Opinion: Sister had role in O'Connor appointment

Last week America said its final goodbye to Sandra Day O’Connor.

The first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court was eulogized at Washington National Cathedral by President Joe Biden and Chief Justice John Roberts.

Justice O’Connor was appointed in 1981 by my father, served nearly a quarter century and died Dec. 1 at age 93.

As Roberts said, she was “a strong, influential, iconic jurist. Her leadership shaped the legal profession, making it obvious that judges are both women and men.”

Most people know about Justice O’Connor making history as the first woman justice.

But few people know the story behind her selection and the role my sister Maureen played in making it happen.

Even Justice O’Connor didn’t know the backstory until I made a point of telling it to her when she visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library out here in Simi Valley.

The deal my father made with Maureen took place during the 1980 Republican primaries when he was running hard for the party’s presidential nomination.

Maureen was closely involved in the Reagan campaign, giving speeches around the country to Republican women’s groups and local party officials.

There was a big problem with her, however.

At the time she was a fiery and ardent advocate of the ERA – the controversial Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution that would have guaranteed equality of rights under the law for all persons regardless of sex.

My father, Republicans and conservatives in general were strongly opposed to the ERA.

The brain trust of my father’s campaign – Lyn Nofziger, Michael Deaver and Stuart Spencer – became seriously worried about Maureen’s public support for the ERA and called her in for a meeting with her father.

They told Maureen her father could not have her on the trail campaigning for him and the ERA at the same time and wanted to know what could be done to get her off the ERA trail.

Now Maureen was a smart and tough cookie. She knew how to play the game to get what she wanted.

At the meeting her father was sitting in front of her, to her left, and Nofziger, Deaver and Spencer were sitting to her right.

She turned to the trio and said, “If you can get your candidate to guarantee me that his first Supreme Court appointment will be a woman, I’ll stop campaigning for the ERA.”

Their candidate – her father – said, “Done. Deal.”

Maureen turned around to her father, who had his hand out. They shook hands, agreeing that if he got elected his first nominee to the Supreme Court would be a woman.

The deal was made between Maureen and her father, not anyone else. And it was done solely to get her to stop campaigning for the ERA.

Michael Reagan is the president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Contact him at:

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