Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor called out Republicans who want to delay appointing a new justice until a new president takes office.
“I don’t agree,” the 85-year-old O’Connor said in an interview with Fox 10 Phoenix regarding Republicans’ position on appointing a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia, who died unexpectedly last weekend. “I think we need somebody there now to do the job, and let’s get on with it.”
O’Connor, who was nominated for the Supreme Court by former President Ronald Reagan in 1981, said she wishes “the president well as he makes choices and goes down that line.”
“Well, you just have to pick the best person you can under the circumstances under the appointing authority,” she added. “You must do – and it’s an important position, and one that we should care about as a nation and as a people.
O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the court, stepped down from the bench in 2006 to care for her ailing husband, who died in 2009.
