Linda Chavez
Conservatives can't have it both ways
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The president and his aides are peeved at conservatives who have
dared raise objections to the nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S.
Supreme Court. They need to get over it — and quickly. The president's
popularity is at an all-time low, and he needs his base now more than ever
if he is to accomplish his agenda over the remaining three years of his
presidency. There are good and legitimate reasons why many conservatives
were unnerved by Miers' nomination, and, so far, the White House has done
little to allay concerns. Trotting out Miers' pastor and old boyfriend (who
happens also to be a judge) to vouch for her and touting her Evangelical
Christian faith won't substitute for clear insight into Miers' judicial
philosophy. And I'm not talking about her personal views on controversial
issues such as abortion or same-sex marriage.
We conservatives can't have it both ways. We didn't want Chief
Justice John Roberts grilled on his views on Roe v. Wade or any other
hot-button decisions, and we insisted that his devout Roman Catholicism was
off-limits as a legitimate subject of inquiry. We can't now turn around and
say we must know whether Miers is pro-life or delve into her born-again
experience as a proxy for understanding her judicial philosophy. Even if she
answered such questions, there is simply no guarantee that her personal life
or present views are a guide to her future actions on the court, nor should
they be.
I want to know how she forms her views. I want to know what she
thinks the role of the courts is — and why. I want to know her intellectual
habits. What does she read? Has she spent time grappling with ideas? When
confronted with unfamiliar territory, how does she prepare herself to learn
what she needs to know in her professional life? Is she a curious person by
nature? What does she expect of her subordinates when they are briefing her
on an important matter? Is she good at playing devil's advocate? Is she a
student of history? In the long run, answers to questions like these will be
a more reliable barometer of her performance on the court than her current
opinion on any given issue.
Harriet Miers is doubtless an able lawyer, but her career gives
us no indication that she has the requisite knowledge and skill to be an
effective justice. We know she has been ambitious and successful and can
assume she is very bright. But she has largely chosen administrative and
managerial roles in her legal career. She was the managing partner of a
large Dallas law firm — the first woman to achieve that distinction, as the
White House keeps reminding us. We should assume that she is good at
bureaucratic in-fighting or she would never have climbed so high in her firm
or in the local and state bar associations, where she became president —
again the first woman to do so.
Those qualifications made her an excellent choice for White
House staff secretary (a job that entails managing the flow of official
letters, proclamations and other written material in the Executive Office)
and later deputy chief of staff. As the president's former personal lawyer,
the choice of Miers to replace White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales when he
became attorney general also made sense. But none of her previous positions
necessarily qualifies her for the role she's now being asked to assume. The
burden is on the president and Miers to demonstrate that she's up to the
job.
She should have the opportunity to do so when the Judiciary
Committee takes up her nomination. The problem will be that in this highly
polarized political environment, she won't get much of a chance to allay our
fears. The Democrats' main goal will be to embarrass the president and
protect what they see as the last hope for the triumph of the liberal
agenda: the Supreme Court. Too many Republicans will be thinking about their
own political fortunes and whether backing the president's nominee or
opposing her will be more likely to ensure their re-elections.
The president keeps assuring us that Miers will dazzle everyone
at these hearings. I'd rather there were fewer atmospherics and more
substance from both sides of the aisle.
JWR contributor Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity. Her latest book is "Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)
