American attorney and jurist, first female justice on the Supreme Court, elevated to the bench in 1981 and considered one of the most powerful women in America. O’Connor announced her retirement from the Supreme Court on July 1, 2005, effective with the confirmation of her replacement. Although John Roberts was originally nominated to replace her, his name was later offered as replacement of Chief Justice Rehnquist who died on September 3, 2005.
As an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, O’Connor has often been described as the swing vote in critical cases. Although she is considered a conservative who seeks to limit the federal government’s power over the states, she considers each case on its merits and renders her opinions with a pragmatic approach.
A cattle rancher’s daughter, O’Connor knew some lean years as a child. She claims her experiences on the cattle ranch taught her self-confidence and self-sufficiency, and she learned frugality and self-discipline from her father. An only child until age 8, she credits her dad with modeling for her the importance of having the last word in a discussion. Her mother, a college graduate, stressed education, and Sandra Day graduated from Stanford University magna cum laude with a bachelor’s in economics in 1950, followed by a LL. B. degree from Stanford Law two years later.
In the 1950s, the law profession was not kind to women, even to one who graduated near the top of her class. In 1952, O’Connor took a position in public service as Deputy County Attorney of San Mateo County in California. In 1954, while her husband served in Germany as part of the US Army Judge Advocate General Corps, she worked in Frankfurt as a civilian attorney for Quartermaster Market Center. From 1958-1960 she practiced law in Phoenix and served as Assistant Attorney General of Arizona, but withdrew from work for a few years after the birth of her second son, all the while volunteering at the state bar, charities and civic organizations. One of her sons said, “If my mother is not busy organizing something or giving directions, she’s not happy.”
She got a taste of politics in 1965 when she became assistant state attorney general. Four years later, in 1969, she was appointed to the Arizona State Senate and subsequently was re-elected twice. In 1973, she became the first woman in the US to hold the position of state senate majority leader.
She began her judicial career in the mid-‘70s when she was elected judge of Maricopa County Superior Court. In 1979, then-governor Bruce Babbitt appointed her to the Arizona Court of Appeals. On July 7, 1981, President Reagan announced his intention to nominate her to the Supreme Court. She was confirmed on September 21 that year and sworn in four days later.
O’Connor met her husband John Jay O’Connor III in law school while they were working on the Stanford Law Review; they married in 1952 and have three sons, born in 1957, 1960 and 1962 respectively. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988 and continued to work through her treatment. In 2000, she and her brother wrote a book about their childhood “Lazy B: Growing up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest,” and two years later, in 2002, she was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. An avid golfer, she finds time to write when she’s not otherwise engaged, and in 2005, she wrote a children’s book entitled “Chico.”
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