Who Is Harriet Miers?

October 7, 2005

 

Political pundits have been assessing the qualifications of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. Others have attempted the more difficult task of forecasting her votes on the court. A lawyer friend of mine who is friends with Ms. Miers lobbied me to support her. She's an impressive woman, no doubt, beloved and honored by those in her profession, but the issue is not her resume. The issue is, quite simply, the fear of the unknown.

 

The Miers nomination is the surface concern right now but there's a bigger matter. President Bush's base has continually forgiven his handling of the illegal alien problem only because he had built up political capital in other areas like tax cuts and his strong stand in support of religion. Conservatives backed his Iraq initiative, some hesitantly so, because they trusted his judgment. Now that judgment is being called into question.

 

The president has a mixed past when it comes to choosing the right people for the right jobs. Certainly picks like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are a testament to his sound judgment but other decisions are questionable. For example, his choice of Norman Mineta to head up the Transportation Department has long been vilified by those who believe - me included - that Mineta's unwavering prohibition of airlines being able to profile had a direct bearing on the events of September 11. Although I'm not nearly as critical of Michael Brown, the former director of FEMA, as many in the media, it certainly appears that “Brownie,” as the president calls him, was not the best person for the job.

 

Still, the president asks conservatives to trust him. Some are finding that difficult if not impossible to do. Although Harriet Miers has no judicial record to review, she's not without a paper trail. She supported tax increases while on the Dallas City Council and is on record in support of an International Court, public funding of AIDS treatment and gay adoption in some cases. Her monetary gifts to the campaigns of Al Gore, Lloyd Bentsen, and the Democratic National Committee in the late ‘80s are particularly troubling to conservatives.

 

On the other hand, she's an evangelical Christian who has supported religious rights. She's an avowed pro-lifer. Still, none of this tells us anything at all about how she will rule once she's confirmed. That's the only thing that really matters. Many who ascend to the high court see their job as the ultimate wrong righter. They want to dispense justice. Justice is fine. Justice is what we're after but it's constitutional justice that the Supreme Court needs to worry about. Unjust or unfair doesn't always equal unconstitutional. That's why it's so important that a nominee have a track record that demonstrably shows their respect for that founding document.

 

Janis Rogers Brown, my personal choice for this current Supreme Court vacancy, was approved back in June for an important seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Conservatives were hoping he would elevate her to the high court. The president passed her over, apparently, because he doesn't want a fight. Control of the Supreme Court is something worth fighting for and it was the one thing conservatives expected from this president.

 

He asks us to trust him but he invited doubt regarding his judgment when he proposed an amnesty program for illegal aliens. He encouraged doubt when he began to pull the private investment accounts component from his Social Security reform plan. The little doubts have been accruing. The nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court just might be a doubt too far.