Getting to Know the Judge – A Republican Darling Becomes a Political Hot Potato

Sandra Day O’Connor made up the list of her lifetime accomplishments last week; a resume to satisfy the hunger for information on this first woman ever nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. Her list was one page long. More of her life – both professional and personal – was left off the list than put on. To understand this historic woman, you have to know some of the things that weren’t on that list. Things like … A REPUBLICAN DARLING BECOMES A POLITICAL HOT POTATO

While some blasted O’Connor’s lukewarm support for ERA, feminists looked at her stance and forgave her. The first woman ever nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court couldn’t even get a Credit card in her own name in Arizona just eight years ago. As far as Arizona laws were concerned, Sandra Day O’Connor was just a “Mrs.” in 1973 – not the majority leader of the Arizona Senate; not the highly-honored law graduate of Stanford; not the former assistant attorney general. When she married her law school classmate. John Jay O’Connor III, she simply became a Mrs. who couldn’t hold title to her own property, ouy her own car or have her own credit without her husband’s name and approval. Sandra O’Connor helped change those laws; as a member of the highest court in the nation, she will spend the rest of her career changing or upholding the laws of the country. As a jurist, she is expected to be a “strict constructionist” who will bring to the high court the same qualities she showed in the county and appeals courts of Arizona: