On this day in 1981, President Ronald Reagan announced he would nominate Sandra Day O’Connor to be the first female justice to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Reagan, who had taken office in January, fulfilled a campaign pledge by selecting O’Connor, a judge on the Arizona State Court of Appeals, as his first pick for a seat on the high tribunal.
She succeeded Potter Stewart (1915-85), another Republican, who created the vacancy by retiring. He had joined the court in 1958 after being nominated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
On the day before his announcement, Reagan wrote in his diary: “Called Judge O'Connor and told her she was my nominee for Supreme Court. Already the flak is starting and from my own supporters. Right to Life people say she is pro-abortion. She declares abortion is personally repugnant to her. I think she'll make a good justice.”
Pro-life and religious groups opposed O'Connor's nomination because they suspected, correctly, that she would be unwilling to overturn Roe v. Wade. Some Republicans, including Don Nickles of Oklahoma, Steve Symms of Idaho and Jesse Helms of North Carolina, called the White House to express their discontent over the nomination; Nickles said he and “other pro-family Republican senators would not support” O'Connor.
Conservative activists such as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Howard Phillips and Peter Gemma also spoke out against the nomination. Gemma called the nomination “a direct contradiction of the Republican platform to everything that candidate Reagan said and even President Reagan has said in regard to social issues.” Gemma, executive director of the National Pro-Life Political Action Committee, had sought to delay O'Connor's confirmation by challenging her record, including her support for the Equal Rights Amendment.
O'Connor's confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee began on Sept. 9 and lasted for three days. It was the first televised confirmation hearing for a Supreme Court justice. The questioning largely focused on abortion. O’Connor declined to state her views on the issue, but she left the impression the she did not support abortion rights. The Senate approved her nomination by a vote of 99-0.
While on the bench, O’Connor was widely viewed as a federalist and a moderate. She tended to approach each case narrowly, seeking to avoid the adoption of long-lasting sweeping precedents. Most frequently, she sided with the court’s conservative bloc, although in the latter years of her tenure, she often was regarded as exercising the swing vote.
O’ Connor once said: “The power I exert on the court depends on the power of my arguments, not on my gender.”
On July 1, 2005, she announced her intention to retire after her successor had been confirmed. President George W. Bush nominated Judge Samuel Alito, a die-hard conservative, to take her seat. Alito joined the court when O’Connor left on Jan. 31, 2006.
SOURCE: “THIS DAY IN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY,” BY PAUL BRANDUS