WASHINGTON – President Bush predicted Friday that the Senate would confirm Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, even as a Republican senator said she had much work left to ensure that outcome. A former Republican nominee called her nomination “a disaster.”
The displeasure from some on the right with Miers – who lacks court experience or any record clearly identifying her as a strong conservative – has led to calls for the president to withdraw her nomination.
Asked about those suggestions, Bush did not answer directly. He instead suggested that withdrawal wouldn’t be necessary, voicing confidence that she would be confirmed.
“She is going to be on the bench. She’ll be confirmed,” Bush said after an Oval Office meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany.
Among conservatives, William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue called for Bush to withdraw the Miers nomination. Former federal judge Robert Bork – whose nomination to the Supreme Court the Senate rejected in 1987 – described the choice of Miers as “a disaster on every level.”
“It’s a little late to develop a constitutional philosophy or begin to work it out when you’re on the court already,” Bork said on MSNBC’s “The Situation.”
“It’s kind of a slap in the face to the conservatives who’ve been building up a conservative legal movement for the last 20 years.”
By the end of Miers’ first week as nominee, the White House counsel had met with 16 senators and headed for Texas for the weekend to gather material from her legal career to answer the Senate’s questions.
After meeting with her on Friday, Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., praised Miers’ sense of humor, knowledge of the West and “great understanding of the importance of the legal arena in our nation.” But he said he wouldn’t be able to decide whether to support her until he can learn more during her confirmation hearings.
The White House, faced with such wait-and-see receptions from several Republicans, stressed it is early in the process. Reinforcing that fact, the formal paperwork for Miers’ nomination was just sent to Congress Friday afternoon.
“People are just coming to know who Harriet Miers is,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Bush got some good news and some bad news from Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. Sessions said he would give “a presumption to the president” as he decides whether to vote for Miers.
But Sessions did so only after saying that her lack of “firsthand understanding of Supreme Court jurisprudence” leads to an unfavorable comparison with Bush’s previous nominee, Chief Justice John Roberts.
Sessions also said Miers could be in trouble with Republican senators who worry that she could end up disappointing the right, much like Justice David Souter, a little-known judge nominated for the court by the first President Bush who later turned out to be a liberal on the Supreme Court.
Those concerns stem from the 60-year-old Miers’ career, which encompassed 28 years as a corporate attorney in Texas, stints as a member of the Dallas City Council and as chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission, and since 2001 as a top member of Bush’s White House staff. None of the positions offers a public record from which conservatives can glean the information they want about her views on issues such as abortion and gay rights or on constitutional interpretation.
“Conservatives do not have confidence she has a well-formed judicial philosophy, and they are afraid she might drift and be a part of the activist group like Justice Souter has,” Sessions said. “She will need to articulate a vision of the Constitution and the role of a judge that is sound.”
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