The Supreme Court says retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, died Friday. She was 93. She left the court in 2006.
The court says she died in Phoenix on Friday, of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness.
In 2018, she announced that she had been diagnosed with “the beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer’s disease.” Her husband, John O’Connor, died of complications of Alzheimer’s in 2009.
O’Connor’s nomination in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan and subsequent confirmation by the Senate ended 191 years of male exclusivity on the high court. A native of Arizona who grew up on her family’s sprawling ranch, O’Connor wasted little time building a reputation as a hard worker who wielded considerable political clout on the nine-member court.
I’ll never forgive her for Bush v. Gore. Literally destroyed the country. If she’d voted for the law, not for her party, there’d have been no Bush Administration, no was on terror, no Trump, no Dobbs. And we’re not done yet; there’s probably a Republican dictatorship in our near future.
The damage she did is incalculable. I’m glad she’s gone.
She retired to care for her husband, who wound up dying 3 years later. It was no benevolent choice. She also was free to do so as Republican Bush got to pick the replacement, who would up being Alito.
This has been a week of learning famous people I had thought were long dead, have in fact been alive...by seeing news articles announcing their deaths.
Slightly off topic, but a supreme court joke is the main reason I hated the Barbie movie. At the end, when one of the Kens asks to be on the Supreme Court, and Barbie says not until a woman in the real world gets that level of power. Like motherfucker, if the point your movie is trying to make depends on erasing Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor from history then maybe your message isn't as fucking progressive as you think it is.
EDIT: I'm probably wrong, see comment below. The phrasing could be misinterpreted and I likely gave it the least charitable interpretation. The line isn't divorced from reality but apparently I am.
one of the Kens asks to be on the Supreme Court, and Barbie says not until a woman in the real world gets that level of power.
I'm afraid your memory is a bit off. A Ken asks for a supreme court seat, President Barbie says "maybe one of the lower circuits", and shortly thereafter the narrator says something like "maybe one day the Kens will enjoy all the rights that women do in the real world". The movie certainly did not erase Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor.
Just went back and rewatched it and you are absolutely correcct, its not what I remember at all. I saw an early run in the theatres and wonder if they changed it, but its probably just my confirmation bias after watching the whole movie feeling icky at how ham-fisted it was.
Strictly speaking, she wasn't above politicizing her position. In fact, she said that her final wish was for her replacement to be nominated after the next president was inaugurated. I'm all for honoring her, but it's not honoring her to make things up.
Ironically what you wanted was her to politicize her position. She was above that
That's great for her and all, but it was a choice that had the disastrous outcome of allowing Trump to replace her with Barrett. Ginsberg doesn't have to live with that, but we all do. Thanks RBG.