Bush v. Gore
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 11, 2000 Decided December 12, 2000
Full case name	George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, Petitioners v. Albert Gore, Jr. and Joseph Lieberman, et al.
Docket nos.	00-949
Citations	531 U.S. 98 (more) 121 S. Ct. 525; 148 L. Ed. 2d 388; 2000 U.S. LEXIS 8430; 69 U.S.L.W. 4029; 2000 Cal. Daily Op. Service 9879; 2000 Colo. J. C.A.R. 6606; 14 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 26
Prior history	Judgment for defendant, Fla. Cir. Ct.; matter certified to Florida Supreme Court, Fla. Ct. App.; aff'd in part, rev'd in part, sub nom. Palm Beach County Canvassing Bd. v. Harris, 772 So. 2d 1273 (2000); cert. granted, stay granted, 531 U.S. 1036 (2000)
Argument	Oral argument
Holding
In the circumstances of this case, any manual recount of votes seeking to meet the December 12 “safe harbor” deadline would be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Florida Supreme Court reversed and remanded.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Per curiam.
Concurrence	Rehnquist, joined by Scalia, Thomas
Dissent	Stevens, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer
Dissent	Souter, joined by Breyer; Stevens, Ginsburg (all but part C)
Dissent	Ginsburg, joined by Stevens; Souter, Breyer (part I)
Dissent	Breyer, joined by Stevens, Ginsburg (except part I-A-1); Souter (part I)
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. II, amend. XIV; 3 U.S.C. § 5

Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), is the landmark United States Supreme Court decision that effectively resolved the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. Only eight days earlier, the United States Supreme Court had unanimously decided the closely related case of Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, 531 U.S. 70 (2000), and only three days earlier, had preliminarily halted the recount that was occurring in Florida.

In a per curiam decision, the Court ruled that the Florida Supreme Court's method for recounting ballots was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court also ruled that no alternative method could be established within the time limits set by the State of Florida. Three concurring justices also asserted that the Florida Supreme Court had violated Article II, § 1, cl. 2 of the Constitution, by misinterpreting Florida election law that had been enacted by the Florida Legislature.

The decision allowed Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris's previous certification of George W. Bush as the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes to stand. Florida's votes gave Bush, the Republican candidate, 271 electoral votes, one more than the required 270 electoral votes to win the Electoral College and defeat Democratic candidate Al Gore, who received 266 electoral votes (a District of Columbia elector abstained).

Highly controversial, the decision itself stated it could never be cited as precedent, causing critics to accuse the conservative majority of simply picking a winner rather than relying on sound jurisprudence. A group of media organizations conducted the Florida recount after Bush had been sworn in and determined that Gore might have won under certain types of recounts, but not under the type being used at the time Bush v. Gore was decided.^[1][2]

Background[link]

The 2000 Presidential election took place on November 7, 2000. Under the Electoral College system each state conducts its own popular election for President and Vice President. However, the voters are actually voting for a slate of "electors", each of whom pledged to vote for a particular candidate for each office, in the Electoral College. Article II, § 1, cl. 2 of the U.S. Constitution provides that each state legislature decides how electors are chosen. Early in U.S. history, most state legislatures directly appointed the slate of electors for each of their respective states. Today, state legislatures have enacted laws to provide for the selection of electors by popular vote within each state. While laws vary, most states, including Florida, award all electoral votes to the candidate for either office who receives a plurality of the state's popular vote. Any candidate who then receives an absolute majority of all electoral votes nationally (270 since 1963) wins the Presidential or Vice Presidential election.

Election 2000; Close-up view of satellite trucks parked by the Florida Capitol during the 2000 Presidential election vote dispute

On November 8, 2000, the Florida Division of Elections reported that Bush won with 48.8% of the vote in Florida, a margin of victory of 1,784 votes.^[3] The margin of victory was less than 0.5% of the votes cast, so a statutorily-mandated^[4] automatic machine recount occurred. On November 10, with the machine recount finished in all but one county, Bush's margin of victory had decreased to 327.^[5] According to author Jeffrey Toobin, later analysis showed that a total of 18 counties—accounting for a quarter of all votes cast in Florida—did not carry out the legally mandated machine recount, but "[n]o one from the Gore campaign ever challenged" the notion that the machine recount had been completed.^[6] Florida's election laws^[7] allow a candidate to request a county to conduct a manual recount, and Gore requested manual recounts in four Florida counties: Volusia, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade, which are counties that traditionally vote Democratic and would be expected to garner more votes for Gore. Gore did not, however, request any recounts in counties that traditionally vote Republican. The four counties granted the request and began manual recounts. However, Florida law also required all counties to certify their election returns to the Florida Secretary of State within seven days of the election,^[8] and several of the counties conducting manual recounts did not believe they could meet this deadline. On November 14, the statutory deadline, the Florida Circuit Court ruled that the seven-day deadline was mandatory, but that the counties could amend their returns at a later date. The court also ruled that the Secretary, after "considering all attendant facts and circumstances," had discretion to include any late amended returns in the statewide certification.^[9] Prior to the 5 p.m. deadline on November 14, Volusia County completed its manual recount and certified its results. At 5 p.m. on November 14, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris announced that she was in receipt of the certified returns from all 67 counties, while Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties were still conducting manual recounts.^[10]

Harris issued a set of criteria^[3] by which she would determine whether to allow late filings, and she required any county seeking to make a late filing to submit to her, by 2 p.m. the following day, a written statement of the facts and circumstances justifying the late filing. Four counties submitted statements, and after reviewing the submissions Harris determined that none justified an extension of the filing deadline. She further announced that after she received the certified returns of the overseas absentee ballots from each county, she would certify the results of the presidential election on Sunday, November 26, 2000.^[3] On that date, she certified Bush the winner and litigation ensued.

Stay of the Florida recount[link]

By December 8, 2000, there had been multiple court decisions regarding the presidential election in Florida^[11] and on that date the Florida Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, ordered a statewide manual recount.^[12] On December 9, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to stay the Florida recount, because according to Justice Scalia:

Florida Supreme Court

It suffices to say that the issuance of the stay suggests that a majority of the Court, while not deciding the issues presented, believe that the petitioner has a substantial probability of success. The issue is not, as the dissent puts it, whether "[c]ounting every legally cast vote ca[n] constitute irreparable harm." One of the principal issues in the appeal we have accepted is precisely whether the votes that have been ordered to be counted are, under a reasonable interpretation of Florida law, "legally cast vote[s]." The counting of votes that are of questionable legality does in my view threaten irreparable harm to petitioner Bush, and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election. Count first, and rule upon legality afterwards, is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires.^[13]

The dissenters opined: "Counting every legally cast vote cannot constitute irreparable harm... Preventing the recount from being completed will inevitably cast a cloud on the legitimacy of the election."^[13] The four dissenting justices argued that stopping the recount was an "unwise" violation of "three venerable rules of judicial restraint", namely respecting the opinions of state supreme courts, cautiously exercising jurisdiction when "another branch of the Federal Government" has a large measure of responsibility to resolve the issue, and avoiding making peremptory conclusions on federal constitutional law prior to a full presentation on the issue.

Rapid developments[link]

The oral argument in Bush v. Gore occurred on December 11.^[14] Theodore Olson, a Washington, D.C. lawyer and future Solicitor General, delivered Bush's oral argument and New York lawyer David Boies argued for Gore.

During the brief period when the U.S. Supreme Court was deliberating Bush v. Gore, the Florida Supreme Court provided clarifications^[15] that the U.S. Supreme Court had requested on December 4 in the case of Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, 531 U.S. 70 (2000). Because of the extraordinary nature and argued urgency of the case, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Bush v. Gore on December 12, less than a day after hearing oral argument.

Relevant law[link]

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, on which the decision in Bush v. Gore was based,^[16] states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Article II, § 1, cl. 2 specifies the number of electors per state, and, most relevant to this case,^[17] specifies the manner in which those electors are selected, stipulating that:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors...

This clause arguably gives power to only one branch of Florida's state government (i.e., the state legislature).^[18]

3 U.S.C. § 5 regulates the "determination of controversy as to appointment of electors"^[19] in Presidential elections. Of particular relevance^[17] to this case was the so-called "safe harbor" provision, which allows states to appoint their electors without Congressional interference if done by a specified deadline:

If any State shall have provided ... for its final determination of ... the appointment of all or any of the electors of such State ... at least six days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, such determination ... shall be conclusive.^[20]

Since the electors were set to meet December 18, the "safe harbor" deadline was December 12, just one day after the Court heard oral arguments in this case.

According to 28 U.S.C. § 1257:

Final judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had, may be reviewed by the Supreme Court by writ of certiorari where the validity of a treaty or statute of the United States is drawn in question or where the validity of a statute of any State is drawn in question on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States...

Issues considered by the Court[link]

Theodore Olson represented Bush

The Court had to resolve two different questions to fully resolve the case:

• Were the recounts, as they were being conducted, constitutional?^[21]
• If the recounts were unconstitutional, what is the remedy?^[22]

Three days earlier, the five-Justice majority had ordered the recount stopped^[23] and the Court had to decide whether to re-start it.

Equal Protection Clause[link]

Bush argued that recounts in Florida violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, because there was no statewide standard that each county board could use to determine whether a given ballot was a legal vote. Each county used its own standard to manually recount each vote, and Bush argued that some counties would have more lax standards than other counties. Therefore, two voters could have marked their ballot in an identical manner, but one voter's ballot in one county would be counted while the other voter's ballot in a different county would be rejected, due to the varying standards used for manual recounts.^[24]

Gore argued that there was indeed a statewide standard, the "intent of the voter" standard, and that this standard was sufficient under the Equal Protection Clause.^[25] Furthermore, Gore argued that the consequence of ruling the Florida recount unconstitutional simply because it treated different voters differently would effectively render every state election unconstitutional^[26] and that each method has a different rate of error in counting votes. A voter in a "punch-card" county has a greater chance of having his vote undercounted than a voter in an "optical scanner" county. If Bush wins, Gore argued, every state would have to have one statewide method of recording votes to be constitutional.

Remedy[link]

David Boies represented Gore

This was the most closely decided issue in the case. The arguments presented by counsel did not extensively address what the Court should do, if the Court were to find an Equal Protection violation. However, Gore did argue briefly that the appropriate remedy would be to not cancel all recounts, but rather would be to order a proper recount.^[27]

Article II[link]

Bush also argued that the Florida Supreme Court's ruling violated Article II, § 1, cl. 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Essentially, Bush argued that the Florida Supreme Court's interpretation of Florida law was so erroneous that their ruling had the effect of making new law. Since this "new law" had not been directed by the Florida legislature, it violated Article II. However, Bush argued that Article II gives the federal judiciary the power to interpret state election law in presidential elections to ensure that the intent of the state legislature is followed.^[28]

Gore argued that Article II presupposes judicial review and interpretation of state statutes, and that the Florida Supreme Court did nothing more than exercise the routine principles of statutory construction to reach its decision.^[29]

Decision[link]

In brief, the breakdown of the decisions was:

• Seven justices (the five Justice majority plus Breyer and Souter) agreed that there was an Equal Protection Clause violation in using different standards of counting in different counties.^[30]
• Five justices agreed that December 12 (the date of the decision) was the deadline Florida had established for recounts (Kennedy, O'Connor, Rehnquist,^[31] Scalia and Thomas in support; Breyer,^[32] Ginsburg, Souter^[33] and Stevens opposed). Justices Breyer and Souter wanted to remand the case to the Florida Supreme Court to permit that court to establish uniform standards of what constituted a legal vote and then manually recount all ballots using those standards.
• Three justices (Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas) argued that the Florida Supreme Court had acted contrary to the intent of the Florida legislature. However, four justices (Breyer, Souter, Ginsburg, and Stevens) specifically disputed this in their dissenting opinions, and the remaining two Justices (Kennedy and O'Connor) declined to join Rehnquist's concurrence on the matter.

Equal Protection Clause[link]

The Supreme Court, in a per curiam opinion, ruled that the Florida Supreme Court's decision, calling for a statewide recount, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This ruling was by a 7-2 vote, but (as discussed more fully in the next subsection below) two of the seven disagreed with the Court's remedy for the Equal Protection violation.^[30] The Court held that the Equal Protection Clause guarantees to individuals that their ballots cannot be devalued by "later arbitrary and disparate treatment". Even if the recount was fair in theory, it was unfair in practice. The record, as weighed by the Florida Supreme Court, suggested that different standards were seemingly applied to the recount from ballot to ballot, precinct to precinct, and county to county, even when identical types of ballots and machines were used.^[34]

According to the Court, the statewide standard (that a "legal vote" is "one in which there is a 'clear indication of the intent of the voter'"^[35]) could not guarantee that each county would count the votes in a constitutionally permissible fashion. The Court stated that the per curiam opinion's applicability was "limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities."

Remedy[link]

The Court ruled 5–4 that no constitutionally valid recount could be completed by a December 12 "safe harbor" deadline. The Court asserted that "the Supreme Court of Florida has said that the legislature intended the State's electors to 'participat[e] fully in the federal electoral process,' as provided in 3 U.S.C. § 5." The Court therefore effectively ended the proposed recount, because "the Florida Legislature intended to obtain the safe-harbor benefits of 3 U. S. C. §5."

Four justices (Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Souter and Breyer) dissented as to stopping the recount. Two of those four dissenters (i.e. Justices Breyer and Souter) acknowledged that the counting up until December 9 had not conformed with Equal Protection requirements. However, Souter and Breyer favored remanding the case back to the Florida Supreme Court for the purpose of crafting specific guidelines for how to count disputed ballots, in contrast to the majority's decision to halt the recount altogether.^[36] The actual counting had ended with the December 9 injunction issued by the same five-justice majority, three days before any deadline.^[23]

The dissenting opinions strongly criticized the five justice majority for involving the Court in state-level affairs. Justice Stevens' dissent (joined by Justices Breyer and Ginsburg) concluded as follows:^[37]

What must underlie petitioners' entire federal assault on the Florida election procedures is an unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges who would make the critical decisions if the vote count were to proceed. Otherwise, their position is wholly without merit. The endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land. It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.

The per curiam opinion in Bush v. Gore did not technically dismiss the case, and instead "remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion." Gore's attorneys therefore understood that they could fight on, and could petition the Florida Supreme Court to repudiate the notion that December 12 was final under Florida law.^[38] However, Gore dropped the case, because he was not optimistic about how the Florida justices would react to further arguments and, as one of his advisers put it, "the best Gore could hope for was a slate of disputed electors".^[38] On remand, the Florida Supreme Court issued an opinion on December 22, 2000 that did not dispute whether December 12 was the deadline for recounts under state law, although this was disputed in a concurring opinion by Florida Supreme Court Justice Leander Shaw.^[39]

Article II[link]

Chief Justice Rehnquist's concurring opinion, joined by Justices Scalia and Thomas, began by emphasizing that this was an unusual case in which the Constitution requires federal courts to assess whether a state supreme court has properly interpreted the will of the state legislature. Usually, federal courts do not make that type of assessment, and indeed the per curiam opinion in this case did not do so. After addressing this aspect of the case, Rehnquist examined and agreed with arguments that had been made by the dissenting justices of the Florida Supreme Court.

Scholarly analyses[link]

Bush v. Gore prompted many strong reactions from scholars, pundits, and others over the Court's decision.

The critical remedial issue[link]

The most closely decided aspect of the case was the key question of what remedy the Court should order, in view of an Equal Protection Clause violation. Gore had argued for a new recount that would pass constitutional muster, but the Court instead chose to end the election, asserting that “the Florida Supreme Court has said that the Florida Legislature intended to obtain the safe-harbor benefits of 3 U. S. C. §5.” This last assertion by the 5–4 Bush v. Gore majority has proven very controversial.

Michael W. McConnell has written that the U.S Supreme Court "may have reached the right result for the wrong reason."^[40] McConnell points to the Florida Supreme Court's December 11 opinion, which characterized December 12 as an "outside deadline". Here is the pertinent excerpt from the December 11 opinion of the Florida Supreme Court:^[15]

What is a reasonable time required for completion will, in part, depend on whether the election is for a statewide office, for a federal office or for presidential electors. In the case of the presidential election, the determination of reasonableness must be circumscribed by the provisions of 3 U.S.C. § 5, which sets December 12, 2000 as the date for final determination of any state's dispute concerning its electors for that determination to be given conclusive effect in Congress... As always, it is necessary to read all provisions of the elections code in pari materia. In this case, that comprehensive reading required that there be time for an elections contest pursuant to section 102.168, which all parties had agreed was a necessary component of the statutory scheme and to accommodate the outside deadline set forth in 3 U.S.C. § 5 of December 12, 2000.

However, according to Nelson Lund, one might argue that the Florida Supreme Court was discussing the "protest provisions of the Florida Election Code, whereas the issues in Bush v. Gore arose under the contest provisions."^[41] Likewise, Peter Berkowitz has written that, "Perhaps it would have been more generous for the Court to have asked the Florida court on remand whether 'outside deadline' referred to contest-period as well as protest-period recounts."^[42] Abner Greene has pointed to evidence that "the Florida Supreme Court thought all manual recounts – whether protest or contest – must be completed no later than December 12."^[43] Nevertheless, Greene concluded that, "lack of clarity about the Florida Supreme Court’s views on the safe-harbor provision should have resulted in a remand to that court for clarification,"^[43] in addition to the remand of December 4.^[44] The Court in Bush v. Gore did remand the case instead of dismissing it, but the remand did not include another request for clarification.

Other issues[link]

Part of the reason recounts could not be completed was the various stoppages ordered by the various branches and levels of the judiciary, most notably the Supreme Court itself.^[45] Opponents argued that it was improper for the Court (by the same five Justices who joined the per curiam opinion) to grant a stay that preliminarily stopped the recounts based on the possibility of irreparable injury and success on the merits.^[46] Supporters of the stay — such as Charles Fried — contend that the validity of the stay was vindicated by the ultimate decision on the merits and that the only thing that the stay prevented was a recount "being done in an unconstitutional way."^[47]

Some of the decision's critics argued that the Court's decision was a perversion of the Equal Protection Clause,^[46] and contrary to the political question doctrine.^[48] On the other hand, Geoffrey R. Stone has expressed sympathy with the Court's equal protection reasoning, even though Stone was dismayed by what he saw as the sudden and suspect conversion of Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas to that equal protection principle. According to Stone:

No one familiar with the jurisprudence of Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas could possibly have imagined that they would vote to invalidate the Florida recount process on the basis of their own well-developed and oft-invoked approach to the Equal Protection Clause.^[49]

The dissent of Justice Stevens was criticized by George Mason University School of Law Professor Nelson Lund.^[50] Lund said:

[t]he best known passage, which comes from Justice Stevens' dissent, consists of a rhetorical flourish rather than analysis.

Conversely, the majority opinion was criticized by Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz, who wrote:

[T]he decision in the Florida election case may be ranked as the single most corrupt decision in Supreme Court history, because it is the only one that I know of where the majority justices decided as they did because of the personal identity and political affiliation of the litigants. This was cheating, and a violation of the judicial oath.^[51]

Some critics of the decision argue that the majority seemed to seek refuge from their own logic^[52][53] in the following sentence in the majority opinion: "Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities."^[54] The Court's defenders argued that this was a reasonable precaution against the possibility that the decision might be read over-broadly,^[55] arguing that in the short time available it would not be appropriate to attempt to craft language spelling out in greater detail how to apply the holding to other cases. Critics, however, interpreted the sentence as stating that the case did not set precedent in any way and could not be used to justify any future court decision, and some suggested that this was evidence the majority realized its holding was untenable.^[56] It has been claimed that only conservative Republican Justices ruled against Gore in this case and did so for partisan reasons.^[51] For example, Steven Foster of the Edinburgh University Press said:

On the eve of the election Sandra Day O'Connor had made a public statement that a Gore victory would be a personal disaster for her. Clarence Thomas' wife was so intimately involved in the Bush campaign that she was helping to draw up a list of Bush appointees more or less at the same time as her husband was adjudicating on whether the same man would become the next President. Finally, Antonin Scalia's son was working for the firm appointed by Bush to argue his case before the Supreme Court, the head of which was subsequently appointed as Solictor-General.^[57]

Law professor Ronald Rotunda has responded as follows:

Not only is that claim inconsistent with the position of Justices Breyer and Souter, it is inconsistent with the position of three of the Florida justices who dissented. No Justice on the Florida Supreme Court was a Republican appointee, but three of them concluded that the recount that Vice President Gore wanted was unconstitutional. Three of the seven Florida Supreme Court justices also found an Equal Protection violation when the manual ballot-counters used different procedures to examine identical ballots and count them differently.^[58]

There has also been analysis of whether or not several Justices had a conflict of interest that should have forced them to recuse themselves from the decision. On several occasions, William Rehnquist had expressed interest in retiring under a Republican administration; one study found that press reports "are equivocal on whether facts existed that would have created a conflict of interest" for Rehnquist.^[59] At an election night party, Sandra Day O'Connor became upset when the media initially announced that Gore had won Florida, her husband explaining that they would have to wait another four years before retiring to Arizona.^[59] However, both justices remained on the Court beyond President Bush's first term, until Rehnquist's death in 2005 and O'Connor's retirement in 2006.

Professor Charles Zelden faults the per curiam opinion in the case for, among other things, not declaring that the nation's electoral system required significant reform, and for not condemning administration of elections by part-time boards of elections dominated by partisan and unprofessional officials. Zelden concludes that the Court's failure to spotlight this critical flaw in American electoral democracy made a replay of Bush v. Gore more likely, not less likely, either in Florida or elsewhere.^[53]

Independent recounts after the Court's decision showed that Bush would have won the election had the recount Gore requested been allowed to continue. A statewide recount allowing officials' interpretation of "undervotes," where no vote was cast for president, or "overvotes," where votes were cast for multiple candidates, might have made Gore the winner.^[60][61]

See also[link]

• List of United States presidential elections by Electoral College margin
• Electoral Commission (United States)
• George W. Bush's first term as President of the United States
• Recount, a 2008 HBO movie about the 2000 presidential election and Bush v. Gore.

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Bush v. Gore

• Tony Sutin: Presidential Election Law
• Peter Berkowitz & Benjamin Wittes: "The Lawfulness of the Election Decision"
• Vincent Bugliosi: "None Dare Call It Treason"
• Adam Cohen: "Has Bush v. Gore Become the Case That Must Not Be Named?", Editorial Observer, The New York Times, August 15, 2006.
• Complete text and Audio of USSC Oral Arguments -- Bush v. Gore

Jan Crawford, formerly known as Jan Crawford Greenburg, is a television journalist, author, and lawyer. She currently serves as both the political correspondent and chief legal correspondent for CBS News and appears regularly on the CBS Evening News, Face the Nation, CBS This Morning, and CBS News Sunday Morning. She will lead CBS News's coverage of the 2012 Presidential Elections. She is a New York Times bestselling author of Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court and also a member of the New York Bar.^[1]

Crawford grew up on a farm in rural Alabama, graduating from Brewer High School, then graduated from the University of Alabama in 1987 and from the University of Chicago Law School in 1993.^[1] She was married to Douglas N. Greenburg, a partner at Latham & Watkins, with whom she has four children (Carolyn, Louisa, Jack and Page), and lives in Washington D.C.^[2] According to Crawford, the two separated in 2009.^[3]

She joined the Chicago Tribune as a reporter in 1987. After graduating from law school, she began covering legal affairs for the Tribune, which put her on the Supreme Court beat in 1994.^[1] In 1996, she won the Tribune's top reporting award for her work in a 13-part series on the South a generation after the civil rights movement. In 2001, her work was honored with the Tribune's top reporting award.^[1] In his first television interview, Chief Justice Roberts talked to Crawford about the court, his views on the law, and his life since taking office. Justice John Paul Stevens also chose Crawford for his first network television interview, reflecting on his memories of the man who appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1975, former President Gerald R. Ford, on the occasion of Ford's funeral.^[1]

From 1998 until 2007, Crawford provided legal analysis on the Supreme Court for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. She helped to provide live, gavel-to-gavel coverage on PBS of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.,^[1] and served as the Supreme Court analyst for Face the Nation on CBS.^[2] From 2007 to 2009, she had been senior legal correspondent for ABC and wrote a blog entitled "Legalities." In 2010, she began work for CBS, with a blog called "Crossroads."

Crawford has taught journalism at American University and frequently speaks about the court to universities, law schools, legal organizations and civic groups across the country.^[1]

[edit] Supreme Conflict

Her book on the modern Supreme Court and its justices, Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court, was published in 2007. It became a New York Times bestseller. The Wall Street Journal called the book a "tour de force" and "by far the most fair-minded portrait of the Supreme Court in a long time."^{[citation needed]} The Los Angeles Times said it was the "richest and most impressive journalistic look at the (Court) since Woodward co-wrote The Brethren in 1979."^{[citation needed]} The New York Times called it "fascinating,"^{[citation needed]} and the New Republic said it was a "genuinely spectacular feat of reporting."^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

External links[link]

• NewsHour transcript: Greenburg interview
• Library of Congress Book Festival streaming video: Greenburg talks about her Supreme Court book
• Video of discussion with Jan Crawford Greenburg and Dahlia Lithwick on Bloggingheads.tv

Sandra Day O'Connor
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
In office September 21, 1981 – January 31, 2006
Nominated by	Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	Potter Stewart
Succeeded by	Samuel Alito
Personal details
Born	Sandra Day (1930-03-26) March 26, 1930 (age 82) El Paso, Texas, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	John O'Connor (1952–2009)
Children	3
Alma mater	Stanford University
Religion	Episcopal
Signature

Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930) is a retired United States Supreme Court justice. She served as an Associate Justice from her appointment in 1981 by Ronald Reagan until her retirement from the Court in 2006. She was the first woman to be appointed to the court.^[1]

Prior to O'Connor's appointment to the Court, she was an elected official and judge in Arizona.^[2] On July 1, 2005, she announced her intention to retire effective upon the confirmation of a successor.^[3] Samuel Alito was nominated to take her seat in October 2005, and joined the Court on January 31, 2006.

O'Connor tended to approach each case narrowly without arguing for sweeping precedents. She most frequently sided with the court's conservative bloc. In the latter years of her tenure, she was regarded as having the swing vote in many cases as the court grew more conservative.

O'Connor was Chancellor of The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and currently serves on the board of trustees of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Several publications have named O'Connor among the most powerful women in the world.^[4][5] On August 12, 2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor of the United States, by President Barack Obama.

Early life and education[link]

She was born in El Paso, Texas, to Harry Alfred Day, a rancher, and Ada Mae (Wilkey).^[6] She grew up on a cattle ranch near Duncan, Arizona. She later wrote a book with her brother, H. Alan Day, Lazy B : Growing up on a Cattle Ranch in the American West, about her childhood experiences on the ranch. For most of her early schooling, O'Connor lived in El Paso with her maternal grandmother, and attended public schools and the Radford School for Girls, a private school. She graduated sixth in her class at Austin High School in El Paso in 1946.^[7] She attended Stanford University, where she received her B.A. in economics in 1950. She continued at the Stanford Law School for her LL.B.. There, she served on the Stanford Law Review with its presiding editor in chief, future Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who was the class valedictorian,^[8] and whom she briefly dated during law school.^[9]

On December 20, 1952 she married John Jay O'Connor III. They had three sons: Scott, Brian, and Jay. Her husband suffered from Alzheimer's disease for nearly twenty years until his death in 2009,^[10] and she has become involved in raising awareness of the disease.

Supreme Court career[link]

Appointment[link]

Supreme Court Justice-nominee Sandra Day O'Connor talks with President Ronald Reagan outside the White House, July 15, 1981.

On July 7, 1981, Reagan – who had pledged during his 1980 presidential campaign to appoint the first woman to the Court^[11] – nominated O'Connor as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, to replace the retiring Potter Stewart.^[12]

O'Connor being sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger

Pro-life and religious groups opposed O'Connor's nomination because they suspected she would not be willing to overturn Roe v Wade.^[13] U.S. Senate Republicans, including Don Nickles of Oklahoma, Steve Symms of Idaho, and Jesse Helms of North Carolina called the White House to express their discontent over the nomination; Nickles said he and "other profamily Republican senators would not support" O'Connor.^[13] For her part, O'Connor refused to telegraph her views on abortion, and she was careful not to leave the impression that she supported abortion rights.^[14] O'Connor told Reagan she did not remember whether she had voted to repeal Arizona's law banning abortion.^[15] However, she had cast a preliminary vote in the Arizona State Senate in 1970 in favor of a bill to repeal the state's criminal-abortion statute.^[16] In 1974, O'Connor had voted against a measure to prohibit abortions in some Arizona hospitals.^[16]

Reagan wrote in his diary on July 6, 1981: "Called Judge O'Connor and told her she was my nominee for supreme court. Already the flak is starting and from my own supporters. Right to Life people say she is pro abortion. She says abortion is personally repugnant to her. I think she'll make a good justice."^[17] On September 21, O'Connor was confirmed by the U.S. Senate with a vote of 99–0;^[12] Senator Max Baucus of Montana was absent for the vote, and sent Justice O'Connor a copy of A River Runs Through It by way of apology.^[18] In her first year on the Court she received over 60,000 letters from the public, more than any other justice in history.

Response to being first woman on the Supreme Court[link]

In response to a carelessly written editorial in The New York Times which mentioned the "nine old men" of the Court, the self-styled FWOTSC (First Woman On The Supreme Court) sent a pithy letter to the editor:

In several speeches broadcast nationally on the cable network C-SPAN, she mentioned feeling some relief from the media clamor when Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined her as an Associate Justice of the Court in 1993.^{[citation needed]} In May 2010, O'Connor warned female Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan about the "unpleasant" process of confirmation hearings.^[19]

Supreme Court jurisprudence[link]

Voting record and deciding votes[link]

Justice O'Connor presents Alberto Gonzales to the audience after swearing him in as U.S. Attorney General, as Mrs. Becky Gonzales looks on.

O'Connor was part of the federalism movement and approached each case as narrowly as possible,^{[citation needed]} avoiding generalizations that might later "paint her into a corner" for future cases.^{[citation needed]} Initially, her voting record aligned closely with the conservative Rehnquist (voting with him 87% of the time her first three years at the Court).^[20] From that time until 1998 O'Connor's alignment with Rehnquist ranged from 93.4% to 63.2%, hitting above 90% in three of those years.^[21] In nine of her first sixteen years on the Court, O'Connor voted with Rehnquist more than with any other justice.^[21]

Later on, as the Court's make-up became more conservative (i.e., Anthony Kennedy replacing Lewis Powell, and Clarence Thomas replacing Thurgood Marshall), O'Connor often became the swing vote on the Court. However, she usually disappointed the Court's more liberal bloc in contentious 5–4 decisions: from 1994 to 2004, she joined the traditional conservative bloc of Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Thomas 82 times; she joined the liberal bloc of John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer only 28 times.^[22]

O'Connor's (relatively small)^[23] shift away from conservatives on the Court seems to have been due at least in part to Thomas's views.^[24] When Thomas and O'Connor were voting on the same side, she would typically write a separate opinion of her own, refusing to join his.^[25] In the 1992 term, O'Connor did not join a single one of Thomas' dissents.^[26]

Willamette University College of Law Professor Steven Green, who served for nine years as general counsel for Americans United for Separation of Church and State and has argued before the Court numerous times stated, "She was a moderating voice on the court and was very hesitant to expand the law in either direction." Green also noted that, unlike some other Court justices, O'Connor "[s]eemed to look at each case with an open mind".^[27]

Some of the cases in which O'Connor was the deciding vote include:

McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93 (2003)

This ruling upheld the constitutionality of most of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill regulating "soft money" contributions.

Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) and Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003)

O'Connor wrote the opinion of the court in Grutter and joined the majority in Gratz. In this pair of cases, the University of Michigan's undergraduate admissions program was held to have engaged in unconstitutional reverse discrimination, but the more-limited type of affirmative action in the University of Michigan Law School's admissions program was held to have been constitutional.

Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002)

O'Connor joined the majority holding that the use of school vouchers for religious schools did not violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000)

O'Connor joined the majority in holding that New Jersey violated the Boy Scouts' freedom of association by prohibiting it from selecting its troop leaders on the basis of sexual orientation.

United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995)

O'Connor joined a majority holding unconstitutional Gun-Free School Zones Act as beyond Congress's Commerce Clause power.

Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000)

O'Connor joined with four other justices on December 12, 2000, to rule on the Bush v. Gore case that ceased challenges to the results of the 2000 presidential election (ruling to stop the ongoing Florida election recount and to allow no further recounts). This case effectively ended Gore's hopes to become president. Some legal scholars have argued that she should have recused herself from this case, citing several reports that she became upset when the media initially announced that Gore had won Florida, with her husband explaining that they would have to wait another four years before retiring to Arizona.^[28]

O'Connor played an important role in other notable cases, such as:

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989)

This decision upheld as constitutional state restrictions on second trimester abortions that are not necessary to protect maternal health, contrary to the original trimester requirements in Roe v. Wade. Although O'Connor joined the majority, which also included Rehnquist, Scalia, Kennedy and Byron White, in a concurring opinion she refused to explicitly overturn Roe.

Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)

O'Connor wrote a concurring opinion contending that state laws that prohibited homosexual sodomy, but not heterosexual sodomy, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Although she agreed with the majority in holding such laws unconstitutional, she did not join in the opinion that they violated the substantive due process afforded by the Due Process Clause. Under a ruling under the Equal Protection Clause, states could still prohibit sodomy, provided they prohibited both homosexual sodomy and heterosexual sodomy. On February 22, 2005, with Rehnquist and Stevens (who was senior to her) absent, she presided over oral arguments in the case of Kelo v. City of New London, becoming the first woman to preside over an oral argument before the Court.^{[citation needed]}

Fourth Amendment[link]

According to George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen, "O'Connor was an eloquent opponent of intrusive group searches that threatened privacy without increasing security. In a 1983 opinion upholding searches by drug-sniffing dogs, she recognized that a search is most likely to be considered constitutionally reasonable if it is very effective at discovering contraband without revealing innocent but embarrassing information."^[29] Howard University law professor Andrew Taslitz, referencing O'Connor's dissent in a 2001 case, said of her Fourth Amendment jurisprudence: "O'Connor recognizes that needless humiliation of an individual is an important factor in determining Fourth Amendment reasonableness."^[30]

Cases involving minorities[link]

From her start on the Court until 1998, O'Connor voted against the minority litigant in all but two of the forty-one close cases involving race.^[31]

In the 1990 and 1995 Missouri v. Jenkins rulings, O'Connor voted with the majority that district courts had no authority to require the state of Missouri to increase school funding in order to counteract racial inequality. In the 1991 Freeman v. Pitts case, O'Connor joined a concurring opinion in a plurality, agreeing that a school district that had formerly been under judicial review for racial segregation could be freed of this review, even though not all desegregation targets had been met. Law professor Herman Schwartz criticized these rulings, writing that in both cases "both the fact and effects of segregation were still present."^[31]

In 1987's McCleskey v. Kemp, O'Connor joined a 5–4 majority that voted to uphold the death penalty for an African American man, Warren McCleskey, convicted of killing a white police officer, despite statistical evidence that black defendants were more likely to receive the death penalty than others both in Georgia and in the U.S. as a whole.^[31][32][33]

In 1996's Shaw v. Hunt and Shaw v. Reno, O'Connor joined a Rehnquist opinion, following an earlier path-breaking decision she authored in 1993, in which the court struck down an electoral districting plan designed to facilitate the election of two black representatives out of twelve from North Carolina, a state that had not had any black representative since Reconstruction, despite being approximately 20% black^[31]-- the Court held that the districts were unacceptably gerrymandered and O'Connor called the odd shape of the district in question, North Carolina's 12th, "bizarre".

Law Professor Herman Schwartz called O'Connor "the Court’s leader in its assault on racially oriented affirmative action,"^[31] although she joined with the Court in upholding the constitutionality of race-based admissions to universities.^[11]

In late 2008, O'Connor said she believed affirmative action should continue going back on her 2028 deadline promise.^[34]

Abortion[link]

The four women who have served on the Court (from left to right: O'Connor and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Elena Kagan) on October 1, 2010, prior to Justice Kagan's Investiture Ceremony.

In her confirmation hearings and early days on the court, O'Connor was carefully ambiguous on the issue of abortion, as some conservatives questioned her pro-life credentials on the basis of some of her votes in the Arizona legislature.^[13] O'Connor generally dissented from 1980s opinions which took an expansive view of Roe v. Wade; she criticized that decision's "trimester approach" sharply in her dissent in 1983's City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health. She criticized Roe in Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: "... I dispute not only the wisdom but also the legitimacy of the Court's attempt to discredit and pre-empt state abortion regulation regardless of the interests it serves and the impact it has."^[35] In 1989, O'Connor stated during the deliberations over the Webster case that she would not overrule Roe.^[36] While on the Court, O'Connor did not vote to strike down any restrictions on abortion until Hodgson v. Minnesota in 1990.

O'Connor allowed certain limits to be placed on access to abortion, but supported the fundamental right to abortion protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, O'Connor used a test she had originally developed in City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health to limit the holding of Roe v. Wade, opening up a legislative portal where a State could enact measures so long as they did not place an "undue burden" on a woman's right to an abortion. Casey revised downward the standard of scrutiny federal courts would apply to state abortion restrictions, a major departure from Roe. However it preserved Roe's core constitutional precept: that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right to control one's reproductive destiny. Writing the plurality opinion for the Court, O'Connor, along with Justices Kennedy and Souter, famously declared: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.” Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 851 (1992).

Foreign law[link]

O'Connor was a vigorous defender of the citing of foreign laws in judicial decisions. In a well-publicized October 28, 2003, speech at the Southern Center for International Studies, O'Connor said:

The impressions we create in this world are important and can leave their mark ... [T]here is talk today about the "internationalization of legal relations". We are already seeing this in American courts, and should see it increasingly in the future. This does not mean, of course, that our courts can or should abandon their character as domestic institutions. But conclusions reached by other countries and by the international community, although not formally binding upon our decisions, should at times constitute persuasive authority in American courts—what is sometimes called "transjudicialism".^[37]

In the speech she noted the 2003 Court case, Atkins v. Virginia, in which the majority decision (which included her) cited disapproval of the death penalty in Europe as part of its argument. This speech, and the general concept of relying on foreign law and opinion, was widely criticized by conservatives.^[38] In May 2004, the U.S. House of Representatives responded by passing a non-binding resolution, the "Reaffirmation of American Independence Resolution", stating that "U.S. judicial decisions should not be based on any foreign laws, court decisions, or pronouncements of foreign governments unless they are relevant to determining the meaning of American constitutional and statutory law."^[39]

O'Connor once quoted the constitution of the Middle Eastern nation of Bahrain, which states that "[n]o authority shall prevail over the judgement of a judge, and under no circumstances may the course of justice be interfered with." Further, "[i]t is in everyone's interest to foster the rule-of-law evolution." O'Connor proposed that such ideas be taught in American law schools, high schools and universities. Critics contend that such thinking is contrary to the U.S. Constitution and establishes a rule of man, rather than law.^[37] In her retirement, she has continued to speak and organize conferences on the issue of judicial independence.

Conservative criticism[link]

O'Connor's case-by-case approach routinely placed her in the center of the court and drew both criticism and praise. The Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, for instance, described her as lacking a judicial philosophy and instead displaying "political positioning embedded in a social agenda".^[40] Another conservative commentator, Ramesh Ponnuru, wrote that, although O'Connor "has voted reasonably well", her tendency to issue very case-specific rulings "undermines the predictability of the law and aggrandizes the judicial role".^[41]

Christian heritage[link]

In 1989, a letter O'Connor wrote regarding three Court rulings on Christian heritage was used by a group of conservative Arizona Republicans in their claim that America was a "Christian nation". O'Connor, an Episcopalian, said, "[i]t was not my intention to express a personal view on the subject of the inquiry."'^[42]

Retirement[link]

O'Connor was successfully treated for breast cancer in 1988 (she also had her appendix removed that year). One side effect of this experience was that there was perennial speculation over the next seventeen years that she might retire from the Court.

On December 12, 2000, The Wall Street Journal reported that O'Connor was reluctant to retire with a Democrat in the presidency:

Justice O'Connor and her husband John O'Connor with President George W. Bush in May 2004.

Justice O'Connor's letter to Bush, dated July 1, 2005, announcing her retirement

By 2005, the membership of the Court had been static for eleven years, the second-longest period without a change in the Court's composition in American history. Rehnquist was widely expected to be the first justice to retire during Bush's term, because of his age and his battle with cancer. However, on July 1, 2005, it was O'Connor who announced her retirement plans. In her letter to Bush she stated that her retirement from active service would take effect upon the confirmation of her successor.

On July 19, Bush nominated D.C. Circuit Judge John G. Roberts, Jr. to succeed O'Connor, answering months of speculation as to Bush Supreme Court candidates. O'Connor heard the news over the car radio on the way back from a fishing trip.^{[citation needed]} She felt he was an excellent and highly qualified choice— he had argued numerous cases before the Court during her tenure—but was somewhat disappointed her replacement was not a woman.^{[citation needed]}

On July 21, O'Connor spoke to a Ninth Circuit conference and blamed the televising of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for escalated conflicts over judges. She expressed sadness over attacks on the independent judiciary, and praised President Reagan for opening doors for women.^{[citation needed]} O'Connor had been expected to leave the Court before the next term started on October 3, 2005. However, Rehnquist died on September 3 (she spoke at his funeral). Two days later, Bush withdrew Roberts as his nominee for her seat and instead appointed him to fill the vacant office of Chief Justice. O'Connor agreed to stay on the Court until her replacement was confirmed. On October 3, Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers to replace O'Connor. On October 27, Miers asked Bush to withdraw her nomination; Bush accepted her request later the same day. On October 31, Bush nominated Third Circuit Judge Samuel Alito to replace O'Connor; Alito was confirmed and sworn in on January 31, 2006.

O'Connor's last Court opinion, Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of New England, written for a unanimous court, was a procedural decision that involved abortion.

She stated that she plans to travel, spend time with family, and, because of her fear of the attacks on judges by legislators, will work with the American Bar Association on a commission to help explain the separation of powers and the role of judges. She has also announced that she is working on a new book, which will focus on the early history of the Court. She is currently a trustee on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation. She would have preferred to stay on the Court for several more years until she was ill and "really in bad shape" but stepped down to spend more time with her husband, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease previous to his death in 2009. O'Connor said it was her plan to follow the tradition of previous justices, who enjoy lifetime appointments. "Most of them get ill and are really in bad shape, which I would've done at the end of the day myself, I suppose, except my husband was ill and I needed to take action there."'^[45]

As of August 2009, she continues to hear cases and has rendered over a dozen opinions in federal appellate courts across the country, filling in as a substitute judge when vacations or vacancies leave their three-member panels understaffed.^[46].

Post-Supreme Court career[link]

O'Connor in 2008 with then Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan. Kagan is the fourth female Justice on the Court.

This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (September 2009)

Commentary[link]

On March 9, 2006, during a speech at Georgetown University, O'Connor said some political attacks on the independence of the courts pose a direct threat to the constitutional freedoms of Americans. She said any reform of the system is debatable as long as it is not motivated by "nakedly partisan reasoning" retaliation because congressmen or senators dislike the result of the cases. Courts interpret the law as it was written, not as the congressmen might have wished it was written, and "it takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."^[47] On September 19, 2006, she echoed her concerns for an independent judiciary during the dedication address at the Elon University School of Law.

On September 28, 2006, O'Connor co-hosted and spoke at a conference at Georgetown University Law Center, Fair and Independent Courts: A Conference on the State of the Judiciary.^[48][49]

Judge William H. Pryor, Jr., a conservative jurist, has criticized O'Connor's speeches and op-eds for hyperbole and factual inaccuracy, based in part on O'Connor's opinions as to whether judges face a rougher time in the public eye today than in the past.^[50][51]

On November 7, 2007, at a conference on her landmark opinion in Strickland v. Washington (1984) sponsored by the Constitution Project, O'Connor urged the creation of a system for "merit selection for judges". She also highlighted the lack of proper legal representation for many of the poorest defendants.^[52]

On August 7, 2008, O'Connor and Abdurrahman Wahid, the former President of Indonesia, wrote an editorial in the Financial Times stating their concerns about the threatened imprisonment of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.^[53]

On November 19, 2008, O'Connor published an introductory essay to a themed issue on judicial accountability in the Denver University Law Review. She calls for a better public understanding of judicial accountability.^[54]

On January 26, 2010 O'Connor issued her own polite public dissent to the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision on corporate political spending, telling law students that the court has created an unwelcome new path for wealthy interests to exert influence on judicial elections.^[55]

Activities and memberships[link]

As a Retired Supreme Court Justice (roughly equivalent to senior status for judges of lower federal courts), O'Connor has continued to receive a full salary, maintain a staffed office with at least one law clerk, and to hear cases on a part-time basis in federal district courts and courts of appeals as a visiting judge. However, conservative commentator Ed Whelan has questioned whether O'Connor is constitutionally entitled to act as a federal judge following her resignation: "In short, O’Connor resigned and became a former justice; she did not just take 'senior status.' Therefore, she was no longer a federal judge at all and has not been constitutionally eligible to serve as a judge."^[56]

In 2003, she wrote a book titled The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice (ISBN 0-375-50925-9).

On October 4, 2005, President Gene Nichol of the College of William & Mary announced that O'Connor had accepted^[57] the largely ceremonial role of becoming the 23rd Chancellor of the College, replacing Henry Kissinger, and following in the position held by Margaret Thatcher, Chief Justice Warren Burger, and President George Washington. The Investiture Ceremony was held April 7, 2006. O'Connor continues to make semi-regular visits to the college.

In 2005, she wrote a children's book, Chico (ISBN 0-525-47452-8), which gives an autobiographical description of her childhood.

O'Connor was a member of the 2006 Iraq Study Group, appointed by the U.S. Congress.^[58]

On May 15, 2006, O'Connor gave the commencement address at the William & Mary School of Law, where she said that judicial independence is "under serious attack at both the state and national level".^[59]

As of Spring 2006, O'Connor teaches a two-week course called "The Supreme Court" at the University of Arizona's James E. Rogers College of Law every spring semester.

In October 2006, O'Connor sat as a member of panels of the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits, to hear arguments in one-day's cases in each court.^[60]

O'Connor chaired the Jamestown 2007 celebration, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the founding of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Her appearances in Jamestown dovetailed with her appearances and speeches as chancellor at The College of William & Mary nearby. In the fall of 2007, O'Connor and W. Scott Bales taught a course at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.

In 2008, O'Connor was named an inaugural Harry Rathbun Visiting Fellow by the Office for Religious Life at Stanford University. On April 22, 2008, she gave "Harry's Last Lecture On A Meaningful Life" in honor of the former Stanford Law professor who shaped her undergraduate and law careers.^[61]

In February 2009, O'Connor launched Our Courts, a website she created to offer interactive civics lessons to students and teachers because she was concerned about the lack of knowledge among most young Americans about how their government works. On March 3, 2009, O'Connor appeared on the satirical television program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to promote the website. In August 2009, http://ourcourts.org/ added two online interactive games.^[62] The initiative expanded, becoming iCivics in May 2010, and continues to offer free lessons plans, games, and interactive videogames for middle and high school educators.^[63] During the inauguration of Mesa Municipal Court on April 16, 2010, she gracefully received a blessed garland - along with a copy of Bhagvad-gita As It Is ^[64] from Dr Prayag Narayan Misra- a Hare Krishna devotee ^[65]

She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, which is a museum dedicated to the U.S. Constitution.^[66]

Legacy, awards[link]

• The federal courthouse in Phoenix, dedicated in 2000, is named in her honor.^[67]
• In 1985, She received the Elizabeth Blackwell Award, an award presented periodically to a woman who has demonstrated "outstanding service to humankind", from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
• In 1998, O'Connor was awarded the Mary Harriman Community Leadership award by The Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc. for her work supporting bilingual education, repealing "women's work" laws that prohibited the number of hours women could work and reforming Arizona's marital laws to make marriage more equitable for women. O'Connor is a member of the Junior League of Phoenix and served as the League's President from 1966 to 1967.
• In 2002, O'Connor was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Fort Worth.^[68]
• On July 4, 2003, the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia awarded O'Connor the Liberty Medal. In her acceptance speech she stated, "one of our greatest judges, Learned Hand, explained:

  'Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.' But our understanding today must go beyond the recognition that ‘liberty lies in (our) hearts’ to the further recognition that only citizens with knowledge about the content and meaning of our constitutional guarantees of liberty are likely to cherish those concepts."^[69]

• On September 8, 2004, Redwood City, California dedicated the courtroom of its renovated historical courthouse (now a museum) to O'Connor.^[70]
• For her commitment to the ideals of "Duty, Honor, Country", she was awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy in 2005, becoming only the third woman to receive the award.
• On January 2, 2006, she served as Grand Marshal at the 117th annual Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California. She started the 92nd annual Rose Bowl Game with a coin toss on January 4. Coincidentally, the parade was conducted in heavy rain for the first time since 1955, when the Grand Marshal had been then-Chief Justice Earl Warren.
• On April 5, 2006, Arizona State University renamed its law school the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law.^[71]
• Yale University awarded O'Connor an honorary doctoral degree at its 305th commencement on May 22, 2006.
• On September 19, 2006, she delivered the Dedication Address for the Elon University School of Law in Greensboro, North Carolina and accepted an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Earlier that day, she delivered the Fall Convocation Address at Elon University, where she accepted a Doctor of Laws degree.
• 2007 – Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences^[72]
• On March 26, 2008, O'Connor was given the Harry F. Byrd Jr. '35 Public Service Award from the Virginia Military Institute.
• On September 22, 2008, she received the 2008 Franklin Award for commitment to public service and strengthening civic participation from the National Conference on Citizenship.
• On October 7, 2008, she was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame in Denton, Texas.
• On April 9, 2009, Sandra Day O'Connor was named Fifteenth Hendrick Fellow by the United States Coast Guard Academy.
• O'Connor was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama on August 12, 2009.^[73][74]

She was invited to the Carmel Author's Festival in California, in 2011, and was introduced by Everett Alvarez High School student, Jessica Lynn Rosa.

See also[link]

Biography portal

Notes[link]