Great Americans: The Wisdom of Sandra Day O’Connor

Welcome back to Great Americans, a countdown to our country’s 250th birthday. We’re bringing you a writer we love on an American they love, every weekday between now and July 4. Previously, Charles Fain Lehman paid tribute to Irving Berlin—the immigrant who wrote the song “God Bless America.” Today, Charles Lane remembers Sandra Day O’Connor, the rancher’s daughter who went on to become the most powerful woman in Washington, D.C. —The Editors

Sandra Day O’Connor came out of nowhere to become the first woman on the Supreme Court and, eventually, the most powerful woman in Washington, D.C. Maybe the most powerful ever.

What made O’Connor a great American was not the causes for which she used her clout—those were, in fact, varied and not particularly lofty. It was her attitude about how to use it. In a steadily polarizing country, O’Connor held out for compromise, incrementalism, and flexibility. As the unpredictable centrist member of a nine-member court often split between four liberals and four conservatives, she leveraged a strategic asset—her vote—to preserve equilibrium.