Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1141 honors the accomplishments of the Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court. Justice O'Connor was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1930, and grew up on a cattle ranch called the Lazy-B near Duncan, Arizona. She befriended cowboys who worked on the ranch, learned to drive a car and shoot a gun, and became an expert horseback rider. Her parents decided that she needed an education, so O'Connor went to live with her maternal grandmother in El Paso. She later studied economics at Stanford University with an eye toward running the Lazy-B or another ranch. However, a legal dispute over the Lazy-B sparked her interest in the law. O'Connor enrolled in Stanford's law school, and graduated in only 2 years, third in her class, that included valedictorian and future Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist. One of her other classmates, John Jay O'Connor, became her husband. This was the early 1950s, and despite her stellar law school record, O'Connor could not find work as a lawyer. But she was determined. She started out as a legal secretary before finding employment as the deputy county attorney for San Mateo, California. When her husband was drafted into the Judge Advocate General's Corps, she joined him in Frankfurt, Germany, where she served as a civilian attorney in the Quartermaster's Corps.…”