WASHINGTON (UPI) – President
Reagan said today he plans to nominate Arizona Judge Sandra O'Connor
– "a person for all seasons" – to
become the first woman to serve on
the Supreme Court.
Reagan's historic selection would
end a 191-year, male-only tradition on
the nation's highest court if Mrs.
O'Connor, 51, is approved by the Senate to replace Justice Potter Stewart,
who retired last week.
JUDGE O'Conor is "truly a person for all seasons, possessing those
unique qualities of temperament,
fairness, intellectual capacity and devotion to the public good," the president said, making the announcement
in the White House press briefing
room.
"I am extremely happy and honored to have been nominated," Mrs.
O'Connor said in a statement. "If confirmed, I will do my best to serve the
court and this nation in a manner that
will bring credit to the president, to
lfi1 ~ n'ir.i BflJ !"ll the people of this
great nation."
At a news conference in Phoenix,
Mrs. O'Connor said Reagan telephoned her Monday afternoon and
told her she was his choice. She repeatedly refused to discuss abortion,
equal rights for women or any other
"substantive questions pending the
confirmation hearings."
MRS. O'CONNOR, beaming happily, kissed her husband and three sons
and told reporters who questioned her
lack of federal judicial experience:
"Time will tell whether I have a lot
to learn."
Asked to describe her feelings on
being the first women appointed, she
said: "I don't know that I can. In
approaching the work on the bench, I
will approach it with care and effort
and do the best job I can do."
THE CHOICE WAS hailed by women's groups as signaling the end
of exclusion of women from the nation's decision-making process, but
the Rev. Jerry Falwell, head of Moral
Majority, condemned the selection as
a "mistake" and an associate of Falwell's predicted "the church people
would desert him (Reagan) in
droves."
"Either the president did not have
sufficient information about Judge
O'Connor's background in social
issues or he chose to ignore that information," Falwell said in a statement
attacking Judge O'Connor's position
on on abortion.
Abortion opponents vowed to fight
the nomination on grounds Judge
O'Connor once voted against an antiabortion measure.
THE PRESIDENT SAID he will
submit the nomination to the Senate
as soon as FBI checks on Judge O'Connor are completed.
In selecting Judge O'Connor for the
vacancy, Reagan fulfilled a campaign
pledge to name a woman to the high
court at an early opportunity. The
choice reflected the president's
pledge to work against sex discrimination on a case-by-case basis, rather
than through the blanket approach of
the Equal Rights Amendment.
No woman has sat on the nation's
highest tribunal, which first convened
in February 1790.
THE HIGH COURT lately has drifted away from women's rights, and it
is impossible to assess how the presence of a woman of the bench might
change the court. Judge O'Connor is
known as a conservative and, with
five of the sitting justices now over 70,
her selection could be just the first of
several by Reagan that could move
the court sharply to the right.
Reagan has criticized the court in
the past for making law, but Attorney
General William French Smith – who
led the search for a nominee – said a
review of Judge O'Connor's "opinions
did indicate … that she acted with the
proper appellate restraint."
Smith said Mrs. O'Connor fit the
president's requirement that the high
court's duty is "to interpret and apply
the law, not to make it."
THE PRESIDENT'S announcement was greeted with a vow of opposition from a leading group opposing
abortion. Dr. J.C. Wilke, president of
the National Right to Life Committee
declared, "The entire pro-life movement will oppose her confirmation."
But Reagan, in response to questions from reporters, said he is "completely satisfied" with Mrs. O'Connor's right-to-life position. The president then referred all other questions
about the nominee and the selection
process to Smith.
Mrs. O'Connor is not widely known
in national legal circles. Raised on a
cattle ranch in southern Arizona, she
is married to Phoenix attorney John
O'Connor. They have three children.
She is a judge on the Arizona Court
of Appeals, the state's second highest
court. A law school classmate of Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, she has been active in Republican politics and served-in the Arizona
Senate before being appointed to the
state appeals panel 18 months ago by
Gov. Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat.
The president called for "the Senate's swift bipartisan confirmation so
that as soon as possible she can take
her place on the Supreme Court" in
time for the next court term, which
opens in October.
REAGAN RECALLED that "during my campaign I made a commitment to appoint the most qualified
woman I could possibly find.
"This is not to say I would appoint a
woman merely to do so. I pledged to
appoint a woman who met the very
high standards for Supreme Court appointees. I have found such a
woman."