Posted on 10/06/2005 7:15:47 PM PDT by jdhljc169
Today's Chronicle of Higher Education has a story that describes Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' involvement with a lecture series at her alma mater, SMU Law School. The inaugural lecturer? Gloria Steinem. I've played these games in law schools, and this story sends up red flags for me. Here's my take on it ...
I was reserving judgment, but after having read the Chronicle article (and given conservatives' skittishness about her already), I think she's a non-starter. Miers may be a very nice person - and by all accounts she is. But she has never served as a judge, and while I do not think that an attorney must have been a judge in order to be an excellent justice, I do think that if you want to be certain of a nominee's views on the proper role of the judiciary, you better have seen them in action as a judge.
We haven't. And absent that, we must look to other events in Miers' professional life to ascertain her perspective. To that end, the Chronicle article is instructive:
In the late 1990s, as a member of the advisory board for Southern Methodist University's law school, Ms. Miers pushed for the creation of an endowed lecture series in women's studies named for Louise B. Raggio, one of the first women to rise to prominence in the Texas legal community ...Ms. Miers, whom President Bush announced on Monday as his choice to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, not only advocated for the lecture series, but also gave money and solicited donations to help get it off the ground ... A feminist icon, Gloria Steinem, delivered the series's first lecture, in 1998. In the following two years, the speakers were Patricia S. Schroeder, the former Democratic congresswoman widely associated with women's causes, and Susan Faludi, the author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (1991). Ann W. Richards, the Democrat whom George W. Bush unseated as governor of Texas in 1994, delivered the lecture in 2003.
Having served on the faculties of three law schools, I can tell you that if you are an academic of the conservative political persuasion, this is the way you play the game: you call things by the terms the liberal academic establishment uses ("Gender Studies," "Women's Studies," etc.) and then you bring in lecturers and provide content that challenges their prevailing "wisdom."
There must be dozens -- hundreds -- thousands -- of conservative female attorneys, politicians, pundits and successful business owners in this country who would be wonderful role models for female SMU law students. If Miers pushed for the creation of a lecture series to honor Texas' first and finest female attorneys, and the series brought in the likes of Steinem and Faludi, then I know as much as I need to know about this woman.
Stick a fork in her. She's done.
Would you be happy if your spouse were faithful to you 85% of the time? Sometimes, "mostly" just doesn't cut it.
I don't trust people who try to argue the utility of a point by using internet polls.
So all is cool. Hamilton's little treatise on cronyism amounts to nothing because he didn't practice it.
Who around here is saying she needs to have been a judge?
Do you think this woman would have been nominated if she weren't GWB's personal attorney? How exactly does her resume strike you once you factor out her experience by his side? Equal to other leading SCOTUS contenders?
I, like I presume you are, am reserving my final opinion until I have heard from this lady in front of the judiciary panel and as much information as possible is gathered. But that's all we can do is form an opinion. But "W" doesn't have the final say-so. The Senate will ultimately decide if she gets the gig or not. I think this is where the author is heading with her final comment.
The tide is starting to move against her and what I originally opined the day after she was nominated just might happen. If she doesn't get any Democrats, there might be more than enough Republicans who will vote to cut her loose. Information like what the author has presented just might be another straw added to the camel's back. FWIW.
They really believe that Senators nominate judges?
Bravo bunny, nice post.
...so...Jefferson's take on slavery didn't matter because he didn't practice it???
I, for instance, think it is a marvelous, wonderful thing for people to leave all earthly connections behind and go off and be a missionary or mercy worker or medical worker in the civil-war torn Congo. I am writing this right here.
Will I do it? No.
BY STEPHEN HENDERSON
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - In what appear to be some of her only public statements about a constitutional issue, Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers testified in a 1990 voting rights lawsuit that the Dallas City Council had too few black and Hispanic members, and that increasing minority representation should be a goal of any change in the city’s political structure.
In the same testimony, Miers, then a member of the council, said she believed that the city should divest its South African financial holdings and work to boost economic development in poor and minority areas. She also said she “wouldn’t belong to the Federalist Society” or other “politically charged” groups because they “seem to color your view one way or another.”
Miers’ thoughts about racial diversity placed her squarely on the progressive side of the 1990 suit, which was pivotal in shifting power in Dallas politics to groups outside the traditional, mostly white establishment.
And some constitutional scholars say that if Miers were to embrace the same views as a justice on the high court, she would fall more in line with the court’s pragmatic, moderate wing than with its doctrinaire extremes.
“There’s an acknowledgement in her comments that race matters and is relevant, and from a fairness standpoint, we should acknowledge the impact of a particular political structure on voters of color,” said George Washington University law professor Spencer Overton, a voting rights expert. “It’s not unlike something you could see Justice Sandra Day O’Connor saying. A rigid quota system may be bad, but diversity is a compelling interest, and we want institutions to reflect society as a whole.”
That notion may not be helpful to Miers’ support among conservatives in Washington and elsewhere, who have expressed deep disappointment - and, in some cases, stark outrage - that President Bush did not choose a solidly conservative nominee to replace O’Connor, a swing vote on many issues.
That disappointment continued to resonate Thursday on Capitol Hill, where several Republicans who met with Miers described her as too much of an enigma.
“I think there’s still a lot to learn about this nominee,” said Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, after meeting with Miers for about an hour in his office. “The president has had the advantage of working with her for a decade. I must do my own due diligence, I can’t say all these issues were overcome in a one-hour meeting.”
In the 1990 federal lawsuit, Miers was called to the stand by a lawyer representing black and Hispanic citizens who felt the City Council’s structure illegally impeded their ability to win seats.
Only two of the city’s eight single-member council districts had ever been represented by blacks; no blacks had ever been elected to the three citywide seats. Hispanics had no single-member representatives, and only one Mexican-American - current U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales - had ever won a citywide seat.
Blacks and Hispanics made up more than 40 percent of the city’s population.
The plaintiffs complained that the structure diluted the potential for minority representation on the council by drawing district lines that minimized the impact of minority votes.
Miers agreed that there were too few minorities on the council, and that increasing the number of single-member districts - thus redrawing district lines - would be one way to change that. She said the structure needed to “encourage additional African-American, Mexican-American representation on the council.”
She also said that as “one of the ingredients” in remaking the council, a racial balance would be important. Miers was careful not to endorse the idea that race should be the sole or even primary focus on redistricting efforts, saying at one point that “while race is an issue, you have economic diversity, which is really the crux” of the problem.
“To be representative, you’ve got to deal with more than race,” she said.
But her comments were strong enough for the judge in the case, a Democratic appointee, to quote her among council members who agreed the system challenged in the lawsuit was unfair.
“There was no doubt she understood the problems, and wanted to find a solution - both in terms of politics and the underlying unequal services,” said Michael M. Daniel, one of the attorneys who handled the case. “She obviously played a role in this case.”
The Supreme Court confronts the role of race in policy-making decisions in a number of areas, including voting rights and affirmative action. Miers’ 1990 views on the subject suggested contextual solutions that avoided rigid rules much like O’Connor’s opinion in the landmark college admission case. That approach is not embraced by the court’s more doctrinaire justices, such as Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. President Bush has described Scalia and Thomas as his favorite justices and has said their approach to judicial matters is what he prefers.
Little in Miers’ track record - mostly as a corporate attorney in Dallas and legal adviser to Bush - suggests that she would have developed a particular constitutional approach or outlook.
Although, in her testimony in the voting rights case, she said she had become familiar with the issues by reading up on prior cases. She also acknowledged having given a speech about a pivotal 1973 Supreme Court ruling about legislative redistricting in Texas.
She also said during her sworn testimony that she would not join an organization like the Federalist Society, a group of conservative intellectuals that is a leading proponent of a strict - and some say narrow - interpretation of the Constitution.
“I just feel like it’s better not to be involved in organizations that seem to color your view one way or the other for people who are examining you,” she said.
Chief Justice John Roberts caused a flap earlier this year by insisting he was not a Federalist Society member, even though records listed him in the group’s leadership directory in the late 1990s.
Gene Meyer, president of the Federalist Society, said he wouldn’t confirm whether Miers was a member, because it’s “up to members themselves to say.” But he said Miers has spoken to the group’s Washington chapter since she became White House counsel.
In her Texas testimony, Miers also discussed her own election for an at-large seat, and her efforts to reach out to residents in the city’s largely poor, minority areas. She said she noticed great disparities in the kinds of city services that were available in different neighborhoods, and that many citizens in poor and minority areas didn’t feel they were adequately represented on the council.
Miers said she had worked to get Hispanic and black representatives onto the oversight board for the city’s transit system and had worked to boost economic redevelopment and social safety net programs in Dallas’ struggling communities.
Her testimony reveals practical experience in issues involving the race and class divide - something none of the other current Supreme Court justices has.
“I think it showed her the human side of the legal issues she’ll confront,” Overton said. “The question is: Who will she be as a judge? Will she bring those same sensitivities to the bench as a judge? My hope is that she will - just as Justice O’Connor did.”
"I was just wondering, how much of all this hysteria about Miers is based on what type of conservative or Liberal activist she will be once on the SCOTUS?"
No, it's based on not knowing what kind of judicial philosphy she actually has.
The same Miers that vetted Luttig, JRB, and John Roberts? That one?
I do believe the article made the point I addressed. "But she has never served as a judge". Though the writer goes on to mitigate this statement, that is the real burn. It is this elitist attitude that we really needed somebody with something more...
But as to Hamilton's comments about cronyism applying to Bush's choice, that is an unproven assumption on your part. And in my opinion, to use your word, irrelevant.
So, back away from the keyboard and take a few deep breaths, and a chill pill...
with all the whining, you would think this forum was FrenchRepublic.com not FREERepublic.com. I have my reservations about Miers, however the ONE think that I think is a 100% positive is the fact she has NOT been a judge. She is untainted by black robe fever.
I know a couple of judges who are venemously upset that (GASP!) a non-judge gets the nod. It was IN THEORY that a non-judge could be on the USSC but the fellow lawyers just ASSUMED they had a permanent lock on the Judge promoted to higher Judge tracks.
I think the legal profession is afraid the next step is non-lawyers.
I want Miers to be approved to tick off all the naysayers.
What the hell kind of logic is that? Clarence Thomas admits he benefited from affirmative action, but would you say that any argument he could make against it amounts to nothing?
???
Uh, yeah.... That IS the fear.
Since your among the 99.4% of the country, how can you reach such a conclusion, since 99.4% of the country knows little or nothing about her.
>> Not so fast. The long and the short of it is she didn't come to this dance with you, she came with "W". "W" picked her, "W" wants her and this IS his dance to arrange, not yours or mine. She is not done until "W" says so. <<
Maybe we're done with W.
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