Sandra Day O'Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice – An Unprecedented Biography: Behind the Scenes of Landmark Decisions

by Joan Biskupic

Sandra Day O'Connor, America's first woman justice, was called the most powerful woman in America. She became the axis on which the Supreme Court turned, and it was often said that to gauge the direction of American law, one need look only to O'Connor's vote. Drawing on information gleaned from once-private papers, hundreds of interviews, and the insight gained from nearly two decades of covering the Supreme Court, author Joan Biskupic offers readers a fascinating portrait of a complex and multifaceted woman—lawyer, politician, legislator, and justice, as well as wife, mother, A-list society hostess, and competitive athlete. Biskupic provides an in-depth account of her transformation from tentative jurist to confident architect of American law.

Genres: Biography, Law, Nonfiction, Politics, History, Biography Memoir, Womens

421 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

JOAN BISKUPIC has covered the Supreme Court since 1989. Previously the Supreme Court reporter for The Washington Post, she is the legal affairs correspondent for USA Today, a frequent panelist on PBS’s Washington Week, and the author of Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and daughter.

Reviews

[Lukasz Pruski · Rating 4 out of 5]

"O'Connor enjoyed telling audiences that her husband joked, 'I think it is a tribute to American democracy when a cook who moonlights as a janitor can be elected to high public office.'"

"[...] journalist Howard Kohn described O'Connor in a profile for theLos Angeles Times as 'arguably, the most powerful woman in the nation' [...]"

For such a Supreme Court aficionado as this reviewer Joan Biskupic's biography Sandra Day O'Connor. How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice (2005) is a wonderful read. It is a highly recommended read for anyone interested in the political dimension of life in the United States. After all, who sits on the Supreme Court is in many ways more important for the future of the country than who the current president is or which party holds the control of Congress.

[Warning: the following paragraph is a political rant.] Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court is a conservative. I am certainly not one, but nevertheless I am in awe of Justice O'Connor's tenure on the Court, her accomplishments, and of how much she influenced the lives of all US residents. The country needs conservatives as much as it needs liberals. What the country does not need is lying, self-serving scum embracing conservative slogans for personal gain and to wield power. [End of rant.]

This is a traditionally structured biography, where Ms. Biskupic describes, in considerable detail, the trajectory of the future Justice's life and career. The reader is offered interesting analyses of Sandra Day's childhood and early youth experiences on the Lazy B Ranch outside of Duncan, Arizona. We read about her undergraduate studies at Stanford, which she begins at 16. Then the Stanford Law School, where, coincidentally, William Rehnquist, the future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, is her classmate. In 1952, she graduates from Stanford Law in the top 10%, yet the only job she is offered is that of a legal secretary. Then comes marriage and birth of three sons, which is why her husband refers to her, in jest, as a "cook," and a "janitor."

In the 1960s and 1970s, Ms. O'Connor is active in Arizona state politics, including serving at the state senator. At the end of the 1970s, she assumes a seat on Arizona State Court of Appeals. On July 7th, 1981, president Ronald Reagan announces his choice of Sandra Day O'Connor as the first female justice of the Supreme Court. Ms. Biskupic's account of Justice O'Connor's 24 years on the highest court is a captivating read. Some highlights include observations about the dynamic of power on the court between Justices Brennan and O'Connor:

"In some ways, the start of Brennan's declining influence could be traced to O'Connor's appointment."

In other fascinating passages we read about the striking differences, in the later years on the court, between Justice Scalia, who always held definitive opinions on any issue, and O'Connor, who tended to hold open-ended and pragmatic positions in most matters.

Justice O'Connor's tenure on the Court might be illustrated by an ascending line of her influence on the rulings. The quote about her being "the most powerful woman in the nation" is hardly an exaggeration! What I particularly value about Justice O'Connor and what I believe might make her one of the most important justices in the entire history of the nation's highest court is that she was always a voice of moderation and compromise to the extent that she was sometimes accused of wanting "to have it both ways." She embodies the type of a conservative that I can live with: one who eschews ideology and embraces pragmatism.

An engaging biography of a great Justice, and a must read for anyone interested in the workings of the Supreme Court.

Four stars.

[Kristina Coop-a-Loop · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not quite sure why I choose to read Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice by Joan Biskupic. I think I was looking for another book about her and somehow the library gave me this one. However I happened to stumble upon it, this is a good biography of the first woman jurist of the Supreme Court.

The book is arranged chronologically for the most part. It is well organized and competently written. Sometimes Biskupic will revisit an earlier case but she is very clear about why she is doing this and how it relates to the current discussion. Extensive end notes, an index and a select bibliography make this a good book for source material if you were using it for research. I appreciate that Biskupic, although she seems to admire Sandra Day O’Connor (SDO), has kept that admiration to a minimum. Her tone is neutral throughout, presenting perspectives that both agreed and disagreed with SDO’s legal rulings. The author tries to show the significance of SDO’s rulings and the affect they had on American law.

My impression of SDO is that she was very no-nonsense and down to earth. She was not introspective at all and once she made a decision, it was done. She did not look back on it later and regret that possibly she had been wrong. Her legal opinion did evolve and some later rulings modified ones she had made earlier. She also didn’t seem to have a lot of sympathy for people whose life experiences were different from hers. As a highly educated, upper income, white woman, her opinions seemed to indicate that she could not relate to people with different backgrounds.

Biskupic covers the controversial decision in Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board—essentially the case in which the Supreme Court picked the next president of the United States instead of voters. The author notes that the judges who usually rule in favor of states’ rights over the Federal government (including SDO), reversed course on this case. She also noted that these same judges are all conservatives, including SDO who has been a politically active Republican her entire adult life. While Biskupic doesn’t voice her opinion on this, she does present evidence suggesting that SDO’s strong ties to the Republican party (and her widely reported disgust over Gore possibly being elected) may have influenced her decision.

Sandra Day O’Connor is an interesting biography. Not only does it provide a comprehensive overview (and often in depth) look at SDO’s career on the Supreme Court, but also glimpses inside the Supreme Court and the personalities of the other judges (some of whom are still active). My one solid takeaway from this book is that Supreme Court appointees are political choices. No matter what the current presidential administration may say, the person being considered for a position on the Supreme Court is definitely going to be someone whose political views are aligned with the current occupant of the White House. Although SDO (and the other justices) made their rulings by interpreting and applying Constitutional law and using previous rulings as guidelines, their interpretations will always be made through the lens of their religious upbringing, their personal experiences, values they hold. There will never be a “neutral” justice. Probably the best you can hope for is a Court with a strong moderate/center view willing to acknowledge their biases and be able to make rulings despite that. SDO and the justices did just that when they ruled to uphold Roe v. Wade in the case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey: “Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles or morality, but that cannot control our decision. Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code” (272).

I recommend this book if you want an understanding of the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court and to learn about rulings that still affect us today.

[Lindsay McBride · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite books I’ve ever read. It made me laugh and cry equally but also was a really big intellectual challenge. I learned so much about the inner workings of the court and how decisions are made. It was inspiring and enlightening and I have a much deeper respect for justices that I do not agree with. It was a perfect blend of biography of her and other justices as well as a study of the cases she had a major hand in deciding. It analyzed her decision making while also weaving in her personality and the way that could have impacted them. It inspired me to want to learn a lot more about the Supreme Court and I am so happy I read it because I was reluctant to at first.

[Cora Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Her backstory was interesting. I didn't know she was a legislator before becoming a Justice, nor did I know she was only a state court judge, not a federal court judge. Then the book just started slogging through cases--I think the last 2/3s of the book is about specific cases, and even though I'm a lawyer, I still was uninterested.

[Mary Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this very much. Joan Biskupic is a veteran Supreme Court reporter and commentator (as well as a lawyer herself) whom I have long enjoyed watching and hearing, particularly on C-SPAN, PBS, and NPR. She is a careful biographer and supplies good notes and bibliography. Her style is very readable, informal but not casual. She gives here a clear portrait of O'Connor's legal and political skills as well as her personality which is much more interesting and complex than I would have guessed from her deceptively simple public persona. I am next going to try Biskupic's American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

[Terri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this biography of Justice O'Connor. The more I read about her, the more I relate to her. She was a traditional woman who was an established member of the Republican Party, but she was also ambitious and took that ambition all the way to the Supreme Court of the US. It was interesting to hear about how she "played the system" but still got what she wanted. She was a traditional woman, preferred to wear dresses and makeup, carried her handbag with her, but in this traditional role she was able to work her way into the politics of the Republican party all the way to the top of our legal system. Women over the years have spoken negatively of Justice O'Connor and how she was too traditional, but I truly believe she was just a traditional kind of woman. That was who she was. Nobody was making her be that way. That was just her. But she was still able to become a US Supreme Court Justice and was able to make decisions in favor of women's rights, affirmative action, state's rights, and other issues that were important to her and were important to our country and all women. She demonstrated how she valued tradition even in her retirement, when she retired from the Court in order to care for her husband, who was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. For Justice O'Connor, family really did always come first, as was evident to the very end of her career. I don't have to agree with Justice O'Connor on every issue in order to have great respect for the woman and all she accomplished during a time of great turmoil in our nation's history.

[Feisty Harriet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the ones I've read, this is definitely the best biography on O'Connor. She served as a Supreme Court Justice for 25 years, often as the swing vote between the four conservative and four liberal Justices (at least, until Clinton was able to nominate a few more liberals, ahem, Ruth Bader Ginsburg). For the youngest and first woman on the Court, her vote counted as the decider in many major cases, starting her very first term. However, what was most interesting to me was to see her opinions and voting change throughout her tenure on the Court. She began as super conservative, but her final two or three years on the court she was a lot more liberal and her reasoning more expansive to protect minorities, women, and other disenfranchised people (including criminals and those being held in military prisons without charge or trial for terrorist activities). I know my own journey towards "woke-ness" has taken some time, starting small and moving outward from there. It's somehow helpful for me to realize that without being taught from the beginning to, you know, view all people as equal no matter their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or economic class, that it truly is a process for us to understand the ramifications to groups of people who are dissimilar to ourselves. O'Connor retired in 2005 to care for her ailing husband, John, who was suffering from Alzheimer's. I often wonder what would have happened to her voting patterns and her voice had she continued on the Court as a liberal jurist.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading The Notorious RBG earlier this year I decided to move on to the story of the first female Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor. Her story is fairly different than RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) and I did not find it as compelling or relatable. O'Connor was very much a politician, and sought to effect change by winning people over and finding a middle ground. While this approach is admirable, her stance on certain equal rights and women's rights issues earlier in her career left me a bit disappointed. However, the book was extremely well researched and notated, and provided an in-depth look at the workings of the Supreme Court and interactions between the Justices. For this reason I found the book to be compelling and informative.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sandra Day is one of my heroes. She has lived such an inspiring life and Joan Biskupic does an excellent job highlighting the highs and lows of this influential force. A great read!

[Shaundell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful book that introduces us into the world of Sandra Day O'Connor. I learned so many things about her personal life, her public life, and also about the world of the Supreme Court.

[Jonathan Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

After having read several articles upon the passing of Sandra Day O'Connor, I wanted to read a biography on her to end the year. This was a good selection (3.5 stars). From her birth to her retirement from the SCOTUS in 2005, this book did a great job of explaining O'Connor's background which heavily influenced her decisions: from the death penalty, to abortion, to affirmative action, and to federalism. It was not a puff piece on her, however, as it effectively tackled criticisms of her such as her decision in Bush v. Gore as well as the various ways she incrementally brought change to the court (perhaps too slow for some). When I studied her decisions in college in the early 2000s, she was known as the center of the court. This book did a great job explaining why and how she became so. My only criticism is that at times you could tell parts of the book were written over time, as it often became repetitive in parts, retelling the same facts on various occasions which had already been written earlier. Otherwise, a great biography.

[Jocelyn Nielson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to start off by saying that this book was published shortly after Sandra Day O’Connor retired from the Supreme Court. Because of that, the ending is right before her retirement, which is fine, but I would have preferred one that also covered her post-court life, so that’s on me for not doing further research into this book when I got it. My rating of this book has nothing to do with the ending. While there were things I liked about the book overall, it did drag a lot, and that seemed to be more from the writing and not from the subject matter. Even as the time got closer to when she joined the Supreme Court and then after she was a judge on the bench, it got more interesting but still dragged in places. The first 100 pages, in fact, felt like they dragged for far longer than the page number displayed. I learned a good deal from reading this, but not without a lot of effort and, in fact, probably more effort than I like to spend on books.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

O'Connor is a remarkable woman with or without being a Supreme Court Justice. What surprised me the most is that she once went on few dates with Rehnquist during law school.

O'Connor mystified feminists by stating her success came by putting her family first and she would put family first to the end of her tenure. She believed in federalism and her opinions only took small steps in defining the law. O'Connor was successful in gaining support and was truly collaborative. She never let opinions shape friendship and never held a grudge. One of the few judges who served in political office she held a unique perspective of the state legislature (not the office of bureaucracy for the federal government) and deep political involvement and insight. Her tenure is defined by opinions of a centrist despite her party affiliations.

[Kim Padan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book after RBG passed away, before ACB was sworn in. Turns out Justice O'Connor was often referred to as SOC, at least in notes and memos shared among court staff.

Interesting look into a woman who made history. I am not a lawyer, nor even someone who follows the law closely, so portions that detailed some Court decisions were a bit dry for me. Admittedly, some cases were more intriguing to me, so I concentrated on those.

What I enjoyed most was the personal look at SOC upbringing, work in the AZ legislature and court, and her manner of working with fellow justices. I don't agree with all her decisions, and her centrist ideas seemed to frustrate many people, not just me. But the personal notes and memos (some quite funny) and interviews from others illustrate a woman of great intelligence and grace who is very likeable and admirable.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the history of the first female Supreme Court Justice a roller coaster ride. This book is undoubtedly well researched and O'Connor undoubtedly a bright person. But her behavior politically on a State level felt to me more understanding of the way women were treated unequally than her behavior was as a Justice. Maybe her behavior had to do with her being one woman working with eight men which undoubtedly had its consequences. She did seem to lighten up a bit after Ruth Bader Ginsburg came on board. So who was she really? Bright, strong, energetic for sure.

[GinnyP · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not as much biography as I thought, in that it included, once she reached adulthood and was placed on the court, a lot about her influence in major decisions, not the least of which is Roe v. Wade. I learned a lot! She is a strong woman, but also a concensus builder, less conservative as she stayed longer on the bench. Not much else to write about. I enjoyed this and am glad to have it on my Nook where I can go back to look for certain cases and her role in them. She is a woman to admire.

[Kelly Harvey]

Good read. Initially read due to early years in New Mexico and geographical location to my family. However after reading it, I learned a GREAT deal about the Supreme Court. The inner workings of that legislative body, how Sandra Day O'Connor impacted it and how her role changed American's viewpoint and visibility to the courts role.
Not having a legal background the case references were lost on me, but the author did a good job summarizing them to make the lay-person understand the cases.
A much slower read for me.

[Bill Sleeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good solid introduction to her career and contributions. I wish that there had been more details about her political career in Arizona. I realize that her Court experience is what most readers (myself included) want to know about and author Joan Biskupic does a fine job covering what is mostly familiar ground but the too brief portion of this work that discussed the Justice's earlier experience left me wanting to know more about that. Still, this is a very good, very informative work.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging read. The author, Joan Biskupic, asserts in the books sub-title that the book will explain "How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice." She falls far short on that claim.
I did however, find the book interesting and enlightening.
3.5 stars, rounding up of course. If you want a good survey bio of O'Connor and the Court, this will fit that bill.

[Lance Cahill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author did a service by uncovering some previously unknown information from the papers of retired Supreme Court justices. However, I felt a lot of the information was in a previous book (‘Becoming Justice Blackmun’). Very light of legal rationale - very much a book for the lay reader interested in how the court has been shaped by certain personalities.

The book was well written and well paced.

[Diane Secchiaroli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned some interesting things about her but not as good as First:Sandra Day O’Connor biography. Too much actual cases in the third part of the book. I’m not a lawyer and found it boring. I didn’t know how she was picked so that was interesting. She was certainly a trailblazer while remaining a traditional woman.

[Jack Gaumer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book, detailing the life and career of the first woman Supreme Court justice, who in my opinion, is an under-appreciated legend.

You will come away with a great respect for Justice O’Connor as you learn about her love for her family and friends, the many ways in which she broke barriers for women, and worked tirelessly to be a consensus-builder on the Supreme Court.

[Cooper Ackerly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neither by any means as groundbreaking as the career of its subject not as comprehensive as O’Conner’s influential career deserved, Biskupic’s biography is nevertheless a well-researched and compelling portrait of the most influential justices in the past half century.

[Maddie Zgonc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful insight on the first woman on SCOTUS. I've read many of her opinions in class, but hearing the history behind the decisions/dissents added much more to my understanding of who she was as a justice.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly engaging, well documented biography. A favorable, but occasionally critical account, written in language non-lawyers can understand.

[Buddy Draper · Rating 5 out of 5]

SOC is an incredible woman who rose to great heights at the Supreme Court. I didn’t realize how much influence she had on the Supreme Court. My respect for her grew with my understanding.

[Jane Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biograph

This is a very good book. It tells the tale of Sandra O'Cpmmet from the time she was a tote girl on a ranch until she retired from the SupremeCourt.It ttells of her progress in the law.

[Hqwxyz · Rating 4 out of 5]

如果美国不是有一部过于模糊的宪法和一套联邦与州权经常冲突的系统，最高法院对民众生活的影响也许不象现在那么大。“历史简单的国家的民众是幸福的”，那么，法制系统简单的国家是否民众更幸福？比如大陆体系的法德两国就很少听说影响巨大的最高法院的判决。

[K. Isaure · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Be independent in your career as much as possible. Do not let a man tell you how to live your life. Support those around you to make their life a success as much as your life is."

[Alainna Taubel · Rating 4 out of 5]

informational