‘Sandra Day O’connor: The First’ missed opportunity
Sandra Day O’connor gets the “American Experience” treatment on PBS Monday (check local listings), with “Sandra Day O’connor: The First.”
It’s a straightforward look, based on “First: Sandra Day O’connor” by Evan Thomas, who shows up on-camera several times to weigh in on the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. There’s not a lot new revealed about O’connor, who grew up on a ranch in Arizona and rose up through the state’s political system on her way to the bench. In that regard, the two-hour film feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.
On the other hand, it is thorough, and O’connor’s life and story are well-documented already. As O’connor says to Charlie Rose in a clip, complaining about how the media descended on her from the start, “Everywhere that Sandra went, the press was sure to go.”
The film shows O’connor’s sense of humor
It’s funny. Her sense of humor shows up in several places, actually. There’s the go-to line she used when trying to avoid being pinned down on abortion politics – she tried to avoid being pinned down on most things. Asked when life begins, she would say, “When the kids are out of college and the dog dies.”
She disliked a New York Times Magazine profile critical of her in part because she thought the cover made her look like George Washington (though that wasn’t the only reason).
And the text of her family Christmas card after the drama of the 2000 election, in which her swing vote essentially handed the presidency to George W. Bush, read: “May your New Year’s be free of hanging chads.”
More seriously, she came to regret the court ever taking on Bush v. Gore. Even early on she realized the possible implications and the perception. “We’ve made our decision and half the country is going to hate me,” she told one of her sons the night before the decision was announced.
‘The First’ chronicles O’connor’s evolution on the bench
Of course “The First” charts O’connor’s journey from her first couple of years on the court when she voted consistently with the conservative bloc of justices to her more moderate stances in later years, her swing vote becoming so crucial to major decisions that some called it “the O’connor court.”
But it also discusses how she tried to narrow her decisions to the case in front of the court, nothing more.
There’s plenty of detail about her upbringing on a remote ranch in rural Arizona, how she shot rifles from a young age and learned to drive early on, as well. A seminal moment occurred when she was taking lunch to ranch hands alone and had to fix a flat tire by herself on the jeep she drove. Arriving with the lunches, she was proud. But her father told her there are no excuses; she should have left earlier.
That’s the kind of thing you remember. O’connor thrived at Stanford University, where she met her husband, John. They moved to Phoenix in 1957, where she famously couldn’t find work as a lawyer with any big firms. But she would rise through the ranks of the Republican Party, eventually becoming the majority leader of the Arizona State Senate.