“The practice of democracy is not passed down through the gene pool. It must be taught and learned by each new generation.” – Sandra Day O’Connor
Sandra Day O’Connor was honored yesterday during a funeral at the Washington National Cathedral for her life of public service. I too want to pay tribute to her remarkable life and what a fundamental part travel played in it.
In Memory Of Sandra Day O’Connor
Unfortunately, I was not able to make it to Washington, DC this week to attend the funeral of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. It has been a difficult time at home and I regret I was unable to pay respects in-person, as I did for Justice Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But that won’t stop me from honoring her here for her remarkable life.
First, I loved her commitment to public service and to teaching the next generation democracy. After retiring from the Court, she started a non-profit called iCivics that aimed to teach civics to grade-school aged children. I see such instruction as critical to maintaining the health of our representative republic. As her son shared at the funeral yesterday, “Today iCivics is used by half of all middle school and high school kids in this country, and over half the schools. To business types, let me put her iCivics accomplishment in another way. At the age of 78, our mom founded and led a hot tech based nonprofit startup. Within 10 years, she had achieved over 85 percent market share and 50 percent market penetration. Not too shabby.”
Not too shabby indeed…
Second, she was a traveler. Though she lived in Washington, DC for much of the year, her heart and home was always the Lazy B cattle ranch in Arizona. Every chance she got she returned “home” to spend in the great outdoors. I’m quite certain she loved when Congress made an exception to the perimeter rule to allow nonstop service from Washington National (DCA) to Phoenix (PHX) on US Airways in 2000. There’s no place like home.
A Key Member Of Court
O’Connor ideology was complicated and along with Justice Anthony Kennedy she often served as decisive swing vote. Like every Justice, there were some of her decisions that I agreed with and other I did not. Perhaps most of all, though, I appreciated her plurality opinion for the Court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004).
Yaser Hamdi was American citizen detained as an enemy combatant in Afghanistan in 2001 and accused of being providing aid and support to the Taliban. While O’Connor wrote the detention of combatants was lawful in narrow circumstances, Hamdi’s Fifth Amendment due process rights had been violated. The Constitution, she wrote, “Demands that a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant be given a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker.”
I think that is fundamental to our constitutional system and an essential safeguard to the liberty of every citizen.
CONCLUSION
When it comes to public servants, I laud all those who give of their talent and time to make the US better, regardless of ideological affiliation. That is why I honored Scalia and Ginsburg and why I also honor O’Connor.
Let her life be a lesson to us that our vocation is never complete as long as we have breath. Not only was she a trailblazer at Stanford Law School and as the first female Justice of the US Supreme Court, but she was also a district attorney, Arizona State Senator, and entrepreneur. She retired in her prime to serve her husband (who had developed Alzheimer’s) and still found the time to build iCivics and continue to serve the public in so many other ways. What a life well-lived.
image: Washington National Cathedral (screen grab)
Question for Matthew : Is the person in the photo playing a Recorder or something else ?
Thanks .
No, that’s a verger carrying a rod:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verger
I wonder if John Riggins was there?
Before your time Matt.
Ha! I had to look that one up, but that was a great story.
Thank you Sandra Day O’connor. Your achievements for all women, and also for being inducted into the the Cowgirl Hall of Fame are amazing. Ride on in peace
All her commitment to public service was lost when she took the election from the will of the voters in 2000. How is that not authoritarian just because it came from the judicial branch? The Justices in that decision knew they went beyond the pale when they ruled that Bush v. Gore could never be cited as precedent for anything.
Even if Bush would have won through recounts, they should have just left the process at the state play out instead of forever staining the legacy of the court and legitimacy.
Well Said! Also don’t forget that her predecessor is Samuel Alito. The author of Dobbs:(
Great post Matt!
She served with honor as a judge and gave credibility to the Supreme Court as an abode for judgments not subject to extreme partisanship tendencies, but perhaps she scored an own-goal with the 2000 election.
Unfortunately, nowadays we have judges like Clarence Thomas who bring into doubt too much of what Sandra Day O’Connor delivered or at least tried to deliver. Now how do I get myself nominated as a Supreme Court judge so I can get domestic and foreign billionaire friends to try to influence peddle? A mega-donation to Nikki Haley-supporting PAC or one to Trump? Hiring Tucker Carlson’s friend Hunter Biden or paying inflated prices for Hunter artwork won’t work since his Pop won’t be President on January 21, 2024 or thereafter.
I mean January 21, 2025 — not 2024.
Dead swamp creature. Don’t care.
The one time I met the Justice was in the air. On a flight from IAD to SFO in Economy Plus, I was asked if I wouldn’t mind moving back from a bulkhead row to accommodate an older passenger. It turned out to be Justice O’Connor, then retired. During the flight, I introduced myself (as did several other passengers), and she took a few minutes to speak with me. Lovely woman. (I was traveling that morning to make a presentation to a group of attorneys I worked with, and my guess-who-I-met story suitably impressed.)
Very cool!
Thank you for this well written eulogy, Matthew. I was a middle schooler living overseas on a military base when she was appointed and it made a great impression on me. Although I chose a different field, I was always was impressed with her service, loyalty and devotion to her country. Despite being born to the Silent Generation, she truly left her mark.
I think she was a conscientious judge.
She spoke at my college commencement. Kind of a downer speech. Told us the good times were over and now we were going to find out how tough life is. My family and fellow graduates were disappointed.
That’s interesting. Very pragmatic in her jurisprudence as well.