Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

Floor Speech

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I just left a ceremony in the Hart Office Building, not far from where we are meeting, which is an annual event where the University of Illinois presents the Senator Paul H. Douglas Ethics in Government Award. The 2008 recipient is former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She is the first woman to be so honored.

There has been a long list of public servants who have distinguished themselves with their integrity and their show of ethics in government who have been acknowledged for this award, and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor certainly follows in that tradition.

It was my good fortune as a young college student to work as an intern in the office of Senator Paul Douglas. It truly shaped my life and convinced me that public service was a good calling, and I was lucky, as I have said many times, to be inspired by the gospels of St. Paul--that would be former Senator Paul Douglas and former Senator Paul Simon--who showed me what I thought was the very best in public service in their honesty--not only dollar honesty but honesty on the issues. It is a great honor for me to continue and serve in the same Senate seat that both of these men occupied.

But today the University of Illinois honored Sandra Day O'Connor, and she is well deserving--the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. By the time her career was coming to a close, she became one of the most decisive forces on that High Court. During her last decade on the Court, 193 decisions were made by the Court by a vote of 5 to 4. One Justice's vote made the difference, and in 148 of those 193 cases, that one vote was cast by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

There were so many issues--issues regarding privacy, the rights of people with disabilities, affirming the voting rights of Americans, preserving the rights of universities to use affirmative action, protecting the rights established under McCain-Feingold to have cleaner elections in America, upholding State laws giving individuals their rights under health insurance contracts, preserving the authority of the Federal Government to protect the environment, banning the execution of children, reaffirming America's time-honored tradition of separation of church and state.

One New York Times reporter wrote in 2001 that Justice O'Connor's vote tipped the scale so often that ``we are all living now in Sandra Day O'Connor's America.''

As I said a few moments ago in introducing her at this gathering, one of her most significant and oft-quoted opinions was a recent one--her landmark decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, in which she famously wrote:

A state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of a Nation's citizens.

Mr. President, I wanted to come to the floor briefly today to add my voice to so many Americans in gratitude to Sandra Day O'Connor for her great service to Arizona and to the United States of America and to the Supreme Court. I am glad her voice is still strong and part of the public chorus, calling on us to be better as a people and better in government.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the speech I gave during the awards ceremony.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD

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