O’Connor sails along toward confirmation

Despite persistent questioning, Sandra Day O’Connor finished two days of Senate confirmation hearings yesterday with every prospect of becoming the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee heaped praise on the Arizona appeals court judge after their often intense interrogation failed to raise any major stumbling blocks to her confirmation. Unless interest groups opposed to her positions on social issues – groups that are scheduled to testify today on her nomination – find new issues on her fitness, O’Connor appeared to have cinched easy Senate approval. The hearings are to end today, and a committee vote is scheduled for early next week. Speaking on crime, she said there has been a “general breakdown ” of society’s standards on moral behavior. Although she said she has no solutions, she expressed the view that a mobile society with its lack of family and neighborhood ties contributes to an unacceptably high crime rate. Under questioning from Senator Max Baucus, D-Mont., she conceded that she still agrees with her 1970 vote that opposed a move to strip the Supreme Court of its right to review such issues as abortion. Despite repeated attempts to zero in on her abortion views, O’Connor evaded any outright declarations of her legal position on the inflammatory subject. She said she herself would not have an abortion, but she approves of the procedure if it is needed to save a mother’s life.

[Photo caption: As Sandra Day O’Connor_ testified