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Republicans Rip The Late Justice O'Connor As 'Undistinguished'

Imagine handing the presidency to the GOP in a naked loyalty play and THIS is what they think of you.

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Sandra Day O’Connor

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

When Donald Trump mocked John McCain for being a prisoner of war in Vietnam, noting “I like people who weren’t captured,” the Republican Party faced a fork in the road where it could continue to offer respect and deference to its lineage of conservative icons or set fire to everything without Trump’s name etched on it with chintzy gold-plating. The party overwhelmingly turned away from Reagan’s shining city on a hill to follow Chad’s tiki torch on a march and it’s made all the difference. With the passing of Sandra Day O’Connor, the Republican Arizona state legislator who rose to become the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, Republicans had another opportunity to pay homage to one of their own.

Guess what happened instead?

Lawmakers rejected a plan to commission a statue of Arizona icon Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, and display it in the U.S. Capitol building, with conservatives saying that the idea of honoring O’Connor, a moderate Republican, was offensive.

“We cannot allow the distinguished members of this body to have to suffer walking by such an undistinguished jurist when they enter here in the morning,” Rep. Alexander Kolodin, R-Scottsdale, said.

Despite Kolodin’s remarks, the plan wasn’t to place this statue in the Arizona Capitol, but in the United States Capitol, a building Kolodin’s constituents might recognize from their January 6 Facebook Memories. Kolodin continued, complaining about O’Connor’s abortion and affirmative action rulings where she penned half measures that respected constitutional precedent while chipping away at progressive rulings. It’s a classically conservative approach that doesn’t rock with the MAGA kids these days.

To be clear, we’ve got no problem bad-mouthing dead justices. The justices are grown-ups who chose not only the public eye, but the responsibility of impacting millions of Americans without any democratic oversight. People are free to judge them accordingly. But it’s one thing to trample on her legacy over policy objections and another entirely to call the justice “undistinguished.” She was a Stanford Law grad who rose to become a state leader before embarking on a long career sitting at the fulcrum of constitutional order. That’s distinguished.

By way of comparison, Antonin Scalia was awful and anyone who wants to say so is more than welcome. But don’t try to tell me that guy wasn’t “distinguished.”

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It’s such a nonsense insult. It’s the “I like people who weren’t captured” of SCOTUS commentary. I think they prefer the petty insults over the policy ones. Maybe that’s just what their audience understands.

Rep. Neal Carter, R-San Tan Valley, also stated his dislike of O’Connor, recalling a time in law school when an unnamed sitting Supreme Court justice told Carter that O’Connor was the “worst thing that happened to the federal bench.”

“I believe that we should honor people, things and institutions for their merit, and not merely because they came from this state,” Carter said on the House floor.

Ah yes. Those times when sitting Supreme Court justices confide in law students about how much they hated the justice they replaced. HAPPENS ALL THE TIME! And when we say “the justice they replaced,” technically Carter left the justice unnamed, but if this happened at all….

Also, in light of Trump’s noted disdain for McCain, I wonder what Carter would say about attempts to honor Arizona’s former favorite son “merely because they came from this state.” Or, given the explicit objection to O’Connor over her abortion jurisprudence, how do these Republicans feel about Barry Goldwater, one of the state’s current statues in the Capitol building (the other of Arizona’s allotted two statues is 17th century Jesuit missionary Eusebio Kino). Goldwater spent his final term voting down efforts to legislatively overturn Roe and would before his death declare support for gay rights.

At least the petty attacks on O’Connor didn’t represent every Arizona Republican. Rep. Matt Gress sponsored the failed statue bid and described O’Connor as “a pioneer, a trail blazer. Everything that Arizona represents.”

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So… that dude’s going to get primaried next time around, huh?

Sandra Day O’Connor is an Arizona icon, but is too ‘undistinguished’ to warrant a statue, Republicans say [Arizona Republic]

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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