Not Judge Milian, but hey...

[AYHJA]

Bush chooses Miers for Supreme Court

Published - Oct 03 2005 10:48AM CDT || AP


[hr:aedbf21738]
WASHINGTON(AP) President Bush nominated White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court on Monday, turning to a lawyer who has never been a judge to replace Sandra Day O'Connor and help reshape the nation's judiciary.

"She has devoted her life to the rule of law and the cause of justice," Bush said as his first Supreme Court pick, Chief Justice John Roberts, took the bench for the first time just a few blocks from the White House.

If confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, Miers, 60, would join Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the second woman on the nation's highest court and the third to serve there. Miers was the first woman to serve as president of the Texas State Bar and the Dallas Bar Association.

Senate Republicans said they would press for confirmation by Thanksgiving _ a tight timetable by recent standards that allowed less than eight weeks for lawmakers to review her record, hold hearings and vote. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he intended to talk to Miers later in the day "about how many speeches she's made and about how many articles she's written and about how many cases she's tried and what volume of paper we will have to look at."

O'Connor has been the court's majority maker in dozens of controversial cases in recent years, casting deciding votes that upheld the 1973 ruling that established the constitutional right to an abortion, sustaining affirmative action programs and limiting the application of the death penalty.

Within hours of Bush's announcement in the Oval Office, Miers travelled to the Capitol to begin courtesy calls on the senators who will vote on her nomination.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was first on the list. His welcome was a statement in praise. "With this selection, the president has chosen another outstanding nominee to sit on our nation's highest court," it said.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid was complimentary, issuing a statement that said he likes Miers and adding "the Supreme Court would benefit from the addition of a justice who has real experience as a practicing lawyer."

MORE:

QUOTEAt the same time, he said he looked forward to the \"process which will help the American people learn more about Harriet Miers, and help the Senate determine whether she deserves a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court.\"

Reid had personally recommended that Bush consider Miers for nomination, according to several sources familiar with the president's consultations with individual senators. Of equal importance as the White House maps its confirmation campaign is that the Nevada Democrat had warned Bush that the selection of any of several other contenders could trigger a bruising partisan struggle.

Other Democrats sounded anything but conciliatory. \"The president has selected a loyal political ally without a judicial record to sit on the highest court in the land,\"said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

At the same time, Republican strategists who spoke on condition of anonymity said they would have to work hard to assure the support of some of the more conservative Republicans in the Senate. All 55 GOP senators voted to confirm Roberts.

Miers, whom Bush called a trailblazer for women in the legal profession, said she was humbled by the nod.

\"If confirmed, I recognize I will have a tremendous responsibility to keep our judicial system strong and to help insure the court meets their obligations to strictly apply the laws and Constitution,\" she said.

Whatever her credentials for the high court, Miers' loyalty to Bush _ who once called her a pit bull in size 6 shoes _ is above question. When he first decided to run for governor in the early 1990s, he hired Miers to comb his background for anything derogatory that opponents might try to use to defeat him.

Miers also introduced Bush to Alberto Gonzales, who served as Bush's counsel in Austin and later in Washington, before being named U.S. attorney general.

During Bush's first term as governor, Gonzales used information turned up by Miers to persuade a local judge to excuse Bush from jury duty, a civic task that would have forced him to disclose his 1976 arrest for drunken driving in Maine. The incident was not divulged until the waning days of Bush's 2000 campaign for the White House.

Federal Election Commission records show Miers contributed $1,000 to Bush when he first ran for the White House in 2000 and $5,000 to the Bush-Cheney Recount Fund in the post-election struggle that finally sealed his victory over Al Gore.

Ironically, she had donated $1,000 to Gore a dozen years earlier, when he first sought the White House.

There was little outright opposition to Miers in the first few hours after her selection was announced _ and what there was came from the most unyielding conservative anti-abortion groups.

\"It's not that we don't know anything, and the small pieces of information we do know are disappointing. For example, she's Southern Methodist, notoriously pro-abortion,\"said Troy Newman of Operation: Rescue.

While House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president had seriously considered 12 to 15 contenders for the job. He said more than one Democratic senator had broached Miers' name to the president, but declined to identify them.

The president offered the job to Miers Sunday night over dinner in the White House residence. He met with Miers on four occasions during the past couple weeks, officials said.

Eager to rebut any charges of cronyism, the White House produced statistics showing that 10 of the 34 Justices appointed since 1933 had worked for the president who picked them. Among them were the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, first tapped for the court by Richard M. Nixon, and Byron White, whose president was John F. Kennedy.

\"Having never served as a judge, Ms. Miers has no `paper trail' of judicial opinions, and prospective opponents thus will have a hard time identifying positions to protest or complain about,\" said Supreme Court historian David Garrow. \"What's more, Ms. Miers' professional record as an attorney in Texas is undeniably one of significant achievement and accomplishment, and her proponents will be able to present her as a female trail blazer whose life-record is at least arguably comparable to that of Justice O'Connor.\"

Known for thoroughness and her low-profile, Miers is one of the first staff members to arrive at the White House in the morning and among the last to leave.


When Bush named her White House counsel in November 2004, the president described Miers as a lawyer with keen judgment and discerning intellect _ \"a trusted adviser on whom I have long relied for straightforward advice.\"

He also joked of Miers, \"When it comes to a cross-examination, she can fillet better than Mrs. Paul.\"

Formerly Bush's personal lawyer in Texas, Miers came with the president to the White House as his staff secretary, the person in charge of all the paperwork that crosses the Oval Office desk. Miers was promoted to deputy chief of staff in June 2003.

As an attorney in Dallas, Miers became president in 1996 of Locke Purnell, Rain & Harrell a firm with more than 200 lawyers where she worked starting in 1972. After it merged a few years later, she became co-manager of Locke Liddell & Sapp.

When Bush was governor of Texas, she represented him in a case involving a fishing house. In 1995, he appointed her to a six-year term on the Texas Lottery Commission. She also served as a member-at-large on the Dallas City Council and in 1992 became the first woman president of the Texas State Bar.

___

AP Political Writer Ron Fournier contributed to this story.



## 7-4-7 ##