Harriet Miers
HARRIET MIERS -- (Senate - October 04, 2005)
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I rise to commend the President on his selection of Harriet Miers to be associate justice of the Supreme Court. I have had the pleasure of knowing both Ms. Miers and the President for a number of years, from our days in Texas in State Government in particular. In Texas, President Bush had the reputation of being a uniter. Literally, we had divided government, with Democrats controlling the House and the Senate. He worked on a daily basis with Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock and Speaker Pete Laney, who were of the other party. When he came to Washington, he hoped he would find a Bob Bullock or a Pete Laney on the other side of the aisle so he could continue in that tradition, doing what he believed was best for the people who had sent him here--all the people. Unfortunately, we know that Washington's political environment is way too partisan and even poisonous.
The President has chosen wisely with this nominee. He has chosen a nominee who should, and I believe will, unite us.
I am proud to say that Harriet Miers is a fellow Texan. She was born and raised in Dallas and attended Southern Methodist University, where she received her bachelor's degree in mathematics and her law degree. That is kind of an unusual combination for lawyers. Most lawyers eschew mathematics, but she nevertheless has a bachelor's degree in mathematics. Following law school, she clerked for a Federal judge and then joined one of the finest law firms in our State, where she practiced for a number of years before she came to the attention of a Governor who would then become our current President.
As proud as I am to say that Harriet is a fellow Texan, I am even more proud to say she is a friend. I have known her for about 15 years. I have come to know her as a fine and decent human being, someone who has dedicated her life to serving others, from the clients in her law firm to the people of Texas, and now to offering herself to serve all of us in this great country.
It is especially fitting that Harriet Miers be nominated to the seat being vacated by another trailblazer, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Justice O'Connor was the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. But Harriet has blazed a few trails of her own. She was the first woman hired by her law firm. She was the first woman to serve as the president or comanaging partner of that firm. She was the first woman to serve as the president of the Dallas Bar Association, and then she was later selected to be the first woman to serve as president of the State Bar of Texas, which is the association encompassing all members of the legal profession in Texas.
As these accomplishments make clear, she has had a long and distinguished professional career. Her dedication to her clients, to her community, and to the rule of law has made her a leader in my State.
Her accomplishments do not end at the border of Texas. Over the last 25 years, she has worked at the highest levels of our national Government in the White House, including serving as the President's closest legal adviser. Moreover, before she came to Washington, she was known and respected nationally for her legal skills and her advocacy for legal services being provided and available to all Americans. She was very active in the American Bar Association, and she is well known by lawyers throughout the country. We will hear increasingly more and more of them come forward to speak, without regard to partisan affiliation or other considerations.
This long and distinguished career has made Harriet well qualified to serve as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. I am not alone. She has received praise from Senators on both sides of the aisle, including the Democratic leader, the senior Senator from Nevada. She has also received praise from this side of the aisle, from our majority leader, as well as the senior Senator from Kentucky, our deputy majority leader. She is without question a consensus nominee.
I know that makes some people nervous in a body where we have become so accustomed to locking horns and fighting over so many things, some of which are important. There are contests on principle, but sometimes there are those who would pick a fight to keep that partisanship and bitterness going. The President has chosen well by choosing a consensus nominee. It is not surprising because this President has engaged in an unprecedented act of consultation on the two nominations to the Supreme Court: First, now-Chief Justice John Roberts and now soon-to-be Associate Justice Harriet Miers.
One thing you will not find in Harriet's long and distinguished career is service as a judge. I want to talk about that because some have said that that is actually a weakness. I suggest that it is not a bad thing, nor is it unprecedented. Forty-one of the one hundred and nine Justices who have served on the U.S. Supreme Court had no previous judicial experience. These 41 included some of our
Nation's most influential and best-known justices--William Rehnquist, Lewis Powell, Byron White, Robert Jackson, Felix Frankfurter, Lewis Brandeis, Joseph Story, and John Marshall. Indeed, a little bit of diversity of background and experience is important to have on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is full of Justices who have served either as
academics or as court of appeals justice judges before they have been nominated to the Supreme Court bench. Certainly, while they are a distinguished body of jurists, what the Court is actually missing is someone who has had practical legal experience, someone who will understand the real-world consequences of the Court's decisions for the American people.
I have been one who has been concerned about the fact that the Supreme Court sometimes seems out of touch with America. When you have the Supreme Court decide that the Ten Commandments is legal in Austin but illegal in Kentucky and you have 10 different opinions for 9 Justices to explain it, clearly there is something amiss. Harriet Miers will provide a strong dose of common sense and reconnect the Court with the American people in an important way.
It is also important to have someone who has actually been elected to office, as Harriet Miers has been. She has been elected to city council in Dallas, perhaps not high national office but nevertheless an important one. Once Justice O'Connor leaves the Court, there will be no one left on the Court, but for this nominee, who has ever held elected office. There is already no one there who has ever served at the highest levels of the executive branch of Government. If it were not for newly confirmed Chief Justice John Roberts, none of the Justices would have been actively engaged in law practice in the past 35 years. Even the Chief Justice himself was primarily focused on appeals. A Justice Harriet Miers fills these gaps.
She was elected city councilwoman in Dallas. She served at the highest levels of this administration, now as White House counsel, and she has spent her entire professional career representing clients in courtrooms across the State of Texas and even across the Nation.
I am not the only one who believes practical, real-world experience is important for a nominee. The senior Senator from Nevada, the Democratic leader, yesterday said that he thought this was actually a plus, not a minus. The senior Senator from New York echoed this view, stating that the fact she hasn't been a judge before is actually a positive, not a negative. I think those sentiments are much as I have explained. Certainly, they can speak for themselves.
I know there are many Americans who are unfamiliar with Harriet Miers. This is understandable. She has been working outside of the limelight her entire career, always serving others. I have been fortunate enough to know her for about the last 15 years. I have a good feel for who she is as a person and as a highly competent practitioner. I know that she believes, as I do, that judges should not legislate from the bench. I know she believes, as I do, that judges are not some sort of elite, appointed to impose their will on the rest of us. Rather, I know she understands that unelected judges who serve in a democracy have a necessarily limited but important role--to apply the law as it was written.
Harriet aptly described this judicial philosophy yesterday when she said:
It is the responsibility of every generation to be true to the founders' vision of the proper role of the courts in our society. If confirmed, I recognize that I will have a tremendous responsibility to keep our judicial system strong and to help ensure that the courts meet their obligations to strictly apply the laws and the Constitution.
I am confident, when the American people get to know Harriet Miers, as I have had the pleasure, they will be as supportive as I am today of this nomination. I believe the President has chosen wisely. Now it is up to us in the Senate to go forward with the confirmation process. That is not to say that her confirmation is preordained by any means but that we now have the obligation to undertake this confirmation process in a civil and dignified and respectful manner.
I would say the Senate did itself proud in the way it handled the confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts. We have not always, in recent memory, done ourselves proud in the judicial confirmation process, and I am speaking specifically of the filibusters that were previously unprecedented. But hopefully this is a new day and we have learned from those lessons of the past, and we will continue in the tradition that I think we have now reestablished with John G. Roberts.
I think we can even do better this time around. For example, the last time around, some of my colleagues insisted that Chief Justice Roberts answer questions about issues and cases that were likely to come before the Court. Indeed, some of my colleagues stated they voted against his confirmation precisely because he refused to precommit on some of the hot-button issues of the day. As I said, I hope we can do even better this time.
My colleagues know that, as was Chief Justice Roberts, Harriet Miers is ethically forbidden from pledging to rule a certain way on these issues or any issues that are likely to come before the Supreme Court. It is simply unfair to her, and I think it is a threat to judicial independence to insist that any nominee pledge a certain performance when confirmed in judicial office. I think it is unfair to her to ask her a question that my colleagues know she simply cannot ethically answer.
Every nominee who has come before the Senate has followed these ethical rules and resisted making promises to politicians during the confirmation process. This tradition has come to be known as the Ginsburg standard, named for Justice Ginsburg nominated in 1993 by President Clinton. Justice Ginsburg was so steadfast and articulate in defending the right of judicial nominees declining to prejudge cases on issues that might come before them once they get on the bench that we have come to call this the Ginsburg standard.
Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle expressed displeasure with the Ginsburg standard during the confirmation process for Chief Justice Roberts. The one person who did not express displeasure was Justice Ginsburg. Indeed, in remarks just last week to students at Wake Forest University, Justice Ginsburg reaffirmed the Justice Ginsburg standard, and she affirmed Chief Justice Roberts' refusal to answer questions about issues that will likely come before the Court.
She said:
Judge Roberts was unquestionably right. My rule was I will not answer a question that attempts to project how I will rule in a case that might come before the court. ..... A judge on a collegial court should never forecast how he or she would vote on particular issues.......
Nor, I might interject, should we want a judge who would be willing to trade a confirmation vote for a pledge of performance in office. It would threaten judicial independence, it would violate the rules of ethics, and I think it would be fundamentally unfair to people who look to the Supreme Court as the last bastion of justice in America today.
My hope is that Justice Ginsburg's endorsement of Chief Justice Roberts' confirmation conduct will persuade my Democratic colleagues to change their minds on how we ought to treat judicial nominees, including Harriet Miers. We should not treat this nominee or any nominee unfairly and demand that they inappropriately make commitments on how they will rule on hot-button issues of the day, no matter how curious we are.
I must confess I am as curious as the next person, but I recognize there is a higher duty than merely satisfying my curiosity, or anyone else's for that matter: judicial independence, judicial ethics, and the importance of not prejudging cases so that there will not only be the reality of justice being disseminated on a fair and equal basis, there will be the perception that judges have not prejudged issues or cases.
This is an important nomination for our country. The nomination of any person to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States is a celebration of our Constitution and of our Nation's commitment to the rule of law, perhaps our most important export.
It is all the more important today because this is the nomination of only the third woman to serve on our Nation's highest Court. I look forward to a dignified, civil, and respectful confirmation process in the Senate.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
http://thomas.loc.gov/