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How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice
Ecco
November 2005
Featuring: Sandra Day O'Connor
432 pages
ISBN: 0060590181
EAN: 9780060590185
Kindle: B000UOJTSA
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Biography
Sandra Day O'Connor, America's first woman justice, became
the axis on which the Supreme Court turned. She was called
the most powerful woman in America, and it was often said
that to gauge the direction of American law, one need look
only to O'Connor's vote. Then, just one year short of a
quarter century on the bench, she surprised her colleagues
and the nation by announcing her retirement. Drawing on information from once-private papers of the
justices, hundreds of interviews with legal and political
insiders, and the insight gained from nearly two decades of
covering the Supreme Court, Joan Biskupic examines
O'Connor's remarkable career, providing an in-depth account
of her transformation from tentative jurist to confident
architect of American law. The portrait that emerges is of
a complex and multifaceted woman: lawyer, politician,
legislator, and justice, as well as wife, mother, A-list
society hostess, and competitive athlete. To all
appearances, she was the polite lady in pearls, handbag on
her arm. But in the back rooms of politics and the law, she
was a determined, focused strategist. O'Connor was the
feminist who, rather than rebel against the male-dominated
system, worked from within -- and succeeded. As Biskupic demonstrates, Justice O'Connor became much more
than a "first." During her twenty-four-year tenure, she
wrote the decisions on some of the most controversial
social battles of our time. O'Connor's tie-breaking
opinions on issues such as abortion rights, affirmative
action, the death penalty, and religious freedom will have
a lasting effect far into the future. O'Connor also cast
one of the five votes that cut off the Florida recounts and
allowed George W. Bush to take the White House in the 2000
contested presidential election. With an eye to the
American people and a keen sense of public attitudes, she
worked behind the scenes to shape the law and transform the
legal standards by which future cases will be decided. From O'Connor's isolated upbringing on the Lazy B ranch in
Arizona through her time as a state legislator to her rise
as a justice -- along the way confronting her own personal
challenges and crises, including breast cancer -- Biskupic
presents a vivid, astute depiction of the justice -- and of
the woman beneath the black robe. In so doing, Sandra Day
O'Connor also provides an unprecedented look inside the
exclusive, famously secretive High Court.
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