WASHINGTON — President Biden eulogized the late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor‘s “desire for civility” and “trust in the capacity of human institutions to make life better” at her funeral Tuesday — while recalling his presence at the first female justice’s 1981 confirmation hearing.
“More than 40 years ago, on a Wednesday in September 1981, the Senate Judiciary Committee came to order. I was the ranking member of that committee. The day’s business was the momentous nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first woman in American history to serve as a Supreme Court justice,” the 81-year-old president recalled.
“Announcing her nomination over that summer, President Reagan described her as ‘a person for all seasons.’ And it was a person for all seasons we saw at that hearing and that Americans and the world would see through her extraordinary service as a justice.”
O’Connor, who was confirmed 99-0 by the full Senate, went on to become the court’s deciding vote in more than 300 cases — including 2000’s Bush v. Gore, which ended Florida’s recount of presidential ballots and ensured Republican George W. Bush’s narrow victory over Democrat Al Gore.
The former justice died Dec. 1 at the age of 93.
“One need not agree with all of her decisions in order to recognize that her principles were deeply held and of the highest order and that her desire for civility was genuine and her trust in the capacity of human institutions to make life better is what this world was abiding,” Biden said in an eight-minute address inside Washington’s National Cathedral, on whose governing board O’Connor served.
“How she embodied such attributes under such pressure and scrutiny helped empower generations of women in every part of American life.”
Chief Justice John Roberts, who was originally slated to be O’Connor’s successor, recalled that he was assigned to support O’Connor’s nomination as a young Justice Department attorney and said that 25 years later, O’Connor quipped about his initial nomination to replace her that “the only problem was I didn’t wear a skirt.”
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“My initial reaction was, of course, everything’s negotiable,” Roberts added to laughter. “But fortunately, it didn’t come to that.”
Roberts ultimately served alongside O’Connor on the court for four months when he was tapped by Bush to replace the late Chief Justice, William Rehnquist.
“The last several weeks after Justice O’Connor’s passing, I have spoken with many women judges and lawyers who were young adults when Justice O’Connor became the first,” the chief recounted. “They say the same thing — younger people today cannot understand what it was like before Justice O’Connor, in what now seems a distant past.
“That distance is a measure of time, but it’s also a measure of Justice O’Connor’s life and work. In nearly a quarter century on the court, she was a strong influential and iconic jurist. Her leadership shaped the legal profession, making it obvious that judges are both women and men.”
Roberts added: “The time when women were not on the bench seems so far away, because Justice O’Connor was so good when she was on the bench. She was so successful that the barriers she broke down are almost unthinkable today, but not so in her lifetime.”
O’Connor was an Arizona appeals court judge before Reagan selected her for the groundbreaking nomination. She is the most recent justice to have served in elected office, as a Republican state senator from 1969 to 1975. In 1973, she became the first woman to serve as a state senate’s majority leader.
O’Connor announced her retirement in 2005 to care for her husband, John O’Connor, who died in 2009 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
She served more than 24 years on the Supreme Court at the time she departed the bench in January 2006.
