Court nominee: Solid Republican, politically astute

WASHINGTON – Sandra Day O’Connor – the “person for all seasons” chosen to become the first woman to serve on the 191 year-old U.S. Supreme Court – is a solid Republican who knows which way the political winds blow. O’Connor, 51, an Arizona native reared on a cattle ranch, already faces opposition from anti-abortion groups for what they view as a pro-abortion position when she served in the Arizona Senate. And her flirtation with the Equal Rights Amendment – she later withdrew her support for the ERA – will also come in for criticism from some conserwtive groups. O’Connor, now a state appeals court judge, would bring legisla- tive and judicial credentials to the high court bench. Feminists are heartened by the fact that in her final term in the state Senate she was elected majority leader – the first woman in the nation to hold such a leadership post. THE MOTHER of three sons, O’Connor is married to a Phoenix lawyer, John O’Connor. She graduated third in her class from Stanford University Law School in 1952. Supreme Court Justice William H. Rehnquist, an Arizona native, was first in that class. She served In the state Senate from 1969, when she was appointed to fill a vacancy, to 1975, winning election to two full terms representing a wealthy Phoenix suburb. In 1972, soon after Congress passed the ERA, O’Connor spoke on the state Senate floor, urging ratification. But when she learned that Arizona’s two U.S. senators opposed the measure, her enthusiasm faded and the Issue died