Bush Nominates Longtime Friend and Attorney Harriet Miers for Supreme Court

President Bush reached into his inner circle and nominated Harriet Miers - his White House counsel and former personal attorney - the Supreme Court on Monday. We host a debate with former presidential candidate Ralph Nader and Ronald Cass of the Committee for Justice.
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President Bush reached into his inner circle and nominated Harriet Miers - his White House counsel and former personal attorney - to the Supreme Court on Monday.

* President Bush, October 3, 2005.

In nominating Miers, Bush turned to a lawyer with no judicial experience or constitutional background to replace retiring justice Sandra Day O'Conner and help shape the nation's judiciary. This marks the first time since 1971 that a President nominated someone without judicial experience to serve on the US Supreme Court. If confirmed Miers will become the third woman to ever serve on the court. She spoke after Bush announced her nomination.

* Harriet Miers, supreme court nominee, October 3, 2005.

Miers is 60 years old. After earning her undergraduate and law degrees from Southern Methodist University, she worked as a corporate litigator in Dallas at the firm now known as Locke Liddell & Sapp. She would rise to become the first woman to head a major Dallas law firm and was named one of the 100 most powerful lawyers in the country. She specialized in commercial litigation, representing big-name clients such as Microsoft and Walt Disney Corporation.

Miers later rose to become the first woman to serve as president of the Texas State Bar and the Dallas Bar Association. She met George W Bush in the 1980s and she was counsel for his 1994 campaign for governor. She continued on as Bush's personal attorney until he appointed her to head the Texas Lottery Commission. She helped recruit conservative lawyers for Bush during the Florida recount in 2000 and was reportedly assigned during the campaign to conduct a review of his National Guard service. She followed Bush to the White House where she served as White House deputy chief of staff as well as staff secretary, a job in which she reviewed virtually every document that went before the president. In 2004, she was tapped to become White House counsel.

Her relationship is so close to President Bush, that White House insiders joked to the Los Angeles Times that she was his "work wife." Bush once called her "a pit bull in size 6 shoes."

As White House counsel, Miers vetted judicial nominees, including newly installed Chief Justice John Roberts. She also advised the president on issues including the CIA leak investigation and the role of torture in the fight against terrorism.

Without a judicial record, it may be difficult for Senators to know where Miers stands on key issues facing the court. What is known is that as a City Council candidate, she opposed the repeal of a law against gay sex. In 1992, when delegates to a national American Bar Association convention adopted a position in favor of abortion rights, Miers worked as head of the Texas state bar to force a reconsideration of the issue by submitting it to a referendum by the 360,000-person membership. And as President Bush's White House lawyer, she helped vet deeply conservative judges.

Some of the strongest criticism of her nomination to the bench has come from conservatives. Rush Limbaugh called the nomination a sign of "weakness." Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said he was "disappointed, depressed and demoralized" by the selection. Meanwhile Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate Minority Leader, appeared side-by-side with Miers soon after her nomination and praised her qualifications.

* Sen. Harry Reid (D - NV), Senate minority leader, October 3, 2005.

Last week during a conference call with bloggers, Reid - anti-choice Democrat - reportedly announced that he had asked President Bush to consider Miers for the job. Miers is a former Democrat who once contributed campaign donations to Al Gore and Lloyd Bentson. Since 1988 all of her contributions have gone to the Republican Party. New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said he will push for documents on Miers and pressure her to answer questions about her judicial philosophy.

* Sen. Chuck Schumer (D - NY), October 3, 2005.

But more information on Miers' personal may not be forthcoming. As White House counsel, it was Miers who denied similar requests by Democrats to release memorandums written by John Roberts during the administration of George H.W. Bush. We host a debate on Miers' nomination:

* Ralph Nader, 2004 independent presidential candidate. Over the past few months he has been writing Harriet Miers a series of letters.
* Ronald Cass, Co-Chair of Committee for Justice and former Dean of Boston University Law School.

LISTEN ONLINE:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/04/144235

The nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers to fill the vacancy on the US Supreme Court created by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has laid bare the real political relations in official Washington. The Bush administration is a weak and crisis-ridden government which can pursue its right-wing agenda only by relying on the support of the Democratic Party.

Within hours of the announcement Monday morning, Christian fundamentalist groups and right-wing talk radio hosts were bemoaning Bush’s selection, and ultra-right senators like Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Sam Brownback of Kansas were declaring that they would “reserve judgment” on the nomination. Meanwhile, the leading Senate Democrat, Minority Leader Harry Reid, publicly welcomed Miers, calling her “worthy of consideration.” Reid even took credit for first suggesting Miers as a potential nominee, in a conversation with Bush last month.

Barely a day later, at a hastily called press conference at the White House, Bush defended his choice for the Supreme Court and sought to assuage his right-wing critics, who claim that Miers is an unknown quantity on such issues as abortion, gay rights, stem cell research and the separation of church and state.

What has provoked this conflict between the Bush administration and its most fanatical supporters? It is certainly not the personal views of Miers, who by all accounts is a very conservative evangelical Christian, a reliable defender of big business in her career as a corporate lawyer, and a long-time Bush loyalist.

Her selection to replace O’Connor will mark a further shift to the right in the political composition of the court, above all on such critical issues as the deregulation of business, the weakening of anti-discrimination statutes, the curtailment of civil liberties, the expansion of the police powers of the state, and the upholding of the powers of the presidency against constitutional challenges. (O’Connor, despite effusive praise from Democrats, is herself a hardened reactionary. She cast the tiebreaking vote in Bush v. Gore, the 2000 Supreme Court ruling that placed Bush in the White House by ending the recount of votes in Florida).

Miers served only briefly as White House legal counsel—nominated in November 2004, she did not take office until February 2005, after her predecessor Alberto Gonzales was confirmed as attorney general. But she has held key administrative positions in the Bush White House since January 2001, and is completely identified with its agenda of war, social reaction and attacks on democratic rights.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/mier-o05.shtml