Justice O'Connor on the right side

April 5, 1982

Justice O'Connor on the right side
ITEM DETAILS
Type: Newspaper article
Author: Jeffrey Hart
Source: Phoenix Gazette
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Article Text

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When President Reagan nominated Sandra O'Connor for the Supreme Court last year, there was a good deal of grumbling. It turned out to be a political masterstroke that sailed through the confirmation process in the Senate, but conservatives weren't so sure. Her record was sketchy, and what there was of it caused alarm among anti - abortion groups. , Afte~ Justice O'Connor's six months on the Court, however, The New Republic concludes after an examination of her record that "her vote has not always been predict - able. But she has cast her lot often enough with lawschool classmate William Rehnquist and with Chief Justice Burger to help forge a clear conservative majority on a number of crucial issues ... Mrs. O'Connor's record so far suggests she will not alter the steady conservative momentum of the Court ... And as the youngest member of the Supreme Court, Justice O'Connor may be with us until well into the 21st century."

The key cases in her six-month record were not of the headline variety, but they do indicate that Justice O'Connor takes a restricted view of activist interventions by the Supreme Court. On January 12, for example, her vote helped provide a bare five-vote majority in a ruling that ordinary taxpayers could not sue in federal court to block the government from giving property to a religious group. The case was Valley Forge Christian College versus Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It turned on the issue of "standing," that is, who is entitled

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