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Texas trailblazer

While Harriet Miers has a long list of worthy accomplishments, the burden will be on her and the administration to prove she is worthy of the Supreme Court.

President Bush avoided one fight Monday by passing over judges with well-researched records of conservative opinions and nominating White House counsel Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet the president picked another battle by selecting a Texas lawyer with no experience on the bench and very little documentation of her views on hot-button issues and the Constitution. The burden will be on Miers and the administration during Senate confirmation hearings to fill in the blanks and demonstrate she is worthy of a lifetime appointment to the nation's highest court.

Miers, 60, has been a trailblazer in Texas. She was the first woman to be hired at a top Dallas law firm, the first woman to lead that firm and the first woman to lead both the Dallas Bar and the Texas Bar. She has experience outside the courtroom, including a stint on the Dallas City Council and as chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission. She has worked in the White House since Bush took office in 2001. While these are all worthy accomplishments, they do not necessarily qualify someone to sit on the Supreme Court.

The written record is so thin that analysts are picking apart Miers' failed effort to persuade the American Bar Association to retract its support of abortion rights. She wanted to put the issue to a vote of the group's membership in 1993 and argued the group should be neutral. That is hardly illuminating about her own views, and the Senate Judiciary Committee has a duty to flesh out her judicial philosophy.

Already coping with an unpopular war in Iraq, an unacceptable response to Hurricane Katrina and soaring gas prices, Bush reverted to a familiar strategy. He chose loyalty and trust over long resumes and judicial accomplishments. That angered social conservatives looking for a clear payoff for their political support and Hispanic groups that had hoped Bush would appoint the first Hispanic to the Supreme Court. But it also muted initial criticism from Democrats.

Miers should not be disqualified merely because she comes from the White House and has not been a judge. The White House says 10 of the last 34 justices appointed had worked for the president who appointed them. While all of the current justices were previously judges, the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist had never been a judge before joining the court.

Yet Miers has some work to do before the Senate votes on confirmation. She has neither the resume nor the track record that helped new Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. sail through the confirmation process. She would succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a swing vote on a divided court poised to consider such issues as abortion, assisted suicide and campaign finance. That makes it even more imperative that Miers' philosophy is fully aired.

O'Connor remains on the court until her successor is confirmed, and the Senate Judiciary Committee should not rush its work. Miers may be well-known to the president, but she is a stranger to everyone else.

[Last modified October 4, 2005, 02:15:30]