Opinion | Sandra Day O’Connor, Champion of Federalism

Sandra Day O’Connor, who died Friday at age 93, is being remembered as the first woman to serve as a Justice of the Supreme Court. But her far more consequential legacy was as a champion of the role of the states in the Constitution.

Ronald Reagan nominated O’Connor in 1981 while she was a state judge in Arizona. That in itself was unusual since she wasn’t on most short lists for the High Court. But the Gipper had promised to appoint a woman, and at the time there weren’t many women on the federal bench.