Anybody have the Alberto Gonzales quote they keep referring to?
Criticized 10 Times?
The PFAW ad also says of Owen, the Texas appointee, that “President Bush’s own attorney general criticized her ten times.”
Alberto Gonzales wasn't Bush's attorney general at the time he made the 10 statements PFAW cites. He was serving on the Texas Supreme Court with Owen in 1999 and 2000. In some of his written opinions he did indeed disagree strongly with Owen's legal reasoning, but he never criticized her personally, or by name.
The most often cited legal disagreement is from a 2000 case in which Owen and Gonzales disagreed over whether a minor seeking an abortion was “mature” and “sufficiently well informed” enough for a judge to allow her to have an abortion without notifying a parent under Texas law. A 6-3 majority ruled in favor of the girl – a senior in high school at the time. Gonzales was in the majority.
Owen, however, said the girl wasn't mature or well informed enough because she intended “to continue to seek and take support from her parents” and had “not thoughtfully considered her alternatives,” even though she had talked about adoption with a counselor and a teacher. Gonzales thought that interpretation was too restrictive and went beyond the actual language of the of the Texas law, which requres parental notification of abortions but also allows judges to grant exceptions, or "bypasses," under certain circumstances. Gonzales wrote:
Gonzales, June 22, 2000: …to construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism.”
Now that Gonzales is a member of Bush's cabinet he's supporting Owen for the appeals court despite their past disagreements. He said May 9:
Gonzales, May 9, 2005: Judges disagree from time to time on particular issues. . . . That doesn't in any way detract from my view that she would make a terrific a judge on the 5th Circuit. I've never accused her of being an activist judge.
Lawyers are trained to see fine distinctions, so perhaps Gonzales will explain another time how a judge who performs an act of "unconsionable . . . judicial activism" is not an "activist judge." Meanwhile, readers will just have to puzzle that out for themselves.
That's it. That is ALL of it. Reid lies again.
A good explanation of the Gonzales/Owen lie is at:
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/abbott200505130815.asp
It is written by a former judge who sat on the TX Supreme Court with them.