Public celebrations for the Brethren's first sister
As the five-minute buzzer sounded summoning Senators to cast their votes, Sandra Day O'Connor, 51, wrung her hands nervously and awaited her fate in an anteroom near the Senate floor. "This is the longest five minutes of my life," she said with an anxious smile. Yet her fate was never in doubt. By a vote of 99 to 0,* the Senate made Judge O'Connor Justice O'Connor, the Supreme Court's first female member in its 191 years. Even Republican Jeremiah Denton of Alabama, the only member of the Judiciary Committee who refused to recommend O'Connor's confirmation,...