Posted on 10/22/2005 8:39:45 AM PDT by VictoryGal
WASHINGTON — Asked to describe the constitutional issues she had worked on during her legal career, Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers had relatively little to say on the questionnaire she sent to the Senate this week.
And what she did say left many constitutional experts shaking their heads.
At one point, Miers described her service on the Dallas City Council in 1989. When the city was sued on allegations that it violated the Voting Rights Act, she said, "the council had to be sure to comply with the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause."
But the Supreme Court repeatedly has said the Constitution's guarantee of "equal protection of the laws" does not mean that city councils or state legislatures must have the same proportion of blacks, Latinos and Asians as the voting population.
"That's a terrible answer. There is no proportional representation requirement under the equal protection clause," said New York University law professor Burt Neuborne, a voting rights expert. "If a first-year law student wrote that and submitted it in class, I would send it back and say it was unacceptable."
Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan, also an expert on voting rights, said she was surprised the White House did not check Miers' questionnaire before sending it to the Senate.
"Are they trying to set her up? Any halfway competent junior lawyer could have checked the questionnaire and said it cannot go out like that. I find it shocking," she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
It's not going to be pretty.
bttt
> Not as dumb as it sounded
From your article:
"When I read that sentence, I thought its syntax was confused"
So, while interesting, this raises another issue with Miers, one we've seen before. She simply cannot write clearly and unambiguously, and this is something she absolutely has to be able to do in order to be a competent jurist in the highest court. Where are those who will "interpret" her opinions when it will be HER job to interpret?
Either she was incompetent in this case because she misinterpreted the law, or she was slightly less incompetent by writing an interpretation that was fuzzy and open to debate.
Either way, she is simply not qualified for SCOTUS. I'm sorry. From what I've seen, she's an OK lawyer and a nice person I'm sure, but she simply doesn't have the chops for the job. And I dread her upcoming performance during the hearings if the prepared, researched questionnaire is this choppy.
But, but, but constitutional law is easy. Any idiot can do it. Yuh jes' read thuh Constitution an' apply common sense.
Future Constitutional amendment: Members of the Supreme Court must demonstrate "choppy chops". /sarc Did you follow the Miers withdrawal rumors this morning? Were you excited? Are you counting the number of Senate votes that you can count on to make your hopes and dreams come true?
Rehnquist was highly intelligent and capable. And he could write.
Miers is moderately intelligent and marginally capable. And she writes at the high school level.
And she's a quota freak and social worker wannabe.
There is nothing about this sad situation that excites me or makes me happy. It's tragic that it has gone this far. It's not doing Republicans, Conservatives, or this nation any favors by continuing.
So my advice is to untwist your panties and figure out how to move forward - Miers will either be withdrawn, rejected or nominated. It is NOT the end of Conservativism as we know it. Life goes on and so will Conservatives.
Save it for someone who actually wants to get into an arguement.
> And she certainly is qualified for SCOTUS, as she fulfills all the Constitutional requirements, the President nominated her, and she wouldn't be the first SC Justice to have not been a judge. Actually, she'd be the 44th. Rehnquist wasn't a judge either.
She's qualified for SCOTUS in the same way that a US citizen with a degree in Computer Science is qualified for a job at Microsoft, there is no rule *preventing* her to serve.
She's not qualified by dint of not having the quality of thought or writing that one of the highest jurists in the land should possess. And I base that on her writings so far. In this case, either she is misinterpreting law or writing such a muddled opinion that no one can agree what she meant to say.
Either mistake is one I don't want a SCOTUS judge to make. Do you?
2. Resolved therefore that the rights of suffrage in the National Legislature ought to be proportioned to the Quotas of contribution, or to the number of free inhabitants, as the one or the other rule may seem best in different cases.
Madison is speaking of proportional representation, which can be found in Article 1 of the constitituion.
Miers was speaking of proportional representation in the Madisonian sense not the Lani Guinierian sense. A pity more pundits and constititional lawyers of high pedigree are unfamiliar with the original meaning of the phrase but hey that's life.
No she wasn't. Upon the same idea that Madison referred to came representation in the House, with proportion according to population. That wasn't even a good try.
Miers nomination is to fulfill the proportional representation requirements for the illiterate and stupid.
Unfortunately, they're already over-represented.
> So my advice is to untwist your panties and figure out how to move forward
I'd be happy to, but I keep running into Republicans insisting they need to know more before they can make up their minds on this candidate, and accuse those of us who oppose her to shut up until there is data on her. Well, there is data on her now due to her writings and questionnaire.
I provide information, and you start talking about panties? What does that say about you?
And Hillary is constitutionally qualified to be President.
> Let me put it like this: she can't be worse than Ginsburg.
Oh my God, is this what we've been reduced to when we have a Republican President and Congress? "Better than Ginsburg"?
Way to intentionally miss the point.
Go argue with someone who actually wants to bother.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.