Opinion: I thought Sandra Day O'Connor was too conservative. Now her moderation would be a godsend.
LA TimesSupreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stands in front of the Supreme Court building after she was sworn in on Sept. 25, 1981. Years ago, I had the good fortune to be in Washington, when the National Portrait Gallery had a show starring portraits of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who died Friday in Phoenix at 93. “Once,” wrote Thomas, “during the Court’s weekly private conference, when Justice Antonin Scalia was declaiming against racial and gender preference, O’Connor dryly remarked, ‘Why Nino, how do you think I got my job?’ ” In the 1980s and ‘90s, O’Connor sided with the court’s conservatives in decisions that outlawed the use of race in creating majority Black congressional districts and restricted the use of quota-like “set asides” for minority contractors. “I never could have imagined that one day I would become the first woman justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.” Like many moderate Republicans, O’Connor would be considered liberal by today’s standards.
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