Bush Names Harriet
Miers to Supreme Court
White House Counsel
Would Replace Retiring Sandra Day O'Connor
By Fred Barbash,
Peter Baker and Michael Fletcher
Washingtonpost.com
from the Web, October 3, 2005
President Bush named White House
counsel Harriet Miers, 60, to be associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
today.
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Harriet
Miers, Pres. G.W. Bush
Photo: Ron Edmonds, AP |
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Miers, who was Bush's personal
attorney in Texas, was the first woman elected president of the Texas Bar
Association and was a partner at the Texas law firm of Locke Liddell & Sapp
before coming to Washington to work in the Bush administration.
The announcement came just two hours before Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
formally took his seat as chief justice of the United States on the high court's
opening day of the 2005 term.
Miers would replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, generally considered
the decisive swing vote on many close issues before the court.
If confirmed by the Senate, Miers would be a rare appointee with no experience
as a judge at any level. Initial searches of news archives also suggested
that Miers has not been an outspoken advocate for or against any particular
issue.
Reaction from Democrats was noncommittal but not negative, mostly because of who
she isn't (a prominent conservative judge similar to some of those on the White
House short list) than who she is.
Vermont Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary
Committee, said Miers has been a Bush loyalist and that "it is important to know
whether she would enter this key post with the judicial independence necessary
when the Supreme Court considers issues of interest to this administration."
But White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters that both Republican
and Democratic senators suggested Miers by name to the president.
One Democrat who appeared pleased by the choice was Senate Minority Leader Harry
Reid (Nev.).
"I like Harriet Miers," said Reid, who had voted against John Roberts as chief
justice in Roberts' confirmation vote last week. "In my view, the Supreme
Court would benefit from the addition of a justice who has real experience as a
practicing lawyer."
Reaction from some non-elected conservatives, particularly on blogs, was less
positive. David Frum, in National Review Online, said the president had
missed an opportunity. "The Miers nomination," he wrote, "is an unforced
error. Unlike the Roberts's nomination, which confirmed the previous
balance on the Court, the O'Connor resignation offered an opportunity to change
the balance."
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) said he "did not
think" Miers had taken positions on many of the critical issues before the
court. "One of the things that I talked to her about," he said after a
private meeting today, "was the complexity of a Supreme Court nomination hearing
because of there are a lot of complicated issues."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said he was "excited" and "pleased"
with the nomination. "She's a woman who understands judicial restraint,"
he said.
Frist promised a "thorough, disciplined" confirmation process. He
suggested that the Senate could vote on her nomination before Thanksgiving,
although Specter said he was not yet sure of the timetable needed.
Among the non-judges appointed to the Supreme Court in modern history are the
late William H. Rehnquist, who was a top Justice Department official in the
Nixon administration, and Abe Fortas, an influential Washington attorney and
close adviser to Lyndon B. Johnson, who nominated him to the high court in 1965.
Bush portrayed Miers as a "pioneer" in the legal profession who broke down
gender barriers in the law. She would become the third woman to have
served on the Supreme Court, following O'Connor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
"Harriet's greatest inspiration was her mother, who taught her the difference
between right and wrong and instilled in Harriet the conviction that she could
do anything she set her mind to," said Bush.
"Inspired by the confidence, Harriet became a pioneer in the field of law,
breaking down barriers to women that remain even after a generation -- remain a
generation after President Reagan appointed Justice O'Connor to the Supreme
Court."
Miers was active in a 1992 battle in the American Bar Association, arguing
vehemently but unsuccessfully against a resolution supportive of abortion
rights. New reports at the time did not quote her on the merits of Roe v.
Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion, but rather on what she considered
the inappropriateness of the ABA taking a position.
She does have some political experience. In 1989, she was elected to a
two-year term as an at-large candidate on the Dallas City Council. She
chose not to run for reelection when her term expired.
Miers served as general counsel for the transition team of Governor-elect Bush
in 1994, according to a White House biography of Miers released this morning.
"She is single and very close to her family: Two brothers and her mother
live in Dallas and a third brother lives in Houston," said the White House
biography.
Her low-key but high-precision style has been particularly valued in a White
House where discipline in publicly articulating policy and loyalty to the
president are highly valued.
Miers came with Bush to the White House in 2001 as staff secretary, the person
who screens all the documents that cross the president's desk. She was
promoted to deputy chief of staff before Bush named her counsel after his
reelection in November. She succeeded Alberto R. Gonzales, another
longtime Bush confidant, who was elevated to attorney general.
"Harriet Miers is a trusted adviser on whom I have long relied for
straightforward advice," Bush said at the time. "Harriet has the keen
judgment and discerning intellect necessary to be an outstanding counsel."
When he was governor of Texas, Bush once called her "a pit bull in size 6 shoes"
for her cool but dogged determination.
Working with her staff of 13 lawyers, and in cooperation with the Justice
Department, Miers's office provides guidance on issues from the legal parameters
for the war on terrorism to presidential speeches. Her office also takes
the lead in vetting and recommending candidates for the federal judiciary, all
the way up to the Supreme Court.
The office also has played a pivotal role in recommending federal appeals court
candidates to Bush. Senate Democrats blocked 10 of the president's 34
appeals court nominees during his first term, saying they were too extreme in
their conservatism. That prompted Senate Republicans to threaten to change
the rules to disallow filibusters of judicial candidates.
Born and raised in Dallas, Miers, 60, is a graduate of Southern Methodist
University, where she majored in mathematics. She went on to law school at
SMU, earning her law degree in 1970 and going on to clerk for a federal judge in
Dallas. In an era when there were few female lawyers, Miers set out for
the top.
According to published reports, she was the first woman hired by Locke Purnell
Boren Laney & Neely, a Dallas firm whose history extends to the 1890s. She
went on to become a top commercial litigator whose clients included Microsoft
and the Walt Disney Co.
Miers was active in professional organizations and eventually was elected head
of the Dallas and Texas bar associations, where she was known for encouraging
members to do pro bono work.
She met Bush in the 1980s and was drafted to work as counsel for his 1994
gubernatorial campaign. In 1995, he appointed her to the Texas Lottery
Commission.
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