Sandra O’Connor: Pulling a Competent Oar in A Storm-Tossed Boat

Nineteen opinions do not a full term make, but so far it looks as if Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will be joining the conservative bloc on the U.S. Supreme Court. The court’s first woman justice has sided with the liberals on only one of the 5-4 divisions to date. A paragraph probably should be inserted to acknowledge the irritation felt by the justices whenever they are thus labeled by the press. The high court is not a kind of judicial bench show, the collies here and the poodles there. Nevertheless, when the court divides narrowly, we generally find the “liberal” Justices Brennan and Marshall on one side and the “conservative” Chief Justice Burger and Justice Rehnquist on the other. Justice O’Connor seems to have suited up with the Burger-Rehnquist team. Through Jan. 21, the court had acted on 21 cases. Justice O’Connor had participated in 19 of these. Of the 19, only two were unanimous decisions, and in these two Justice O’Connor herself spoke for the court. In the other 17, the court fell apart like the one-hoss shay. I haven’t checked the statistics, but I suspect that some sort of record was set at this point in a term of court, when four of five decisions on Jan. 12 were reached by 5-4 divisions. This is not the most congenial court that ever came along. Justice Brennan has succeeded the late Justice Douglas as the most acerbic dissenter on the court. In one of the 5-4 decisions of Jan. 12, this one involving the gift of federal property to the Valley Forge Christian College