ConfirmThem

By Feddie Posted in SCOTUS — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

According to James Pinkerton of Newsday:

An ex-White House lawyer told me that Miers was shocked to discover the lawyers in the White House counsel's office were Federalist Society types, all of them scornful of the ABA - her ABA.

And according to the Knight Ridder Washginton Bureau:

In what appear to be some of her only public statements about a constitutional issue, Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers testified in a 1990 voting rights lawsuit that . . . . she "wouldn't belong to the Federalist Society" or other "politically charged" groups because they "seem to color your view one way or another."

So this is how you pay back Federalist Society members for their support, President Bush? You nominate some ABA type who is openly hostile to the most important orginization in the legal conservative movement's history?!

Thanks for nothing, Dubya.

Professor Rick Garnett sums up my frustration with Miers and the Bush administration nicely:

I have to confess, though, that the recent reports (for example: here and here) about Ms. Miers's deprecating remarks about, and less-than-enthusiastic attitude toward, the Federalist Society are extremely frustrating. In my view, they also undercut the claim (which, again, I have made) that Ms. Miers is and should be regarded as, despite her lack of a paper trail or "movement" credentials, a conservative.

Too often, this Administration, prominent nominees, and even Federalist Society members nominated for important positions in government have treated the Society as if it were something out of "The DaVinci Code", or the ultra-secret gaggle of powerful reactionary Rasputins that some on the left imagine, or just a goofy band of train-spotters. In my view, this Administration and the conservative Senators, who owe the clear thinking and dedication to the rule of law of their best staffers, lawyers, and advisors in no small part to the Federalist Society, have an obligation to stop this silly "Federalist Society? Never heart of it!" pose, and forthrightly to endorse, defend, and praise the Society.

The Federalist Society has been — as many honest, left-leaning law professors would concede — an immense benefit to the intellectual culture and the jurisprudential debate in our law schools. It has supplied countless thoughtful, intelligent, conservative lawyers to the bench, the academy, the bar, and public service. It has provided an invaluable forum for a genuine exchange of ideas, and also some accountability for the American Bar Association and the American Association of Law Schools. Its events, debates, and panels are always diverse and provocative. In my view, few lawyers have done as much to promote thoughtful engagement with conservative and constitutionalist legal thinking as have, say, Eugene Meyer and Leonard Leo; few law professors have been as selfless in their work with students as, say, (Fed Soc members) Randy Barnett, Gerry Bradley, and Eugene Volokh.

Just as important, the Federalist Society has provided, in no small part, the intellectual heft for a large part of today's conservative movement in politics. For an Administration that owes its existence to this movement to, time and again, treat the Society like a goofy yearbook photo or an embarasing secret is more than irritating — it is shameful. If the Federalist Society really were a politically useful but in fact weird and non-mainstream outfit, then perhaps the "Fed Soc? Who?" attitude would be understandable. But, if course, the Society and its ideas are — among informed and thinking people, anyway — entirely respectable and, while certainly conservative, entirely
"mainstream."

If Ms. Miers really does harbor the tiresome, skittish, establishmentarian, protect-the-guild wariness toward the society described in the accounts mentioned above — rather than respect for its work, admiration for the vision of David McIntosh, Steve Calabresi, Spence Abraham, and others who founded the Society more than 20 years ago, and gratitude for the dedication of hundreds of law students today who often take real hits in order to stand up for and strengthen the Society and its intellectual mission — then I am inclined to think that she has not earned (no matter what church she attends, no matter how good a person and impressive a lawyer she is, no matter how much she abhors abortion, no matter how loyal she is to this President, and no matter how Rehnquist-like her record turns out to be) conservatives' support.