Newspaper article, San Francisco Chronicle, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Reagan Names Woman to the Supreme Court

Newspaper article, San Francisco Chronicle, The Kauffman-Henry Collection / By

President Reagan yesterday nominated Sandra Day O’Connor, a 51-year-old judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals, to the United States Supreme Court. If confirmed, she would become the first woman to serve on the court. She also would be the first justice in 25 years to have experience in a state court system. Every person appointed since Justice William J. Brennan Jr. in 1956 has come from the same national channels: a federal judgeship, a federal government job in Washington, or a nationally prominent law firm. “She is truly a ‘person for all seasons.’ ” Reagan said, “possessing those unique qualities of temperament. fairness, intellectual capacity and devotion to the public good which have characterized the 101 ‘brethren’ who have preceded her.” White House and Justice Department officials expressed confidence that O’Connor’s views are compatible with those espoused over the years by Reagan, who has been highly critical of past Supreme Court decisions on the rights of defendants, busing, abortion and other matters. However, her record of favoring the Equal Rights Amendment, as well as her record on the abortion issue, provoked opposition to her confirmation by the National Right to Life Committee and the Moral Majority. Reagan, who is opposed to abortion, said in response to a question that he was “completely satisfied” with O’Connor’s position on that issue. O’Connor was appointed I to Arizona’s second-highest court in 1979 by Governor Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat, after five years

Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection, Washington Star

Reagan Names Woman Justice: Picks Judge O’Connor of Arizona, 51

Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection, Washington Star / By

President Reagan today broke with two centuries of American history and named a woman, Arizona Court of Appeals Judge Sandra D. O’Connor, to become a justice of the United States Supreme Court. O’Connor, 51, is a conservative Republican who Reagan said “is truly a person for all seasons.” “I commend her to you, and I urge swift bipartisan confirmation by the Senate,” Reagan said. The president made the announcement in an appearance in the White House press room. Attorney General William French Smith told reporters that the decision on the O’Connor nomination was made yesterday. Reagan, who interviewed O’Connor personally on July 1, said he would send a formal nomination to the Senate as soon as the FBI checks are completed . O’Connor, if confirmed, would take the place of retiring Justice Potter Stewart, who announced on June 18 that he was stepping down. She would make $88,700 and take her seat when the court convenes for its next term in October. Her name was the only one submitted to the White House by Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., who four years ago urged her to leave the bench to run for governor. Both Goldwater and Senate Judiciary Committee member Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., as well as former House Republican Minority Leader John J. Rhodes, R-Ariz., had urged her appointment to the court. But the White House had come under extreme pressure in recent days from anti-abortion groups to drop O’Connor as a,potential nominee. Since Friday, scores of letters and telegrams had

New York Daily News, Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Reagan hit by right jabs

New York Daily News, Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection / By

Washington (News Bureau)-President Reagan’s nomination of a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court has created a major political problem for him by angering some of his staunchest supporters-the “New Right” conservatives of the Moral Majority and the right-to-life movement who form the bedrock ot his political base. The Rev. Jerry Falwell, leader of Moral Majority, predicted that “church people will desert (Reagan) in droves” because of the nomination of Sandra D. O’Connor. “Either the President did not have sufficient information about Judge O’Connor’s background in social issues , or he chose to Ignore the information,” the Rev. Falwell said. DB. CAROLYN GERSTER of Phoenix, former president of the National Right-to-Life Committee, said that O’Connor had twice voted in favor of abortion while a member of the Arizona Senate. Conservatives also contended that O’Connor was a member of a Senate committee that introduced a pro-equal rights amendment bill. Sandra O’Connor had a consistent and strong pro-abortion voting record while a senator in Arizona,” charged J.C. Wilke of Cincinnati, president of the National Right-to-Life Committee. He accused Reagan of Ignoring the pledge of the 1980 GOP platform to appoint judges “who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life.” But the President, in announcing O’Connor’s nomination yesterday at the White House, said he was “completely satisfied” with her record on right-to-life Issues. He did not elaborate. WHILE ANTI-ABORTI

Arizona Republic, Op ed, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Reagan has shattered his coalition with his Supreme Court nomination

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

The comparison between Ronald Reagan, coalition builder, and FDR, made in this space many times, may be in need of review. . With its handling of the Sandra O’Connor affair, the White House bas given every indication it does not understand, or does not care, about nurturing the coalition Reagan put together over a dozen years, which put him in the White House. • UJl ‘ White House aides – not for attribution, of course – are using the identical mocking terms to describe the alienated conservatives that the press used about them until around Nov. 4, 1980. Have they forgotten why Ronald Reagan – not George Bush – was nomina~ and elected? As Barry Goldwater demonstrated in that impossible Republican year, 1964, the party nomination is worth , automatically, 40 percent of the national vote. The key to the White House is to fmd the formula for adding the crucial 10 percent – the decisive swing vote – without jeopardizing the Republican-conservative base . After some years of experimentation, Reagan mastered the formula, brilliantly, and astonished this politically purblind city with the magnitude of his triumph. They still don’t quite comprehend what happened. Stated simply, the formula was to weld to his new economic conservatism a touch of nationalism (Panama Canal) and social traditionalism which provides him with political reach into Democratic precincts of the South and the Northern cities, among folks who voted for John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and who have, historically, distrusted

Arizona Republic, Op ed, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Reagan has betrayed his most ardent allies

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

That sound you hear, beneath the loud reveling at the president’s precedent-shattering nomination of a woman t.o the Supreme Court, is the cracking apart or Ronald Reagan’s Great Coalition. The White House boys have just made the most basic mistake you can make in politics: They have compromised the vital interests of the president’s most ardent followers, t.o score brownie points with their political enemies. A frivolous campaign promise has been kept, and a solemn written commitment violated. Political adultery. Eighteen months ago, in the Iowa caucuses, the Right-t.o-Life movement saved Ronald Reagan from a carefully prepared ambush by his now-vice president – a defeat which could have made Ronald Reagan a footnote in the hist.ory books. A month later, in New Hampshire, the Right to Lifers provided a significant share of that ast.onishing margin of vict.ory which gave candidate Reagan irresistible momentum through the early, conclusive primaries. In return, the movement asked Mr. Reagan for a surprisingly small return. Only that Reagan support their Human Life Amendment and its progeny; that his Supreme Court nominees – be they black, white, yellow, brown, red, male or female – share the president’s internalized belief that the unborn child has the God-given right t.o live. As politics goes, this was a simple, inexpensive bargain. The candidate would get the volunteer labors of thousands, the allegiance of millions, in return for remaining true t.o his stated convictions.