O'Connor, Sandra Day
1930–2023
O'Connor's defining jurisprudence — Casey's preservation of Roe's core, Grutter's narrowly-tailored race-conscious admissions, Lawrence-era social-issue centrism, and her later iCivics work emphasizing institutional civic education — reads as moderating, pluralism-preserving conservatism. Abbott runs hard against the O'Connor frame on abortion (SB 8, the trigger ban), on church-state (SB 10/11/763), on LGBTQ (SB 14/15/12, the 2022 DFPS investigation directive), and on civics-education-style pluralism. Hinojosa's no-votes on each of those bills track the O'Connor strand; her Public Benefit Corporations bill is a moderating civic-institutional invention of the sort O'Connor's iCivics work would celebrate. Hinojosa is the substantially closer O'Connor fit; Abbott picks up some O'Connor credit only on the federalism-and-property-rights strand.
Sources
- Eleanor Klibanoff, 'Gov. Greg Abbott signs into law one of nation's strictest abortion bans,' Texas Tribune, May 19, 2021. (full list)
- Texas Tribune, 'Ten Commandments in Texas schools: SB 10 explained,' May 24, 2025. (full list)
- Eleanor Klibanoff, 'Texas bans gender-affirming care for trans minors,' Texas Tribune, June 2, 2023. (full list)
- Texas AFT, 'SB 12, the Parents Bill of Rights, deep dive,' 2025 — pronoun, DEI, and GSA provisions. (full list)
- Sandra Day O'Connor, jurisprudence as the Court's pivotal centrist; iCivics; Planned Parenthood v. Casey concurrence. (full list)