Arizona Republic, Editorial, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Sandra for Veep?

Arizona Republic, Editorial, The Kauffman-Henry Collection / By

Where the rumor started, no one seems to know.. But now Baltimore Sun Washington correspondent Lyle Denniston has published what had been mere gossip among politicians. Denniston writes that it is “common speculation” that Justice Sandra O’Connor may be interested in running for vice president. At the risk of trying to speak for Justice O’Connor, we suspect the speculation is more wishful thinking by some eager Republican political matchmaker looking for a so-called dream ticket. Certainly none of Justice O’Connor’s intimates takes the report seriously, nor have they heard any interest by her about leaving the Supreme Court. In fact, Justice O’Connor is known to relish the potential of the career that lies ahead on the nation’s highest judicial body, which has more influence over national policy than the vice president does.

Moreover, Justice O’Connor chose long ago to abandon elective office in favor of the judiciary. When confronted with the opportunity some years ago of running for governor, she chose instead a career in the state court system. Presidential and vice presidential politics are a risky business. The American electorate is unpredictable, and there is no certainty that Republicans – of which Justice O’Connor is one – will retain the White House the next go-around in 1984. On the other hand, Justice O’Connor has a lifetime seat on the court. Speculation that she would leave that elegant position for the rowdy politics of a presidential campaign simply defy logic

Denver Post, Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Sandra Day O’Connor: reviewing the record

Denver Post, Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection / By

Like supporters and detractors of her Supreme Court nomination, Sandra Day O’Connor devoted the better part of this week to a review of the state legislation and judicial decisions that constitute the record of much of her public life.

With her office at the Arizona Court of Appeals here overflowing with congratulatory bouquets, her desk cluttered with papers and files, and her law clerk, husband and friends helping with the review, Judge O’Connor looked up at a brief break yesterday morning to sigh, “It’s a nightmare.”

“Fifty years is a long time,” she said, “and it’s hard to remember everything you did.”

Differences of Temperament

The review is far from complete, but the woman, public and private, who has so far emerged from an examination of of those records, and from conversations with friends, colleagues and adversaries, is by political instinct, judicial philosophy, economic standing and personal temperament both similar to and different from the constituency that elected Ronald Reagan President.

Judge O’Connor emerges as a sometime conservative with a moderate, even progressive streak, a determined woman but not a dogmatic one. President Reagan described her as a “person for all seasons,” but she appears to be something less than the advocate that other supporters, including many in the feminist movement, have made her out to be. At the same time she is clearly more complex than her detractors, including Moral Majority and the anti-abortion lobby, have suggested.

Interview, Los Angeles Times, Newspaper article

Sandra Day O’Connor ready for female president, but won’t say who

Interview, Los Angeles Times, Newspaper article / By

PHOENIX — Sandra Day O’Connor is, obviously, quite familiar with historic firsts.

Some 200-plus years after the nation’s birth she became the first woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. There have been three more women appointed since, including the first Latina, a development she welcomes as a way of ending the novelty; remarkably, in just about a generation, the notion of women serving on the nation’s high court has become rather unremarkable — part of “the normal course of events,” as she put it.

So the obvious question: Is America ready for a female president? “Absolutely,” O’Connor decreed.

Just don’t expect her to say who, exactly, she has in mind.

Even after three decades, celebrity is something O’Connor wears with evident unease. Seven years after leaving the court, people still recognize the former justice, now 83, and occasionally stop her on the street. She draws plenty of media attention too, which is not always welcome.

She sat in a small conference room this week at O’Connor House, a meeting center in a nondescript Phoenix office park, answering some questions and swatting away others. Stacks of her latest book, a history of the Supreme Court, sat on the table along with her handbag, a checkbook peeking out.

The attention she gets allows O’Connor to talk up one of her pet projects, an effort to boost the nation’s woeful civic knowledge. (In 2010, a Pew poll found that fewer than a third of Americans could identify the chief justice of the Supreme Court.)

Newspaper article, Phoenix Gazette, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Sandra Day O’Connor Full of Tributes, Love

Newspaper article, Phoenix Gazette, The Kauffman-Henry Collection / By

The novelist who once observed “you can’t go home again” never knew Sandra O’Connor. America’s first woman Supreme Court justice came home to Phoenix in grand style Wednesday for one last round of send-offs from the admiring friends and co-workers of a quartercentury climaxed by a glittering banquet attended by a veritable “who’s who” of the state’s business, civic, political and judicial establishment. IT WAS a poignant moment, for her new lifetime job in Washington never will allow her to be much more than a visitor to her native state. “She steps out of our midst,” said Gov. Bruce Babbitt, host for the $50- a-plate dinner which sold out in three days, “and into the pages of American Picture On Page A-4 history. We will all miss you very much.” But he added, the justice leaves behind an inspiration “that it’s still possible for the American dream to come true.” Although she had been plucked by President Reagan to a new home a continent away and the highest position ever held by an American woman, Justice O’Connor told the tuxedoed audience of 850 home is still where the – heart is. “ARIZON A IS a land of oppor- . tunity and happiness,” she said. “It is my home because it is where you are. I love Arizona, and I love all of you.” She pledged to spend “the rest of my professional life trying to do everything I can to justify the president’s confidence in me.” And with a reference to one of Reagan’s bestknown movie roles, she added, “I, too, want to win one for the Gipper.” In

Editorial, The Kauffman-Henry Collection, The New York Times

Sandra Day O’Connor: A Different Kind of Justice

Editorial, The Kauffman-Henry Collection, The New York Times / By

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 – This much is known so far about Sandra Day O’Connor: She is cool under pressure; she suffers fools gracefully; she has a sense of humor.
So far, this much can be predicted: She will need her sense of humor. The words “first woman Justice” are already cemented as firmly to her name as “reclusive billionaire” and “fugitive financier” were to the names of Howard R. Hughes and Robert L. Vesco.

Ordinarily articulate people seem to be rendered silly by the linguistic implications of a woman’s arrival at the Supreme Court. Since “the brethren” is now obsolete as a collective noun, what to do? “Eight brethren and a cistern,” was the suggestion offered, publicly, by a speaker who introduced Justice O’Connor the other night at the Washington Press Club.

If Justice O’Connor read her press clippings after the Court’s opening session this week, a random sample of news accounts would have told her that she arrived on the bench “dressed in a black, knee-length judicial gown,” that she was “looking small but undaunted behind the long, low bench,” that she put on a pair of glasses, and that she asked her first question 48 minutes into the opening argument “to show she was there to take a full part in the Court’s work.”

A Memory of Samuel Johnson

As the press clippings indicate, the tone of the welcome that Justice O’Connor has received in Washington has been more than a little reminiscent of Samuel Johnson’s remark 218 years ago about the similarity between a “woman’s

Arizona Silver Belt, Editorial, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Sandra Day O’Connor

Arizona Silver Belt, Editorial, The Kauffman-Henry Collection / By

President Reagan has broken precedent with every administration before him in announcing as his choice to succeed Justice Stewart Potter. Sandra Day O’Connor, who, if confirmed by the Senate, will be the first woman justice on the US Supreme Court. That the President has chosen as his nominee the first woman majority leader in a state legislature – and that the state is one where women were represented early on at high levels of elected and appointed office – is historically fitting. Most importantly, in nominating Sandra O’Connor, President Reagan has selected a candidate possessing every credential he has indicated was necessary to serve on the highest court of the land . I have known and respected Mrs. O’Connor for many years since I was Administrative Assistant to the Governor of Arizona, and she was Assistant Attorney General and assigned to represent the Governor ‘s office . In the mid-1970’s I had the opportunity once again to work closely with Sandra O’Con nor when she was majority leader in the State Senate. As Pima County Attorney, I had frequent occasion to visit the State Capitol during the creation of the Arizona Drug Con tr ol District. Sandra O’Connor was thorough and conservative in the Arizona State Senate – and she knew how to make it work. Because of her outstanding qualifications, I recommended her to the press before her name was mentioned publicly as a potential nominee. In announcing his decision – President Reagan characterized Mrs. O’Connor as a “person

Kommentare Zum Zeitgeschehen, Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Ronald Reagan verblüfft die Amerikanerinnen (Ronald Reagan astonishes the Americans)

Kommentare Zum Zeitgeschehen, Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection / By

Erste Bundesrichterin – Trotzdem noch Frauenprobleme Noch vor einer Woche hieß es: ,,Schlechte Zeiten für Frauen”, jetzt jubelt die Nationale Organisation der Frauen (NOW) in den USA. Zum ersten Mal in 191 Jahren wurde eine Frau für den Obersten Gerichtshof der Vereinigten Staaten nominiert.

Die Benennung der 5ljährigen Richterin Sandra Day O’Connor aus dem US-Bundesstaat Arizona dunch US-Präsident Ronald Reagan nannte NOW-Präsidentin Eleanor Smeal einen ,,Sieg für die Rechte der Frau”.

Sandra Day O’Connor ist eine Gemäßigte in Frauenfragen. Obwohl sie persönlich gegen die Abtreibung ist, hält sie es nach bisher vorliegenden Berichten jedoch für richtig, anderen Frauen die Wahl zu lassen.

Auch für die Aufnahme des Grundsatzes der Gleichberechtigung in die amerikanische Verfassung, die immer noch nicht von der erforderlichen Zahl von Bundesstaaten ratifiziert ist, tritt sie ein.

Diese beiden Punkte sind Grund für die neue Rechte der USA, die ,.moralische Mehrheit”, heftig gegen Frau O’Connor zu polemisieren. Ihre Wahl, so die moralische Mehrheit”, sei eine schwere Beleidigung für diese starke Gruppierung, die US-Präsident Ronald Reagan schließlich mit zu seinem Wahlsieg im letzten November verholfen habe.

Reagan selbst ist gegen Abtreibung, und auch von dem Verfassungsartikel über Gleichberechtigung hält er nichts. Er ist nach langer Zeit der erste Präsident der USA, der so denkt. Diese Denkweise hat sich in der Regierungshierarchie nach unten fortgepflanzt.

Schlecht sieht

Arizona Republic, Op ed, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Right-wing mudslinger misses Judge O’Connor

Arizona Republic, Op ed, The Kauffman-Henry Collection / By

A rizona Appeals J udge Sandra O’Connor is no shrinking violet. She’s fully able to handle her end of it during U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, which open Wednesday in the Senate. But the archconservatives will be in Washington in full force to cut her down because she isn’t fully in their camp on the abortion i’ssue and the doomed Equal Rights Amendment. Both are emotional issues. Judge O’Connor, because of her legal training , does not view important issues on an emotional basis. No competent judge does. Judge O’Connor is a political conservative . In her years in the Arizona Senate, and as the first woman majority leader, she amply demonstrated to my satisfaction that she supports a limited government, free enterprise and the lowest tax rate possible. But what bothers the Moral Majority is that she’s not a zealot like its members, that she believes there are some areas in life where human beings must make moral decisions for themselves . The Conservative Digest, in its August issue, includes two post cards that readers are asked to send to their senators in Washington. They are headed, “I strongly urge you not to support the Supreme Court nomination of Sandra O’Connor.” The digest’s publisher is right-wing extremist Richard Viguerie, the direct-mail fund-raising expert. “It is clear from her record in the Arizona Senate that she is a supporter of legalized abortion,” the post card contends. “Her choice is a violation of the 1980 Republican platform, which pledged

Arizona Republic, Editorial, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Right and Wrong

Arizona Republic, Editorial, The Kauffman-Henry Collection / By

THE NEW RIGHT is wrong in launching a campaign to deny Judge Sandra O’Connor a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. , It is wrong because Judge O’Connor’s judicial record is clearly one of balance that defies activist or biased labels. It is wrong because the 51-year-old Arizo- ~ . is a strict constructionist – making her “~ aecisions on legal precedent, not trying to :~: I 4!?~ate law herself. u .. .. , f.,-.,~It is wrong in attributing certain abortion ~: ~ws to Judge O’Connor while she has made ~If if clear not only that she is personally opposed tQ ,oortion but that her position has been ~–•~rsimplified and she will clarify her legisla- c,~1t,i~ voting record on the subject in testimony .before the U.S. Senate. c,V’• ‘, ~ •, tis wrong because the judge deserves the ~!.~op~rtunity – indeed, has the legal and 111 , n’S,otal right – to state her qualifications and, a¥. li “necessary, defend her record before the ;~, ~te without being prejudged. .. ; i …. it is wrong because there is nothing in either O’Connor’s professional or personal life to suggest she is a radical feminist although she is concerned about women’s right.s. It is wrong to challenge the Arizonan on ideology rather than her qualifications to judge subst.antive, legal issues. It is wrong for the New Right to assume it was the dominating factor in the election of President Reagan and, therefore, has a singular or special role in guiding the administration because such an electoral assumption is clearly inaccurate.