Justice O'Connor resigns Greenville News
Sandra Day O'Connor's sudden resignation from the Supreme Court on Friday signals the departure of a pioneering justice who was the most influential member of a divided court. It also ignites a political firestorm over her successor and gives President Bush a chance to make a lasting imprint on the bench. The departure of O'Connor, who became the first woman on the court when she was named to the bench by President Reagan in 1981, raises the possibility that Bush who has never made a high court appointment could get the chance to make two of them in short order. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, is battling thyroid cancer, and much of the talk about potential court retirements has focused on him. But Rehnquist concluded the court's term for 2004-05 this week without giving any indication that he planned to step down. In a statement released by the court, O'Connor, 75, said she was leaving in part to spend more time with her husband. John O'Connor, 75, has been suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Her resignation creates the first opening on the Supreme Court in 11 years, the bench's longest period without a departure since 1812-1823. The former Arizona state senator was at the ideological center of the court and was its equilibrium, resisting moves by her colleagues to move the court too much to the left or to the right. To the disappointment of many conservative Republicans, she cast key votes protecting abortion rights, an issue that is certain to be a key point in the Senate confirmation hearings for whoever Bush chooses as her replacement. In disputes over the separation of church and state, O'Connor generally supported limited government mingling with religion. She also took a lead role as the Rehnquist court boosted states' rights and curtailed congressional intervention in the affairs of local governments. She often was criticized by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, among others for seeming to have no hard-and-fast rules on the law, for compromising too much. But O'Connor, the only member of the current court who ever held elective office, favored real governmental action to come from elected legislators. Because of her centrist approach, her departure could be far more significant than if Rehnquist had resigned. Bush who has expressed admiration for Scalia and another conservative justice, Clarence Thomas now could appoint someone whose vote could move the court to the right on abortion, affirmative action and other issues. Senate Democrats such as Minority Leader Harry Reid and interest groups such as the National Women's Law Center have vowed to protect abortion rights and fight any Bush nominee that seems "out of the mainstream." On Friday, they indicated that because it is O'Connor and not Rehnquist who is leaving, the stakes in the Senate nomination hearings would be particularly high. In the White House's Rose Garden shortly after O'Connor's announcement, Bush praised her service to the country and said his nominee would be someone who meets "a high standard of legal ability, judgment and integrity." Anticipating a political battle in a Senate that is sharply divided and that already has resisted his nominees to federal courts, he said, "The nation deserves a dignified process of confirmation in the United States Senate, characterized by fair treatment, a fair hearing and a fair vote." Bush said he would choose a nominee "in a timely manner" in the hope that the nominee would be confirmed by the Senate before the Supreme Court's new term begins Oct. 3. Press secretary Scott McClellan said later that Bush wouldn't announce his choice until he returns from a four-day trip to Europe on July 8. White House and Justice Department officials have been working quietly for weeks on a list of prospects. Some have been interviewed informally. But those candidates were being considered as possible replacements for Rehnquist. The departure of the more moderate O'Connor could mean a change in the administration's political calculus toward a more moderate candidate, as Reid and other Democrats have suggested. A candidate whose stock could be up is Alberto Gonzales, a longtime friend of Bush who had a reputation as a moderate when he was on the Texas Supreme Court. Bush has expressed a desire to appoint the nation's first Hispanic justice, which also could work in Gonzales' favor. Lower court judges who have been on the White House's radar as potential nominees include Michael Luttig and J. Harvie Wilkinson, both based in Virginia, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit; Emilio Garza and Edith Jones, both in Texas and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit; John Roberts, of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; and Samuel Alito, based in New Jersey on the U.S. Court of Appeals 3rd Circuit. Some past presidents, most recently Bill Clinton, have asked key members of the opposite party about Supreme Court prospects before nominating them, and Democrats are urging Bush to do the same. "Justice O'Connor has been a voice of reason and moderation on the court," said Reid, D-Nev. "It is vital that she be replaced by someone like her." 'I am 75 years old' With so much of Washington's focus on a potential retirement by Rehnquist, O'Connor's name had surfaced only in the last few days in news reports about possible departures on the court. Some of her fellow justices quietly had rejected the notion that O'Connor was leaving. Her work always has been her passion, and O'Connor has drawn strength from her job most poignantly in the late 1980s, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. When she spoke about the experience, she said that work became even more important in her life to keep her going. But O'Connor's husband, John, has been suffering from Alzheimer's for several years and apparently his condition forced her to change course. She told the other justices of her decision Friday morning. "I am 75 years old," she said in a statement released through the court public information office. "I need to spend more time with my husband." O'Connor and her husband, who also is 75, met in law school at Stanford University where they were classmates with Rehnquist. The O'Connors have been married for 52 years. The first hint of O'Connor's resignation came Thursday, when the Supreme Court's head marshal, Pamela Talkin, called White House counsel Harriet Miers to say that a sealed envelope would be delivered from the court on Friday morning. Miers told Bush and Vice President Cheney, who were having lunch. The letter arrived Friday morning, with a surprising message: It was O'Connor, not Rehnquist. In O'Connor's letter to Bush, she wrote, "It has been a great privilege, indeed, to have served as a member of the court for 24 years. I will leave it with enormous respect for the integrity of the court and its role under our constitutional structure." Groups ready for fight Interest groups stand ready to turn the political battle over O'Connor's replacement into as tough a tussle as the fights over the nominations of Clarence Thomas in 1991 and Robert Bork in 1987. Thomas won confirmation. Bork did not. "It's hard to imagine anything more heated than those two," says C. Michael Comiskey, political science professor at Penn State Fayette and author of "Seeking Justices: The Judging of Supreme Court Nominees." But, "this could be one heck of a fight" because groups on both sides of the political aisle know that O'Connor was often a key swing vote on cases involving social issues and that Bush could make the court more conservative. There are signs that the lobbying campaign over this court nomination will be far more sophisticated than any before it and that it likely will resemble a fall political campaign. On the conservative side, interest groups have pledged to spend at least $20 million on ads, grass-roots lobbying here and elsewhere and other efforts. At least $18 million of that will be spent by one group alone, Progress for America. That group released its first TV/radio ad last week. It was a warning that Democrats would try to smear anyone Bush nominates. On the liberal side, organizations such as People for the American Way and MoveOnPac.org also plan to spend millions. Within minutes of Bush's appearance Friday, MoveOn Pac announced it was releasing a TV ad warning that a too-conservative nominee could "undermine the rights of individuals and families." "The moderating leadership of O'Connor must not be replaced with a far-right extremist," says Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, one of the groups that has been preparing to mount a campaign if Bush nominates a candidate they see as too conservative. In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union praised O'Connor as a centrist who "stood up for individual rights and against a radically conservative vision of the Constitution" on key cases involving abortion rights, affirmative action and the rights of foreign detainees to have access to the court system. "We are gravely concerned that President Bush will use this opportunity to nominate someone whose judicial philosophy is hostile to civil liberties," said Steven Shapiro, the ACLU's legal director. For Progress for America and other conservative groups, O'Connor's departure signals a once-a-generation opportunity to push for significant change on the high court, with restrictions for abortion chief among the goals. (The current court generally splits 6-3 in favor of abortion rights, with O'Connor in the majority.) Boydon Gray, former counsel to the first President Bush and a strategist for various groups who are pushing the administration to make the Supreme Court more conservative, cited recent battles in the Senate over judicial nominees in warning Democrats to give Bush's nominee a fair chance. "We call on Democrats to resist the temptation to use their attack machine against a qualified nominee," Gray said. "All parties should withhold judgment until a fair and sober analysis has occurred. "We expect the president to choose the best person for this difficult job. We have no doubt that the nominee will be of the highest legal excellence and integrity, who follows the Constitution, defends property rights, and as the president suggested in his press conference, refrains from making law from the bench. Any such nominee deserves a respectful hearing and an up or down vote. They do not deserve to have their record distorted."
Specter under a spotlightThe nomination hearings will put a particular focus on Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who will be at the center of the wrangling over the nominee. On Friday, Specter called O'Connor a "historic figure" who had "a pivotal role on the court as a centrist." Specter said he has talked with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist about the timing of hearings and said his panel is prepared to "proceed at any time." Specter acknowledged that O'Connor's retirement would "pose a somewhat different picture" than Rehnquist's would have. He said he anticipated that with O'Connor being a swing vote, hearings "could produce more controversy. But I don't want to prejudge anything." He said he had not submitted any recommendations to Bush but had spoken several times to the president about consulting the Senate on a nomination. "I wasn't asked (who I liked). Don't ask, don't tell," he joked. Of the nominee, Specter said, "People will be expecting everything. This is a very polarized country. ...Everybody can't have their own way." Specter said he expects abortion rights to "be a focal point" of the confirmation hearings. Specter, who supports abortion rights, said he would have no "litmus test" on that or other issues regarding a nominee. He said that for all the action by interest groups surrounding the nominations process, "the activities of the groups are vastly overstated, vastly overstated, and in many cases they are counterproductive." As for Rehnquist, Specter who has two more chemotherapy treatments left to go for the Hodgkin's lymphoma that has left him bald said he saw the chief justice at a lunch a couple weeks ago. Specter said Rehnquist "looked infinitely better" than he had when he sworn in Bush in January. "Speaking as someone who likes to get up in the morning with something important to do, I wouldn't say it's keeping the chief alive, but I think he likes his job," Specter said. "And if we haven't heard from him by now (concerning his retirement), the chances are you won't hear from him for some time."
A politician on the courtO'Connor's resignation brought an end to the public life of a woman whose rise to the nation's highest court was an inspirational story to women. O'Connor was born March 26, 1930, in El Paso and grew up on her family's ranch, the Lazy B. She grew up splitting her years between El Paso, where she lived with her grandmother and attended the Radford School, and the 162,000-acre ranch that her grandfather had established in southeastern Arizona. She graduated from high school at 16 and earned a degree in economics from Stanford in 1950. She married John O'Connor, also a lawyer, and moved with him to Germany while he was in the Army. After his service, they settled in Phoenix in 1957 and had three sons. Sandra Day O'Connor became active in Arizona politics and was appointed state senator in 1969 to fill out a vacancy. She later won election and then was elected by fellow Republicans to be the majority leader of Arizona's Senate. She was the first woman nationwide to hold the post. She left the Legislature and soon after was elected to the Maricopa County Superior Court. In 1979, then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt appointed her to the Arizona Court of Appeals. Through coincidence and mutual friends, O'Connor met U.S. Chief Justice Warren Burger on a vacation in late 1979. She stayed in touch with him and he eventually helped bring her name to the attention of the Reagan White House in the spring of 1981, before it began looking for a successor to retiring Justice Potter Stewart. At the time, O'Connor's credentials did not make her an obvious candidate. She was not on a federal court or top state court, as many nominees in the recent past had been. Instead, she was a judge on an Arizona intermediate court handling criminal and civil appeals. But as a former state senator, she had deep and well maintained political connections to the Republican Party. She was a close friend of Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz. For O'Connor, it was a matter of right place, right time. During his recent campaign for president, Ronald Reagan had promised to give the Supreme Court its first female justice. O'Connor's nomination was embraced widely, although some opponents of abortion rights warned that she would vote against their cause. O'Connor ended up being confirmed by the Senate, 99-0, on Sept. 21, 1981. She took the judicial oath five days later. O'Connor's political background ended up shaping her style on the high court. She turned out to be a consensus builder and learned over the years to be adept at counting votes among her colleagues. Her imprint at the center was evident in 1992 as she, joining with Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, crafted a compromise ruling that affirmed abortion rights nationwide. In 2003, she was the pivotal fifth vote to uphold affirmative action in higher education, arising from a dispute at the University of Michigan. Earlier this term, she was the key fifth vote for a broad reading of the law known as Title IX, which protects girls and women from discrimination in school sports. O'Connor's place at the center of the court's social milieu also was important. She was the one who ensured that all the justices ate lunch together after oral arguments, she arranged social outings and events for visiting dignitaries. The role she played at the court's social center reinforced her position of influence on the law. She often spoke about how important it was to have "agreeable" relations to minimize disagreements on substance. She was also the public face of the court internationally. In 2003, for example, as part of the Bush administration's effort to develop democratic structures of government in the Persian Gulf, the president asked O'Connor to represent the United States at an Arab Judicial Forum in Manama, Bahrain.
Contributing: Jim Drinkard, Judy Keen, Kathy Kiely, Toni Locy, Mark Memmott and Andrea Stone.
US judge's resignation sparks epic court battle Toronto Star
Senators Praise O'Connor, Prepare for Nominee Battle Bloomberg
MSNBC -
Washington Post -
San Jose Mercury News -
Los Angeles Times -
all 2,379 related »