O’Connor Appointment a Plus for Reagan

WASHINGTON President Reagan appealed to a wide range of his constituency – and won back many disaffected Republican women – with his choice for the Supreme Court, but he continued to alienate the far right. The choice of Judge Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first woman on the nation’s highest court was superb politics for Reagan. It strengthens his credibility he pledged early in his presidential campaign that one of his first appointments to the high court would be a woman. REAGAN already has gotten more credit than most of his predecessors for keeping his campaign promises. It wins back to his corner thousands of rank-and-file Republican women who were in near open rebellion over the administration’s meager record of finding women for top jobs in Washington. At the same time, it takes away an argument from Equal Rights Amendment supporters that the ERA is needed because the Reagan administration is no friend of women.

[Photo caption: Gazette Photo Judge Sandra O’Connor’s nomination won back many disaffected Republican women for President Reagan and was hailed as superb politics.] BUT THE nomination outraged the easily outraged Moral Majority, which vowed to fight the nomination on the grounds Mrs. O’Connor, while in the Arizona Senate, took stands indicating support for ERA and abortion. One leader of the anti-abortion movement, theologian Harold O.J. Brown, declared: “Reagan is absolutely finished with pro-life people, absolutely. They are so betrayed by this that he will