Posted on 10/21/2005 10:13:21 AM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest
Harriet Miers will not join the Supreme Court.
It may seem a little early to say that; Miers's Judiciary Committee hearings, after all, don't even start for two weeks. But given the news this week, I think it's a pretty sturdy limb I'm out on.
John Fund reported on Monday that Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht and Dallas-based federal Judge Ed Kinkeade, both friends of Miers's, apparently assured social conservative leaders on a conference call that Miers would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Hecht and Kinkeade deny it, but two of Robert Novak's sources, who were on the call, confirm Fund's story. And in a document issued to the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, it was revealed that Miers pledged, in a questionnaire she filled out for the Texans United for Life Political Action Committee (TUL-PAC) during her 1989 campaign for Dallas City Council, to support various pro-life policies, including a Human Life Amendment. That may do a little to reassure some conservatives on Miers, but it won't be enough to earn her monolithic support from the Right. After all, if Miers is defeated or withdrawn, her replacement will almost certainly be at least as reliably conservative as Miers, who, as I noted last week, appears to believe that public universities can constitutionally employ race-based admission policies.
Democrats might have concluded that it would be better to back Miers than risk facing a stronger conservative. But after the latest revelations about her pro-life views, Miers can expect almost no support from the party of Roe v. Wade.
Consider just the Judiciary Committee. Unless she explicitly declares fealty to upholding Roe, the five Democrats who voted against John Roberts won't vote for her. The three who did vote for Roberts -- Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, and Patrick Leahy of Vermont -- did so on the grounds that the overwhelming qualifications of the nominee trumped their ideological concerns. With Miers, the qualifications are significantly less and the ideological concerns are now arguably greater. Miers will probably not get even a single vote from the Committee's eight Democrats.
She can't count on Committee Republicans, either. Another conservative Committee member, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, commented after the TUL-PAC questionnaire came out that Miers still needs to "show she has the capacity to be a Supreme Court justice." The New York Times reported two weeks ago that after meeting with Miers, conservative Committee member Sam Brownback of Kansas "said he would consider voting against the nomination, even if President Bush made a personal plea for his support." And squishy Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, along with ranking Democrat Leahy, it was reported yesterday, was very displeased with Miers's "incomplete" answers to a Judiciary Committee questionnaire.
Under a bipartisan agreement, Supreme Court nominations can't be killed in committee. But if all the Committee Democrats and even one Republican vote against her, the vote will be 9-9 and Miers will go to the Senate floor without a recommendation that she be approved. This will make it much harder to get Miers confirmed on the Senate floor. It will be harder still -- probably impossible -- if ten or more Senators vote against her in committee.
"This is going to be an unusual hearing," says Specter, "where I think all 18 senators are going to have probing questions." There's not much reason to think that Miers can skillfully navigate that buzzsaw.
Her nomination is doomed.
I will agree to an extent. It is true that Roberts is not an iron-clad, documented, anti-Roe originalist as was, say, Bork. But in terms of his qualifications, on a 1-10 scale he is an 11, while Miers is a 1.5.
Roberts also does have a substantial written track record from his days in the Reagan White House indicating he is a true conservative.
I guess it was only a matter of time before the pro-Miers people started posting physical threats to their opponents on the issue. This Miers nomination and its defense is like some kind of bad drug---like crystal meth---for some people here.
Dubya doesn't reverse course. Pretty much ever.
But Miers might just get sick of the whole shebang and take herself out.
I am not sure how I would react if millions of people that I have never met used terms like "lightweight," "underqualified" and even "stupid" about me. But I suspect I wouldn't enjoy it.
Well, we'll just have to see. LOL!
I's been happening for days now. That is what the "Get ready for Gonzales" thing is all about.
Being a witness to that would almost be worth it.
If I were Bush, I'd do it just to spite them.
As the bumper sticker says,
"President Bush, saving your ass like it or not!"
Not necessarily.
There's the recess appointment.
I put the odds of a recess appointment at 0. On something as important as a SC seat, and given the level of opposition, it would be seen as an irresponsible, ego-driven move that could well doom Republicans in '06 and '08.
2. You want Hillary Clinton to appoint the next Supreme Court justice?
The public does not care as much about this as you think.
I agree that it won't happen.
I was commenting on the statement that "the Senate gets to decide."
That is not necessarily so because of the recess appointment.
recess....
(Unless she's officially turned down. At that point, I don't think a recess appointment can be made.)
Point taken.
Sheesh..."Out of the frying pan, into the fire..."
BTW, just saw Ed Rollins on Hannity. He made the usual good party man noises on Miers---"I'm sure she'd make a good judge"---but he also stated that he now feels the nomination won't make it, and that the WH needs to "pull" the pick before hearings, because if they do it because of the hearings, "it will be a big defeat." I think that's putting it mildly.
I don't think the Senate will allow a "recess appointment"---they'll vote up or down on it before they let GW do that.
There's the timeliness issue.
The President wants it done by Thanksgiving.
If they get to that recess before the appointment, the president could exercise his power.
Didn't George Washington appoint a justice by recess who eventually failled a confirmation vote and had to step down?
John Rutledge in July 1795, after the first Chief Justice John Jay resigned to become Governor of New York. December 10, 1795, Washington formally nominated Rutledge, who had already made some very unpopular comments about the Jay Treaty in the interim, as Chief Justice. The Senate five days later defeated the nomination. The day after Christmas, a distraught John Rutledge tried to drown himself in Charleston Bay. Surviving, he wrote Washington two days later asking to resign his recess appointment.
Not a good precedent.
My biggest problem and the one at the root of all 150+ posts here is that Miers appointment to the bench is so important because the courts have asserted, and the executive as well as legislative branches have capitulated with out so much as a whimper to the proposition that the Judiciary has absolute authority to over rule the other two so called coequal branches of government and once they have ruled the Legislative branches, the Executive branch, the States and the people can all go straight to hell because they have the final say!
And I say if this is the way it is to be, let's stop the Charade and end all elections, let's get rid of the Executive & Legislative branches, let's eliminate the state and local governments and turn everything over to the courts as our Philosopher Kings.
Harriet Miers for Supreme Empress of the SCOTUS
That is fascinating stuff. Thanks.
It sounds like the sequence was almost immediate.
Washington nominated, immediately appointed by recess, had the man hold the job during the confirmation process, and then had him step down when that failed.
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