Archive: Harriet Miers: Background and Profiles
Miers Speeches
Here are the Harriet Miers speeches discussed in Jo Becker's story in The Washington Post this morning. Click here for her speech to the executive women of Dallas and here for her speech entitled "Women and Courage."...
By Fred Barbash | October 26, 2005; 07:41 AM ET | Comments (2)
Miers Interview in April
A reader brought to my attention an April 2005 Q&A with Harriet Miers that appeared in D Magazine in Dallas/Fort Worth. The interviewer was Tracy Rowlett. Here are a few excerpts: Rowlett: For the sake of that security, have we reached a point where we will have to sacrifice some of our freedoms and even some of our civil rights? Miers: Well, since the attacks on September 11, we've had to do some things that don't allow the kinds of freedoms that we had before. We're screened more closely in airports and you can't stand up 30 minutes before a plane lands. But we hope that's not sacrificing the freedoms that make America the country it is. Rowlett: But the Supreme Court expressed concerns about a violation of civil rights when it issued its report on our treatment of detainees. What is your reaction to that ruling? Miers: There are...
By Fred Barbash | October 25, 2005; 08:30 AM ET | Comments (36)
Miers and Diversity
Jo Becker and Sylvia Moreno in TWP:As president of the State Bar of Texas, Harriet Miers wrote that "our legal community must reflect our population as a whole," and under her leadership the organization embraced racial and gender set-asides and set numerical targets to achieve that goal. The Supreme Court nominee's words and actions from the early 1990s, when she held key leadership positions as president-elect and president of the state bar, provide the first window into her personal views on affirmative action, an area in which the Supreme Court is closely divided and where Miers could tip the court's balance....
By Fred Barbash | October 22, 2005; 08:12 AM ET | Comments (3)
Miers's Money
Henry Blodget, in Slate, analyzes HEM's financial situation. What does Harriet Miers' money tell us about her? The Supreme Court nominee has filed financial disclosure forms for the last five years as a requirement for her White House job. The most remarkable fact that emerges from her filings is this: She managed to work for nearly 30 years as an attorney in private practice without getting rich. Chief Justice John Roberts--whose psycho-financial biography you can read here--amassed a fortune worth at least $3 million and probably much more; Miers finds herself at age 60 with a net worth of about $675,000, which unfortunately does not make her wealthy....
By Fred Barbash | October 20, 2005; 03:51 PM ET | Comments (7)
Questions on the Questionnaire
HEM's questionnaire and other materials can be viewed here. For a discussion of the HEM questionnaire, see Amy Goldstein and Charles Babington in this morning's Washington Post:White House colleagues have portrayed Miers as uncommonly meticulous in her work. Yet her 57-page response to the committee's questionnaire appears, in several aspects, less precise than the one submitted in August by the last nominee to the court, John G. Roberts Jr., now the chief justice. She listed as "date unknown" a commencement address that she gave at the Texas Tech University School of Law. And asked to list all interviews she had granted newspapers and other news organizations, she omitted an interview with The Washington Post in June.In acknowledging her problem with the D.C. bar, Miers wrote that she was notified about her delinquent dues "earlier this year," although it actually was during 2004. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), an outspoken...
By Fred Barbash | October 19, 2005; 12:04 PM ET | Comments (4)
Miers 1989 Abortion Questionnaire
Click here to view the form filled out by Miers in 1989 endorsing a constitutional amendment banning abortion....
By Fred Barbash | October 18, 2005; 12:27 PM ET | Comments (17)
Miers Speech Excerpts
The Boston Globe carries excerpts from a number of Miers speeches....
By Fred Barbash | October 18, 2005; 06:04 AM ET | Email a Comment
Miers Glowing Remarks
David Savage reports in the Los Angeles Times:Critics have poked fun at the effusive greeting card messages that Harriet E. Miers used to send to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush and that have become public following her nomination to the Supreme Court. The glowing remarks were not limited to greeting cards, according to the texts of recent speeches and other public remarks released Monday by lawmakers. "President Bush's vision, his discipline and relentless dedication, his hard work and his likability have made it possible for all of us in this room to participate in the great enterprise we know as the United States," she told a group of White House interns in June. "Most importantly, these qualities in President Bush make a brighter future for our nation and people all around the world possible." "Serving President Bush and Mrs. Bush is an impossible-to-describe privilege," she told Pepperdine Law School graduates...
By Fred Barbash | October 18, 2005; 06:01 AM ET | Comments (3)
Miers Pro Bono Work Described
Calvin Woodward of the Associated Press provides an account of Harriet Miers pro bono work in Texas: Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers looked close to home, or the office, in choosing the free legal cases to take on as a private lawyer. No sweeping constitutional matters for her, or even terribly contentious ones. She helped a garage attendant for her building complete an adoption. She won a case for a Nigerian woman who was fighting a deportation order. She lost when representing an indigent single mother denied disability benefits. "She handled small matters," said lawyer Jerry Clements, who has worked with Miers. "Somebody needed a divorce, somebody needed an adoption."...
By Fred Barbash | October 17, 2005; 04:13 AM ET | Comments (1)
Miers and Bush in Texas
The Associated Press describes Miers representation of Bush at the very beginning of their relationship: When the caretaker at Bush's private fishing resort sued Bush and six other resort members in 1994, claiming he was wrongfully fired after being injured on the job, Bush turned to a prominent Dallas lawyer, Harriet Miers. Miers won the case, helping cement a relationship that took her to Washington after Bush was elected president. She served as White House secretary and counsel and now is a nominee for the Supreme Court. Documents from the case show that Miers was more meticulous than flamboyant, a stern and relentless questioner who became exasperated when witnesses didn't give her the answer she wanted. "It was a stupid case, but when you have a high-profile defendant who is a politician, some plaintiff lawyers think that's enough to get a settlement," said Hugh Skelton, a lawyer who worked with...
By Fred Barbash | October 14, 2005; 04:54 PM ET | Comments (1)
Miers in Texas
"Window Into Miers' Legal Thinking in the 1990s Reflects a Glint of Liberalism" is the headline on this article by Scott Gold and Richard A. Serrano in the Los Angeles Times:In the early 1990s, lawyer-bashing was all the rage. And Harriet Miers didn't like it one bit. Then the president of the State Bar of Texas, Miers used her monthly column in the Texas Bar Journal to condemn politicians who were trying to score points by disparaging the legal profession. She suggested the criticism was myopic, and noted that it was coming, by and large, from Republicans. It was time, she wrote, to "fight back." The written record of President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court is meager. But her musings in the Texas Bar Journal in 1992 and 1993 offer a window into a different era for Miers....
By Fred Barbash | October 14, 2005; 06:10 AM ET | Comments (3)
HEM's Practical Approach
John Pomfret in The Washington Post:President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, Miers has not amassed a long public record on her own legal philosophy. But one strong theme emerges from her three-decade-long career as a private lawyer: a practical approach to the law with a commitment that everyone has a right to legal representation....
By Fred Barbash | October 14, 2005; 04:02 AM ET | Comments (4)
Would Miers Have to Recuse Herself?
Warren Richey in the Christian Science Monitor:A vote from a Justice Miers could prove decisive in a test of the Bush administration's expansive view of presidential power to wage the war on terror. It could be critical in determining the constitutionality of military commission trials of Al Qaeda suspects at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp. And she might cast the deciding vote upholding the federal law that bans so-called partial-birth abortion. But not if she has to recuse herself because of her involvement in those same issues while at the White House. In that case, her vote on the high court would be rendered mute in at least some of the very issues of most importance to President Bush and his conservative base of support....
By Fred Barbash | October 13, 2005; 03:44 AM ET | Comments (5)
For Miers, Proximity Meant Power
Amy Goldstein and Peter Baker on Miers's rise in the White House, in The Post: ... The internal worries about how she would perform as counsel reflect a widespread view that, during five years in three jobs at the president's side, Miers has wielded formidable power with fairness and attention to detail -- but rarely was a strong voice in policy decisions the administration has faced....
By Fred Barbash | October 13, 2005; 03:34 AM ET | Comments (1)
Miers and Bush in Texas
Jo Becker and John Pomfret report in The Post: As a corporate lawyer, Harriet Miers once urged then-Gov. George W. Bush to veto legislation that would have prohibited the Texas Supreme Court from regulating or capping attorneys' fees, charging that the legislation did "violence to the balance of power between the legislative and judicial branch." Miers, President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, said in her 1995 letter to Bush that the legislation was a blatant attempt to protect a "handful of greedy, but immensely rich and powerful" trial lawyers....
By Fred Barbash | October 11, 2005; 02:51 AM ET | Email a Comment
Miers and Bush in Texas
By Jay Root of Knight Ridder Newspapers: AUSTIN, Texas - Harriet Miers, President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, quickly developed a deep and almost gushing admiration for her boss from her earliest days in Texas government. "You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect!" she wrote in 1997, in a belated birthday note that was typical of the tone she used in her correspondence with then-Gov. Bush. From today's NYT by Ralph Blumenthal and Simon Romero: "You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect," Harriet E. Miers wrote to George W. Bush days after his 51st birthday in July 1997. She also found him "cool," said he and his wife, Laura, were "the greatest!" and told him: "Keep up the great work. Texas is blessed." Ms. Miers, President Bush's personal lawyer and his selection for a Supreme Court seat, emerges as an unabashed...
By Fred Barbash | October 11, 2005; 02:43 AM ET | Comments (2)
Miers resources
For numerous links to Harriet Miers background information, see this University of Michigan Law Library collection. For Miers reference materials at the Library of Congress law library, click here....
By Fred Barbash | October 10, 2005; 03:43 AM ET | Comments (1)
Little of Miers Practice in Public Record
"As a Private Lawyer, Miers Left Little for the Public Record" reports Jonathan D. Glater in the New York Times....
By Fred Barbash | October 10, 2005; 03:39 AM ET | Comments (2)
Miers and Bush
The Los Angeles Times says that Bush's relationship with Miers began when she helped him deal with a potentially embarrassing lawsuit.For Harriet Ellan Miers, the road to a Supreme Court nomination began in summer 1994, with an ugly little legal problem involving an exclusive East Texas fishing camp and the soon-to-be governor, George W. Bush. A caretaker named J.W. Moseley alleged that Bush and the other members -- who included two former Texas secretaries of state and former Dallas Cowboys owner H.R. "Bum" Bright -- had unjustly fired him out of "spite and ill will." For most of the members, men of established wealth and power, the suit was little more than a nuisance. But for Bush, it carried the potential for public embarrassment that no rising political star needs, especially because there was talk that cabins at the camp, known as the Rainbo Club, had been used to gain...
By Fred Barbash | October 7, 2005; 07:04 AM ET | Comments (3)
Ivins on Miers
Molly Ivins in the Star-Telegram: Uh-oh. Now we are in trouble. Doesn't take much to read the tea leaves on the Harriet Miers nomination. First, it's Bunker Time at the White House. Miers' chief qualification for this job is loyalty to George W. Bush and the team. What the nomination means in larger terms for both law and society is the fifth vote on the court to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Miers, like Bush himself, is classic Texas conservative Establishment, with the addition of Christian fundamentalism. What I mean by fundamentalist is one who believes in both biblical inerrancy and salvation by faith alone. She attended Valley View Christian Church of Dallas for at least 20 years before moving to Washington five years ago. Among that church's alumni is Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court, considered second only to former Justice Priscilla Owen as that court's most adamantly anti-abortion...
By Fred Barbash | October 6, 2005; 07:35 AM ET | Comments (21)
Friend: 'I know she is pro-life.'
Michael Grunwald, Jo Becker and John Pomfret report in The Post:One evening in the 1980s, several years after Harriet Miers dedicated her life to Jesus Christ, she attended a lecture at her Dallas evangelical church with Nathan Hecht, a colleague at her law firm and her on-again, off-again boyfriend. The speaker was Paul Brand, a surgeon and the author of "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made," a best-selling exploration of God and the human body. When the lecture was over, Miers said words Hecht had never heard from her before. "I'm convinced that life begins at conception," Hecht recalled her saying. According to Hecht, now a Texas Supreme Court justice, Miers has believed ever since that abortion is "taking a life." "I know she is pro-life," said Hecht, one of the most conservative judges in Texas. "She thinks that after conception, it's not a balancing act -- or if it is, it's...
By Fred Barbash | October 5, 2005; 04:11 AM ET | Comments (1)
Miers's Spirituality: Knight Ridder
From Dave Montgomery of Knight Ridder Newspapers: Miers' ties to conservative church may offer insights Late Sunday night, shortly after President Bush asked her to be his nominee to the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers called her longtime Dallas minister and his wife and - without revealing why - asked for their prayers to give her "grace under pressure." That call to the Rev. Ron and Kaycia Key illustrates the depth of Miers' spirituality and years of devoted worship at a conservative nondenominational Christian church that preaches against abortions and gay marriages....
By Fred Barbash | October 4, 2005; 08:40 PM ET | Comments (22)
Profiles of Miers
By Michael Grunwald, Jo Becker and Amy Goldstein in The Post:As a private citizen in Dallas, Harriet Miers was a devoted parishioner and Sunday-school teacher at a conservative evangelical church, and she donated money to an antiabortion group. As a City Council candidate, she opposed the repeal of a law against gay sex. As president of the Texas bar, she led a fight against an abortion rights plank adopted by the American Bar Association. And as President Bush's White House lawyer, she helped vet deeply conservative judges.But lawyers and others who know Miers in Dallas and Washington say that Bush's latest nominee to the Supreme Court is not a conservative activist. Dallas Morning News (1991 profile) by Joyce Saenz Harris: Depending on who is talking, there seem to be three women named Harriet Miers in Dallas....
By Fred Barbash | October 4, 2005; 05:47 AM ET | Comments (16)
AP in Texas: Miers at Lottery
AUSTIN, Texas Oct 3, 2005 AP -- Harriet Miers proved to be a tough administrator during her five years heading the Texas Lottery Commission, firing two executive directors. She left early amid lagging sales....
By Fred Barbash | October 3, 2005; 05:19 PM ET | Comments (1)
Dallas Morning News
From the Dallas Morning News: By Kimberly Durnan Legal community overjoyedWord that an esteemed Dallas lawyer and former councilwoman could become the next justice of the U.S. Supreme Court has stirred Texas pride among her many colleagues and friends. President Bush's Supreme Court nominee most recently has worked for him in Washington, but her Dallas ties run deep: she graduated from Southern Methodist University, served as president of the Dallas Bar and Texas Bar associations, spent time on the Dallas City Council and ran the Texas Lottery Commission....
By Fred Barbash | October 3, 2005; 05:08 PM ET | Email a Comment
Miers: 'Exacting ... Detail Oriented'
T.R. Goldman, in a Dec. 15, 2004, profile for Legal Times, offered a portrayal of Miers by some in the White House as "exacting, detail-oriented, and meticulous -- to a fault."...
By Fred Barbash | October 3, 2005; 12:05 PM ET | Email a Comment
