Sandra Day O'Connor not happy with Supreme Court ruling

[Jennicut]

Former Justice O’Connor Sees Ill in Election Finance Ruling



By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: January 26, 2010

WASHINGTON— Justice Sandra Day O’Connor did not sound happy on Tuesday about the Supreme Court’s big campaign finance decision last week. It repudiated a major part of a ruling Justice O’Connor helped write before her retirement from the court in 2006, and it complicated her recent efforts to do away with judicial elections.

“Gosh,” she said, “I step away for a couple of years and there’s no telling what’s going to happen.”

Justice O’Connor criticized the recent decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, only obliquely, reminding the audience that she had been among the authors of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, the 2003 decision that was overruled in large part on Thursday.

“If you want my legal opinion” about Citizens United, Justice O’Connor said, “you can go read” McConnell.

Justice O’Connor gave her thoughts at a conference at Georgetown University Law Center on judicial selection in the aftermath of Citizens United and last year’s Supreme Court decision on judicial recusal, Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.

She has become increasingly vocal in recent years about doing away with judicial elections. Most states elect at least some of their judges; federal judges are appointed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/politics/27judge.html

I will never forgive her for the part in the 2000 ruling with Bush and Gore but at least she is not a complete idiot.

[alsame]

1. Too bad she didn't think about this when she cast the 5th vote for

Bush v. Gore. I have zero sympathy for this woman.

[Orrex]

3. Yeah, she basically threw her career's credibility into the toilet with that one.

Nice going, Justice O'Connor.

[joeybee12]

2. Maybe if Bush v Gore wasn't so rushed, she might have changed her mind

and voted the other way, although from what I've read, it was Kennedy who almost voted with the minority, which would have become the majority.

[LiberalFighter]

4. If she had done her job properly in 2000 we probably wouldn't have this problem.

[hvn_nbr_2]

5. She's a good one to complain about "judicial elections." Hah! nt