PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon’s first female Supreme Court justice is being remembered as one of the state’s greatest judicial and political pioneers.
Betty Roberts died Saturday of pulmonary fibrosis in her Portland home. She was 88, and she served on the high court from 1982 to 1996. She was also the only woman in the state Senate when she was elected to that body in 1968.
David Brewer, the chief judge of the Oregon Court of Appeals, tells the Oregonian newspaper that as the first woman to serve as an appeals court judge, she “endured much indignity with great dignity,” and she was a beacon of strength, fairness and common sense.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who went to high school with Roberts’ children, says that for 25 years she had as much impact on the political process as anyone else in Oregon.
