Former US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor dead at 93

The Star

Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, whose centrist views and shrewd negotiating skills allowed her to steer the nation’s law for much of her quarter-century tenure, died on Friday (Dec 1) at the age of 93, the court said.   Read more at https://tinyurl.com/4cv25tya  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00 And today I rise along with my colleagues representing all of Arizona, Republicans and

00:07 Democrats alike, to honor the life and legacy of the most influential Arizonan in history,

00:18 Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

00:22 Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court,

00:27 died on Friday at the age of 93. The court said in a statement that O'Connor died in

00:32 "phoenix of complications related to dementia and a respiratory illness."

00:37 She grew up in Arizona and lived there most of her life.

00:40 O'Connor was sworn in as the first female Supreme Court Justice in 1981,

00:46 an appointee of then-Republican President Ronald Reagan.

00:50 She was conservative by nature, having grown up in an Arizona ranch family.

00:55 But her pragmatism and knack for consensus-building put her at the court's ideological center.

01:01 As a former Republican state senator and later Arizona's Senate Majority Leader,

01:07 another first-in-the-nation achievement, O'Connor understood how to strategize with

01:12 colleagues to get a majority decision. Over her quarter-century tenure, O'Connor avoided

01:18 sweeping pronouncements and voted for incremental change. And over time, her views became more

01:24 liberal. She was a pivotal vote on some of the most contentious issues of her era,

01:29 including preserving a woman's right to abortion and upholding affirmative action on college

01:35 campuses. O'Connor once compared her tenure to walking on wet cement, saying, "Every opinion

01:42 you offer, you've left a footprint." She retired from the court in 2006, replaced by the more

01:48 ideologically rigid conservative Justice Samuel Alito. After retirement, she dedicated herself

01:54 to improving civics education. In 2009, former Democratic President Barack Obama presented

02:01 O'Connor with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor a president can give.

02:07 [END]

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