RIP Sandra Day O'Connor

[DanOregon]

For all the attention paid to RBG, she paled next to O'Connor in terms of impacting the court. The left LOVES strongly worded dissents more than they love majority opinions. Give me a majority opinion any day. Though I wonder how many lives were lost in Iraq because of her Bush v. Gore vote.

Still amazing to me 20 years later, there is no national minimum standard for voting procedures and ballot counting. A paper trail. Exclusion process. Access to polls. How uncounted ballots are stored. You almost think the folks in DC WANT the uncertainty. I'm all for the states handling the elections - but there should be a national minimum standard under the Equal Protection Clause. A person could vote in State A, but would not be eligible in State B because of differing rules or the way they are enforced? And don't get me started about many states opting out of the national voter election archive to ensure against people being registered in multiple states.

 

[HanSenSE]

Loosen up, Sandy baby.

Would a "Bye Sandy" be inappropriate, even for here, although it does maintain tradition?

 

[jr/shotglass]

Pretty damn sad day when George Santos merits top play on CNN.com over the passing of this woman who changed history.

RIP.

 

[Liut]

Same thing on MSNBC.com.

 

[qtlaw]

She was a beacon of sunshine in the law landscape when I was in law school and early in my career. I did not always agree with her reasoning but she showed that women could be a force in the Supreme Court institution and was the epitome of a Supreme Court justice, grace and dignity (here's looking at you clowns Justice Alito/Thomas/Barrett).

 

[Vombatus]

Would a "Bye Sandy" be inappropriate, even for here, although it does maintain tradition?

I thought it was "Loosen up, Sandy baby! You're too tight!"

Which brings the cringe factor an order of magnitude higher.

 

[Twirling Time]

What made O'Connor so prominent (long after the novelty of her being the first woman on SCOTUS wore off) was that she became the crucial "swing vote" on a huge number of cases that ended up 5-4. After she retired, Kennedy took that mantle, but SCOTUS lost that backstop when Kennedy retired and we got Kavanaugh.

If only Thurgood Marshall and RBG could've just hung on for a few more months each ....

 

[matt_garth]

 

[Neutral Corner]

 

[UPChip]

The subject of one of my favorite jokes.

On her first day as a Supreme Court Justice, the rest of the court offered to take her out to lunch.

After they were seated, the waiter came up to take their orders. Being the first woman, he said he was honored to take her order first.

"I'll have the steak and a baked potato," she replied.

The waiter then asked, "And for the vegetables?"

"They'll have the same."

RIP, madam.

I think that either came from or was aped by a British puppet sketch comedy show in which the protagonist was, unsurprisingly, Margaret Thatcher.