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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Sandra Day O'Connor

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Speaker 1: was the first woman to become a Supreme Court justice.

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Speaker 1: Although Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has eclipsed her in fame,

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Speaker 1: O'Connor was the most powerful woman to sit on the Court,

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Speaker 1: as the swing vote for more than a quarter of

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Speaker 1: a century. A new biography of O'Connor is called First,

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Speaker 1: and the author, Evan Thomas, joins me now. Evan O'Connor

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Speaker 1: was the swing vote on abortion, affirmative action, Bush v. Gore,

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Speaker 1: to name a few. But she wasn't wedded to legal

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Speaker 1: doctrines as such. She was more practical. Explain how she

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Speaker 1: approached these cases. She was the last justice to have

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Speaker 1: actually run for office, how to ask for votes and

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Speaker 1: be in the real world of the state legislature and

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Speaker 1: in state government, so that that informed her. You know,

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Speaker 1: she was from the real world. But she was intensely practical,

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Speaker 1: and she always asked herself, what is the impact of

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Speaker 1: the decision? Not just you know, what's the doctrine that

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Speaker 1: we're enforcing here, but how's this going to play out?

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Speaker 1: This is important for her in the two biggies on

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Speaker 1: affirmative action and abortion, because in abortion rights she she

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Speaker 1: personally found abortion abborn, and yet she was the justice

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Speaker 1: who kept abortion rights alive for twenty five years. Affirmative action,

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Speaker 1: same thing. She had her doubts about affirmative action, but

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Speaker 1: she saw a practical need for it, and she was

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Speaker 1: a decisive vote on affirmative action. You write that even

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Speaker 1: before the Casey decision, O'Connor told her brother, the abortion

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Speaker 1: issue is wearing me down, explained the pressures on her. Well,

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Speaker 1: they she's a Reagan appointee and the author of Roe v. Wade,

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Speaker 1: the famous abortion decision in the nine thought that she

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Speaker 1: was going to be the decisive vote against abortion. In fact,

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Speaker 1: he wrote down in a piece of paper, she was

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Speaker 1: just again against the abortion. So the expectation was that

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Speaker 1: she would vote to reverse. She went the other way

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Speaker 1: on that because she was she's a woman, for one thing,

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Speaker 1: and and deeply sensitive to the issues that face other women.

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Speaker 1: And although she found abortion, something she wouldn't do. She

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Speaker 1: wasn't going to take it away from others. What she

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Speaker 1: did do is find a compromise saying, yes, there can

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Speaker 1: be some state restriction on abortion, but they can't put

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Speaker 1: what they call an undue burden on women. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of a vague standard cause a lot of litigation, a

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Speaker 1: lot of fighting. People are still mad at her from

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Speaker 1: both sides. She's trying to work through a very difficult

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Speaker 1: societal problem slowly, carefully, piece by piece. She was well

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Speaker 1: aware of her place in history as the first female

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court justice. How did that affect her work and

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Speaker 1: her relationships with the other justices, Well, she knew everybody

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Speaker 1: was watching. She used to say, it's good to be first,

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Speaker 1: but you don't want to be the last. And she

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Speaker 1: she had to perform. She was an intermediate state court judge.

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Speaker 1: She was not by moddom standards. She wasn't qualified, but

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Speaker 1: there were there just weren't any women Republican judges in

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Speaker 1: She was super smart and she caught up fast, in fact,

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Speaker 1: within three weeks, just as Pal was writing his family.

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Speaker 1: She's brilliant, so she was able to catch up. But

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Speaker 1: she knew everybody was watching. She also knew that the

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Speaker 1: other some of the other justices did not like her,

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Speaker 1: and she had to deal with that, and she did

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Speaker 1: it by not picking stupid fights. This is really her

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Speaker 1: mantra was, don't you know, stand up when you have to,

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Speaker 1: but don't get into fights that are just ego Jeffs.

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Speaker 1: And her writing style was not flowery, was also sort

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Speaker 1: of practical into the point, was that deliberate? Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean she's actually a beautiful writer. If you read

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Speaker 1: her memoir The Lazy b about growing up on this

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Speaker 1: cattle ranch, an unbelievable story. She wrests like Wallace Stegner,

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Speaker 1: But her opinions were dull, as dishwar They were intentionally boring.

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Speaker 1: In fact, when her clerks who drafted the opinions put

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Speaker 1: in anything rhetorical or kind of interesting, she take it out.

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Speaker 1: She wanted to just just the facts man. And um,

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Speaker 1: you write that she disliked her successor, Justice Samuel Alito,

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Speaker 1: who is a reliable conservative vote. She said, the last

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Speaker 1: thing you needed was a fifth Catholic man on the court.

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Speaker 1: Did she think that he was going to destroy her legacy? Ye? Is?

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Speaker 1: She worried on these issues that we've talked about on

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Speaker 1: abortion rights and affirmative action. He was gonna go the

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Speaker 1: other way. So she worried about that. She was not

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Speaker 1: somebody ever to bad mouth others, really, and she was

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Speaker 1: a little bit discreet about but a little but actually

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Speaker 1: surprisingly critical of him, and uh didn't it didn't really

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Speaker 1: warmed him personally, and worried that she would he would

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Speaker 1: undo her legacy. He hasn't yet, but the court is

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Speaker 1: still an evolution. One very sad part is that she

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Speaker 1: left the court because her husband had developed Alzheimer's and

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Speaker 1: then she regretted that. Explain what happened, well, she left.

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Speaker 1: You know, her husband had sacrificed for her when they

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Speaker 1: came to Washington. He gave up a big time law practice,

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Speaker 1: and she he and then he got Alzheimer's and she

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Speaker 1: cared from him as long as she could. She took him,

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Speaker 1: took him to her chambers. He would sleep on a

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Speaker 1: bench in her front office. But finally it was just

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Speaker 1: too much, and so she said, I'm going to leave

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Speaker 1: the court to take care of John, to take care

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Speaker 1: of He sacrificed for me. Now I am going to

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Speaker 1: sacrifice for him. But within six months of leaving the court,

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Speaker 1: he could barely recognize her. So she was heartbroken by that,

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Speaker 1: and she said it was a mistake to leave the court.

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Speaker 1: What's her relationship with the other female justices? Now three more? Well,

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Speaker 1: she paid the way Ruth Bader Ginsburg comes twelve years later.

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Speaker 1: They were allies. They were not particularly intimate friends. They

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Speaker 1: weren't They weren't cozy, but they certainly worked together. Uh.

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Speaker 1: She's less of an activist that Justice Ginsburg. But they

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Speaker 1: worked on women's rights together. In fact, on a on

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Speaker 1: a big one of Virginia Military Academy. Uh. The institute

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Speaker 1: case had been assigned to uh to O'Connor, she said, no,

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Speaker 1: you should have this one. And Justice Ginsburg said, I

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Speaker 1: loved her for that. You know, she wasn't a feminist

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Speaker 1: per se, but she was the first many times in

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Speaker 1: her life. How did she navigate those waters? It was tricky,

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Speaker 1: you know. She was not at all strident. Uh, but

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Speaker 1: she wasn't passive either. She knew how to stand up

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Speaker 1: to people. She had one particular nemesis, a drunk in

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Speaker 1: the Arizona legislature, and she called him on his drinking

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Speaker 1: and he said, oh, if you were a man, I'd

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Speaker 1: punch you in the nose, and she said, if you

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Speaker 1: were a man, you could well beyond. Besides being the

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Speaker 1: first woman on the Supreme Court, what else do you

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Speaker 1: think she'll be remembered for. She really cared about as

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Speaker 1: her legacy something called ice Civics, teaching kids civics through

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Speaker 1: video games reaches about six million kids a year now.

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Speaker 1: She said that was a more important legacy than the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court. She really cared that. She thought Americans didn't

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Speaker 1: know any civics. She really cares about civics and civics engagement.

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Speaker 1: She wants to teach kids. That is a legacy. Really,

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Speaker 1: she really cares about. We only have a minute here,

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Speaker 1: but I remember she did come to Supreme Court arguments

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Speaker 1: when one of her cases might have been at stake,

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Speaker 1: one of her precedents. Yeah, she she wanted to be seen.

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Speaker 1: You know. She was subtle, but she would say to

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Speaker 1: other women, you know, be out there. Uh, put on

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Speaker 1: a show, make them see you. You know, she could

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Speaker 1: be aggressive when she had to be, but she could

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Speaker 1: be very polite and careful and non confrontational. She knew

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Speaker 1: when to be which one. She knew when to pick

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Speaker 1: her fights and when to step back. Thank you so much. Evan.

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Speaker 1: It's a great book. It's called First Biography of Sandra

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Speaker 1: Day O'Connor, the first female justice on the Supreme Court.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can

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Speaker 1: subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

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Speaker 1: and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso.

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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Indult in the und