If you think you’ve been helpful, and then it’s dismantled, you think, ‘Oh, dear.’ But life goes on. Asked at a 2009 event how she felt about the court retreating from or undoing rulings she was instrumental in shaping, she responded: “What would you feel? I’d be a little bit disappointed. Kennedy’s replacement by Justice Brett Kavanaugh is expected to shift the court right again.įor her part, O’Connor wasn’t always delighted with the court’s more conservative direction after she left. O’Connor’s retirement and replacement by Justice Samuel Alito shifted the court right, making Kennedy’s vote the often-pivotal one. The fellow Reagan appointees were moderate conservatives who often held the key vote in high-profile cases. Her departure was a moment not unlike Kennedy’s retirement this summer. It was a decision influenced by the decline in the health of her husband, John O’Connor III, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She was 75 when she announced her retirement from the court in 2005. Gore decision effectively settling the 2000 election in George W. On the Supreme Court, her votes were key in cases about abortion, affirmative action and campaign finance as well as the Bush v. She had graduated third in her class from Stanford Law School and was the first woman to lead the Arizona state senate. O’Connor was a state court judge before being unanimously confirmed to the Supreme Court at 51.
A gavel used at her 1981 confirmation hearing, her Presidential Medal of Freedom and T-shirts made annually by an exercise class she started at the high court are among the items O’Connor has now donated to the court’s collection, the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian. Over about the past year, Jay O’Connor and his brother Brian cleared out O’Connor’s Supreme Court office and went through hundreds of boxes of files and other items she had in the building’s basement. His mother is no longer doing interviews. “When she hit about 86 years old she decided that it was time to slow things down, that she’d accomplished most of what she set out to do in her post-retirement years, that she was getting older physically and her memory was starting to be more challenging, so the time came to dial back her public life,” said Jay O’Connor. A gavel used at her 1981 confirmation hearing and her Presidential Medal of Freedom are among the items O’Connor has now donated.
0 kommentar(er)
