Arizona Republic, Op ed, The Kauffman-Henry Collection
O’Connor: The Judge is getting Special Treatment because She is a Woman
Back to Sandra O’Connor. A number of my fellow conservatives remain unhappy about the lady’s Supreme Court nomination. They claim she’s soft on abortion and the F,qual Rights Amendment. I’m not going to belabor those issues. If I had been in the Arizona Legislature when she was, I might have tried to duck the abortion question, too. And as for the Equal Rights Amendment, it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so why get too upset? What strikes me about the O’Connor nomination.are two things: 1) the slipshod nature of White House preparation for coping with a breach of the 1980 Republican platform commitment to select judicial nominees on abortion-linked criteria (the breach itself was probably inevitable); and 2) the new male-female double standard that has been applied in the O’Connor selection process. Point one is Machiavellian. There are well-positioned people in the administration, mostly former George Bush campaign aides, who dote on seeing President Reagan sour his relations with the right-to-life crowd. The more they can widen the breach, the less influence the new right and right-to -lifers will have in the future to block a future Bush presidential nomination. Point two hasn’t received enough attention. The old male-female double standard is that a woman couldn’t be nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court. That’s gone, of course. The new double standard is that when a woman is nominated, she doesn’t have to meet the same standards of prior experience or undergo the same
Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection
O’Connor’s Senate visits appear to end opposition
WASHINGTON (AP) -Almost singlehandedly, Sandra D. -O’Connor seems to ha~e.defused any serious conservative opposition to her becoming the first woman on the Supreme Court. In four days of sometimes helter- skelter meetings on Capitol Hill, O’Connor has drawn praise from senators normally on opposite sides of almost any political issue. “I’m convinced that Judge O’Connor will receive confirmation by an overwhelming if not a unanimous Senate,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., the principal Democratic liberal voice in the Senate and a major ideological opponent of the Reagan administration. Kennedy is as enthusiastic on O’Connor’s behalf as conservative stalwart Barry Goldwater, the Republican senator who is the nominee’s home-state sponsor. Other key conservatives, such as Republicans Orrin Hatch of Utah and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina have said they will support the quiet-s~ken graduate of Stanford University Law School. Thus far, no senator has come out in opposition. In all, O’Connor met with 24 of the 100 members of the Senate. Most meetings ended or began with a photograph that will no doubt find its way into mail to voters in each senator’s state. Constantly trailed by a band of reporters and television crews, O’Connor seemed amused at only one point in her Washington visit, when she and a few aides and reporters were briefly trapped in a crowded, stubborn elevator that refused to stop at the proper floor. O’Connor’s travels through the Senate recalled one of Reagan’s
For Reagan and the New Right, the Honeymoon is over
Every president has a honeymoon, and Ronald Reagan’s has been longer than most. Congress, the press, opinion leaders and even many Democrats are still treating him like a new bridegroom. • But for one important group of Reagan supporters – the New Right conservatives – the honeymoon is over. ‘I’hey flexed their muscle over the nomination of Sandra D. O’Connor to the Supreme Court, and lost. For some of the most vocal leaders of the New Right movement, the nomination was the latest in a series of slights and insults they have suffered from Reagan advisers which raise questions in their minds about whether the president is really their kind of conservative. “The White House slapped us in the face,” says Richard A. Viguerie, the conservative direct-mail expert. “‘I’he White House is saying you don’t have a constituency we’re concerned about. We don’t care about you.” “Thel’e’s been a challenge issued,” explains Viguerie. “It is something we can’t ignore. We either fight this one, or we aren’t leaders.” Viguerie and his cohorts on the New Right have done just that. They have f urned and fussed. They’ve launched a series of pointed’ attacks on O’Connor in their publications and in thousands of letters and telegrams sent to their supporters around the country. But after two weeks, they have yet to persuade a single senator to come out against O’Connor, the first woman ever appointed to the Supreme Court. They plan to continue what they now see as an all but hopeless fight if only
Letter to the editor, Scottsdale Daily Progress, The Kauffman-Henry Collection
Skelly is rare for his honesty
Editor: Re: Rep. Jim Skelly. I have not always agreed with Jim Skelly, but I have always known exac~y where he stands on issues. Because of his honesty with the people, he is refreshing and a rarity in politics today. . It is good to know that one man rn politics will not compromise his principles for the sake of political expediency or big business.
Mesa Tribune, Op ed, The Kauffman-Henry Collection
O’Connor’s 1-issue foes are set up for a big loss
It was bound to happen sooner or later, and with his unexpectedly early opportunity to make his mark on the composition of the Supreme Court, it is turning out to be sooner. President Reagan’s nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor to replace retired Justice Potter Stewart has , as you must certainly be aware unless you have sworn off the front pages entirely for the summer, brought out an important segment of his constituency “in strident opposition. . O’Connor would appear to have everything to qualify as a quality appointee – political and judicial experience, an impressive academic record and a reputation in public office as a principled conservative who has won the respect of both ideological allies and opponents. But the newly powerful new right says it won’t have her, thereby appearing to confirm the predictions of those who have been saying – hopefully or otherwise – that President Reagan would never be able to satisfy the demands of the assortment of special-interest groups that candidate Reagan had attracted to his cause. In the case of the O’Connor nomination the interest is CJ)position to abortion. But in judging that nomination unacceptable on the basis of votes cast while she was a member of the Arizona legislature, her conservative critics are reacting both hastily and in disregard of some basic Supreme Court history. The abortion issue was not all that clearly defined in the legislation under scrutiny. And as you may by now be weary of being informed, attempting to
Los Angeles Times, Op ed, The Kauffman-Henry Collection
Sandra Day O’Connor Sets an Example Already
Sandra Day O’Connor, President Reagan’s choice to fill the empty seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, may already have done more for the liberation of women than she will ever do as the nation’s first woman justice. For her career demonstxates that a woman today need not forgo full- time motherhood in order to attain professional excellence. Women torn between career goals and maternal instincts can find in O’Connor’s example clear evidence that staying home with one’s children for a few years does not sideline one forever in the world of work. The official biography released by the White House
Op ed, The Kauffman-Henry Collection
O’Connor selection a plus for states as well as women
The confirmation of Sandra Day O’Connor as a member of the Supreme Court – which now seems certain – doesn’t mean simply that the high court will have its first woman member ever. O’Connor will also be the first Supreme Court justice chosen from state government during a quarter century in which the pendulum swung fast – and some say dangerously – toward federal dominance in American life. The record books show that prior to President Reagan’s selection of Mrs. O’Connor, an Arizona appeals court judge, no state jurist had been appointed to the court since President Eisenhower’s selection of William Brennan in 1956. Before that, one has to go all the way back to Herbert Hoover’s 1932 appointment of Benjamin Cardoza to find selection of a state judge. Moreover, Judge O’Connor is a former state legislator. In 1972, in fact, she became the first woman ever chosen to be a state Senate majority leader. Not a single sitting member of the Supreme Court has any state legislative experience at all. Will she provide a friendlier voice on the court for problems of state and local government? To hold back federal courts, for instance, from takeovers of substandard state prisons and mental hospitals unless absolutely necessary? To stop imposing remedies for alleged social injustices without any concept of the potentially immense costs for state and local taxpayers? Read her expressed opinions on federal-state relations and there’s no question where she’ll stand. In the current issue of the
Newspaper article, Phoenix Gazette, The Kauffman-Henry Collection
Taxpayers to Finance D.C. Trip
TRIP PAID BY TAXPAYERS
State taxpayers apparently will get the bill when the governor and six legislators travel to Washington to testify at a Senate confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Sandra Day O’Connor. At $358 each for round-trip airplane tickets and $75 per diem for four days, the public will pay about $4,600 to finance the trip for Gov. Bruce Babbitt and the legislators. Sens. Leo Corbet, R-Phoenix; Stan Turley, R-Mesa; and Alfredo Gutierrez, D-Phoenix; and Reps. Art Hamilton, D-Phoenix; and Donna Carlson West, R-Mesa, have been scheduled as witnesses. REP. TONY WEST, R-Phoenix, also has applied for trip expenses, but he said other business may keep him at home during the hearings, which are scheduled next Wednesday through Friday . Neither acting Auditor General Ron Wilson nor Legislative Council Director Greg Jernigan wanted to say whether the trip is official business or a political function. “I wouldn’t touch that with a 10- foot pole,” said Wilson, who works for the Legislature. “I’m not interested in being quoted,” Jernigan said. “But, frankly, when a federal body asks for testimony, there’s not much question in my mind that that’s official business.” Senate Comptroller Dennis Booher referred The Gazette to Corbet, who was not available. “CHECK WITH the president’s office,” Booher said. “I’m sure it isn’t Senate business.” Attorney General Bob Corbin, a Republican, said he was checking on the propriety of using public funds for the trip. “I don’t know