Supreme Court Justice O’Connor Resigns

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WASHINGTON – Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman Supreme Court justice and a decisive swing vote for a quarter-century on virtually all the major legal issues of our time, announced her resignation today.

Because she is a moderate, her departure gives President Bush a major opportunity to alter the direction of the court if he so chooses.

Justice O’Connor’s possible resignation has been rumored for months, although many thought Chief Justice Rehnquist, who has been ailing with cancer, would step down first.

In anticipation of one or more departures, the White House has been stepping up preparations for a nomination and almost certainly would be ready to announce a choice soon.

Outside advisers believe the front-runners are U.S. Court of Appeals Judges Michael Luttig of the 4th Circuit and John Roberts of the D.C. Circuit, both considered strong conservatives. Mr. Bush might also prevail upon his reluctant friend, Attorney General Gonzales, who would be the first Hispanic justice but is seen by some conservatives as unreliable on issues such as abortion and affirmative action.

Other possible candidates include Appeals Judges Samuel Alito of the 3rd Circuit, Michael McConnell of the 10th Circuit, Emilio Garza of the 5th Circuit, and Harvie Wilkinson of the 4th Circuit.

Partisans began arming for a possible confirmation battle months ago and it was the subtext to the Senate battle over the Democratic minority’s use of the filibuster to block Bush judicial appointments.

Although Justice O’Connor was appointed by President Reagan, one of the most conservative presidents in history, Justice O’Connor resisted the efforts of her conservative colleagues in a number of important areas.

She helped modify the right to abortion but blocked the efforts of conservative colleagues to overturn it.

She rejected challenges to the use of affirmative action in higher education, instead endorsing its use in narrow circumstances in the interest of “effective participation by members of all racial and ethnic groups in the civic life of our nation.”

In what may be her most memorable opinion, she was willing to grant considerable deference to the Bush administration’s anti-terrorist detention policies but drew a firm line at the policy of detaining individuals without independent review.

Justice O’Connor’s unique status as the first female on the court, combined with a gregarious public presence unusual for the government’s most monastic branch, made her unquestionably the best-known justice in modern times, greeted by strangers in airports and on the streets and always named on pollsters’ lists of America’s most powerful and most respected women.

Her memoir, a personal recollection of childhood on her family’s vast working ranch in Arizona, was a best-seller.

Her role as the swing vote on the court brought her even more attention, with a few commentators re-naming the court of her era not the Burger Court or the Rehnquist Court but the “O’Connor Court.”

She arrived on an ideologically divided high court during a period of unprecedented challenge to established law on issues such as abortion, affirmative action, church-state relations, and criminal justice.

She put her stamp on each of these fields, not by adopting an agenda, but by avoiding one. With colleagues often locked into predictable conservative or liberal position, this made her a consistent swing vote, a strategic role she deployed to moderate the extremes, in case after controversial case.

In effect, she stood politely but firmly in the way of the conservative strategy for the court that was so dear to the Reagan’s followers.

– The Washington Post