Return to Transcripts main page

Live From...

Interview With Sandra Day O'Connor

Aired May 20, 2003 - 15:19   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Here in Washington, Democratic Senator and presidential candidate John Kerry told an abortion rights group today that the Supreme Court is, in his words, "at stake in this race as never before in modern history."
Well, in the second half of my page-turners interview with justice Sandra Day O'Connor, I asked her about the process of appointing new justices, her thoughts on retirement, as well as her role as the first woman on the high court.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: You've also spoken about being the first woman and being, for many years, the only woman on the court. Along came Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg about, what, 10 or 12 years after you...

SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: Yes, thankfully. Thankfully.

WOODRUFF: ... had been on the court. Did that make a difference?

O'CONNOR: It made an enormous difference. When I arrived there had been a large amount of media attention to the selection of a woman and then to see what that woman did under all circumstances. And too much attention for any reasonable comfort level.

And the minute Justice Ginsburg came to the court, we were nine justices. It wasn't seven and then the women. We became nine. And it was a great relief to me, and I'm sure it was welcome to Justice Ginsburg.

WOODRUFF: Did the two of you have any sort of special bond because you're the first women?

O'CONNOR: Well certainly. We're both appreciative that we have at least two of us here.

WOODRUFF: Shouldn't there be more?

O'CONNOR: I'd welcome it.

WOODRUFF: By the same token -- and this is back to what you and I were just discussing -- does it matter whether there is or isn't, for example, an Hispanic justice on the court? O'CONNOR: Well, we'd welcome that, too. I'm sure, for the very reasons I gave you earlier, in a broad sense, people take a certain level of comfort in looking around and seeing who is in office in ways that affect the public.

WOODRUFF: What do you think of this characterization of you as the most powerful woman in America or, as "The New York Times" put it a little more modestly, "America's most powerful jurist?"

O'CONNOR: Well, I think you have to take that with a heavy, large grain of salt, because I think every member of this court has a certain degree of authority on behalf of the court. But we have an equal voice, and I'm no more powerful than anyone else on this court. That's for sure. And collectively, we do render opinions that matter to people, but I've never looked upon myself or the role of the court as being all-powerful.

WOODRUFF: At the same time, you are characterized again and again as a crucial swing vote.

O'CONNOR: I think that's something the media has devised as a means of writing about the court, and I don't think that has a lot of validity either.

WOODRUFF: I've even heard lawyers and law professors use that term because, very clearly, Justice O'Connor, you have weighed in on some very close decisions on this court, some very...

O'CONNOR: Well we've had many close decisions through the years I've been here. I think the court was more closely divided in the first 10 years in a way than it is today. And there have been many, many 5-4 decisions. So perhaps that's just been a factor of the times as well.

WOODRUFF: A number of these decisions -- and you also talk about this in the book -- have been very visibly political decisions. Obviously the 2000 presidential election, Bush versus Gore. There have been other affirmative action decisions, and some of them...

O'CONNOR: Well, I don't describe those as visibly political decisions. Some of the decisions we've had to make have been on subjects that have been of particular interest to the media and, therefore, perhaps to the public. Or maybe it's vice versa, of interest to the public and, hence, to the media.

And it's true that a certain percentage of the cases we hear are the ones you tend to read about more or hear more about, but I really don't classify them as political issues. We consider here abstract propositions of federal law, and they are really kind of far removed from the action that got the issue here. By the time it comes here, there's been a filtering out process.

WOODRUFF: In connection with that, the current nominating process to the court, a lot of drama associated with that. It seems the last several presidents, some of their nominations have become -- just received enormous attention over whether these person are "too ideological." Why shouldn't a president be able to appoint whoever he wants to the Supreme Court as long as that person is qualified?

O'CONNOR: The Constitution in its customary brevity says an appointment of federal judges, the nomination, will be by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. And the role of the Senate in that process is not spelled out any further. It really is what the Senate decides to make of it.

For more than half of the history of the court, the Senate committees never asked the judicial nominees any questions at all. And it wasn't until about the time Justice Brandeis was nominated that the Judiciary Committee in the Senate asked him some questions and then began the process of actually holding hearings, public hearings on it, in which the nominee was going to be in attendance and respond to questions. And that custom continued to the present time.

Now when you have a situation where the president is of one political party and the Senate is in the control of the other political party, it makes for a certain amount of fireworks, inherently. And what we have at the present time is a closely divided Senate.

So there are lingering fireworks, I would say, in the process. And under our system of selecting federal judges there is a political component at the front end when the president makes a selection and when the Senate exercises its role of advising and consenting.

WOODRUFF: All this is healthy, in your opinion?

O'CONNOR: Well, it's the system the framers devised and it's what we see unfolding.

WOODRUFF: Last question. A lot of speculation out there about your future plans. We noticed you dedicated the book to your law clerks, past, present and future. You've said you have no plans to retire, but my question is, have you given it any thought?

O'CONNOR: Well, of course. I mean I'm getting up there in age, so of course I think about, should I or should I not. But I haven't made the decision to do it.

WOODRUFF: Is it something that you spend a lot of time thinking about, or is it something you carve out a little...

O'CONNOR: I think that's enough, really. I just haven't made that decision.

WOODRUFF: There's also speculation about the chief justice and whether he might retire. If he did, would you like to be the chief justice?

O'CONNOR: No, I'm not seeking any new position.

WOODRUFF: But the first woman chief justice, that has a certain ring to it, doesn't it?

O'CONNOR: We'll have one some day. And, you know, our neighboring country, Canada, has one right now. Did you know that?

WOODRUFF: I didn't.

O'CONNOR: Yes. And she's a wonderful woman and has done a fine job. So it's nice to see. It can happen, and it undoubtedly will, in due course.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: You heard it from her. She said it will happen in due course. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Her new back is called "The Majesty of the Law."

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired May 20, 2003 - 15:19   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Here in Washington, Democratic Senator and presidential candidate John Kerry told an abortion rights group today that the Supreme Court is, in his words, "at stake in this race as never before in modern history."
Well, in the second half of my page-turners interview with justice Sandra Day O'Connor, I asked her about the process of appointing new justices, her thoughts on retirement, as well as her role as the first woman on the high court.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: You've also spoken about being the first woman and being, for many years, the only woman on the court. Along came Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg about, what, 10 or 12 years after you...

SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: Yes, thankfully. Thankfully.

WOODRUFF: ... had been on the court. Did that make a difference?

O'CONNOR: It made an enormous difference. When I arrived there had been a large amount of media attention to the selection of a woman and then to see what that woman did under all circumstances. And too much attention for any reasonable comfort level.

And the minute Justice Ginsburg came to the court, we were nine justices. It wasn't seven and then the women. We became nine. And it was a great relief to me, and I'm sure it was welcome to Justice Ginsburg.

WOODRUFF: Did the two of you have any sort of special bond because you're the first women?

O'CONNOR: Well certainly. We're both appreciative that we have at least two of us here.

WOODRUFF: Shouldn't there be more?

O'CONNOR: I'd welcome it.

WOODRUFF: By the same token -- and this is back to what you and I were just discussing -- does it matter whether there is or isn't, for example, an Hispanic justice on the court? O'CONNOR: Well, we'd welcome that, too. I'm sure, for the very reasons I gave you earlier, in a broad sense, people take a certain level of comfort in looking around and seeing who is in office in ways that affect the public.

WOODRUFF: What do you think of this characterization of you as the most powerful woman in America or, as "The New York Times" put it a little more modestly, "America's most powerful jurist?"

O'CONNOR: Well, I think you have to take that with a heavy, large grain of salt, because I think every member of this court has a certain degree of authority on behalf of the court. But we have an equal voice, and I'm no more powerful than anyone else on this court. That's for sure. And collectively, we do render opinions that matter to people, but I've never looked upon myself or the role of the court as being all-powerful.

WOODRUFF: At the same time, you are characterized again and again as a crucial swing vote.

O'CONNOR: I think that's something the media has devised as a means of writing about the court, and I don't think that has a lot of validity either.

WOODRUFF: I've even heard lawyers and law professors use that term because, very clearly, Justice O'Connor, you have weighed in on some very close decisions on this court, some very...

O'CONNOR: Well we've had many close decisions through the years I've been here. I think the court was more closely divided in the first 10 years in a way than it is today. And there have been many, many 5-4 decisions. So perhaps that's just been a factor of the times as well.

WOODRUFF: A number of these decisions -- and you also talk about this in the book -- have been very visibly political decisions. Obviously the 2000 presidential election, Bush versus Gore. There have been other affirmative action decisions, and some of them...

O'CONNOR: Well, I don't describe those as visibly political decisions. Some of the decisions we've had to make have been on subjects that have been of particular interest to the media and, therefore, perhaps to the public. Or maybe it's vice versa, of interest to the public and, hence, to the media.

And it's true that a certain percentage of the cases we hear are the ones you tend to read about more or hear more about, but I really don't classify them as political issues. We consider here abstract propositions of federal law, and they are really kind of far removed from the action that got the issue here. By the time it comes here, there's been a filtering out process.

WOODRUFF: In connection with that, the current nominating process to the court, a lot of drama associated with that. It seems the last several presidents, some of their nominations have become -- just received enormous attention over whether these person are "too ideological." Why shouldn't a president be able to appoint whoever he wants to the Supreme Court as long as that person is qualified?

O'CONNOR: The Constitution in its customary brevity says an appointment of federal judges, the nomination, will be by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. And the role of the Senate in that process is not spelled out any further. It really is what the Senate decides to make of it.

For more than half of the history of the court, the Senate committees never asked the judicial nominees any questions at all. And it wasn't until about the time Justice Brandeis was nominated that the Judiciary Committee in the Senate asked him some questions and then began the process of actually holding hearings, public hearings on it, in which the nominee was going to be in attendance and respond to questions. And that custom continued to the present time.

Now when you have a situation where the president is of one political party and the Senate is in the control of the other political party, it makes for a certain amount of fireworks, inherently. And what we have at the present time is a closely divided Senate.

So there are lingering fireworks, I would say, in the process. And under our system of selecting federal judges there is a political component at the front end when the president makes a selection and when the Senate exercises its role of advising and consenting.

WOODRUFF: All this is healthy, in your opinion?

O'CONNOR: Well, it's the system the framers devised and it's what we see unfolding.

WOODRUFF: Last question. A lot of speculation out there about your future plans. We noticed you dedicated the book to your law clerks, past, present and future. You've said you have no plans to retire, but my question is, have you given it any thought?

O'CONNOR: Well, of course. I mean I'm getting up there in age, so of course I think about, should I or should I not. But I haven't made the decision to do it.

WOODRUFF: Is it something that you spend a lot of time thinking about, or is it something you carve out a little...

O'CONNOR: I think that's enough, really. I just haven't made that decision.

WOODRUFF: There's also speculation about the chief justice and whether he might retire. If he did, would you like to be the chief justice?

O'CONNOR: No, I'm not seeking any new position.

WOODRUFF: But the first woman chief justice, that has a certain ring to it, doesn't it?

O'CONNOR: We'll have one some day. And, you know, our neighboring country, Canada, has one right now. Did you know that?

WOODRUFF: I didn't.

O'CONNOR: Yes. And she's a wonderful woman and has done a fine job. So it's nice to see. It can happen, and it undoubtedly will, in due course.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: You heard it from her. She said it will happen in due course. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Her new back is called "The Majesty of the Law."

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com