][48] Only Senator Max Baucus of Montana was absent from the vote, and he sent O'Connor a copy of A River Runs Through It by way of apology.[49] In her first year on the Court she received over 60,000 letters from the public, more than any other justice in history. Wikipedia
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