It was O’Connor who developed the test used in those decisions-a law regulating abortion was unconstitutional if it imposed an “undue burden” on a woman. Reproductive Health Services (1989), Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Pennsylvania v. Her respect for precedent and her nuts and bolts approach to the law meant that she was able to help forge a majority in several significant abortion rights cases such Webster v. It was such practicality that often allowed her to find middle ground and to serve as the “swing vote” that made a five-justice majority. She was, as some of her clerks commented, impatient with abstractions and philosophical debate and more concerned with the real world consequences of her opinions. Most observers agree that as a member of the Court O’Connor was generally more pragmatic than ideological. Did observers expect Antonin Scalia to give them a meal he prepared himself? Was it important to reassure the public and the politicians that even though O’Connor was qualified to sit on the Court, she could still prepare a lovely luncheon? I found the attention to O’Connor’s domestic talents somewhat demeaning, as if the author found it necessary to repeat often that she was both a first class jurist and a first class woman. Unfortunately, the author never analyzes why the culinary skills of a person about to become a justice would even be a subject of discussion. Thomas reports O’Connor’s domestic activities as an interesting sidelight (for example when Reagan’s team came to Arizona to interview her as a Supreme Court nominee, they all raved about her salmon mousse!).
That she managed to maintain most of those activities as her professional life flourished into service in the Arizona State Senate and as a state appeals court judge is an extraordinary accomplishment. She was John’s companion on the dance floor, the super-hostess who cooked everything herself, the community volunteer. Through the early years of their marriage before she really developed a political and judicial life, SOC was the ultimate model wife. Her husband had a successful corporate law practice in Arizona and earned quite a comfortable living for the couple and their three sons.
The relationship seems loving and happy, although it is possible to infer that as the demands of her career became more pressing, SOC lived with almost impossible expectations. The O’Connor marriage is an interesting one, in part because it reveals the balancing act required of an ambitious and successful woman in late twentieth century America. The future Chief Justice was apparently quite enamored with her and gave up his courtship only when she became involved with John O’Connor. Thomas does provide a few new details about Rehnquist’s romantic pursuit of Sandra Day based on letters in her private papers. The stories of her friendship with William Rehnquist at Stanford and her early unsuccessful search for a job with a law firm are well known. Although the Arizona landscape seemed to linger as a source of nostalgia, O’Connor left her parents, siblings, and rural life behind when she enrolled in Stanford University where she earned both her undergraduate and law degrees. He interprets the early life on her family’s Lazy B ranch where the young Sandra learned the values of self-sufficiency and hard work as a major influence on her character. Thomas divides the book’s focus between O’Connor’s private and public life. But regardless of whether O’Connor’s opinions stand the test of time, her position as the path-breaking first female justice deserves the thorough examination it is receiving. Even less certain is the extent of her lasting impact on the high court’s jurisprudence. Whether during those years she was, as Thomas claims, “the most powerful Supreme Court justice of her time,” is arguable. Sandra Day O’Connor (SOC), appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, remained on the Court until her retirement in 2006. New York: Random House, 2019.Įvan Thomas, longtime editor at Time and Newsweek, has written a hybrid work that combines judicial biography with a more general character analysis of the first woman to sit on the United States Supreme Court. By Mary Welek Atwell, Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice, Radford UniversityįIRST: SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR.