Posted on 10/03/2005 9:02:27 AM PDT by hipaatwo
This begins a series of seven posts on Harriet Miers, based on interviews with those who know her. Some background for the first five: I spoke yesterday with Nathan Hecht, the Texas Supreme Court justice who is a prolife hero for strongly supporting parental notification laws five years ago when a SCOTEX majority was scuttling them. Hecht, 55 and never married, and Harriet Miers, 60 and never married, have known each other for 30 years and are -- to quote Hecht -- "very close friends. We dated some. The relationship has been close: Platonic... We go to dinner, I go to Washington for special things."
Harriet Miers -- pro, part 2
Miers has been a member of Valley View Christian Church in Dallas for 25 years, where Hecht has been an elder. He calls it a "conservative evangelical church... in the vernacular, fundamentalist, but the media have used that word to tar us." He says she was on the missions committee for ten years, taught children in Sunday School, made coffee, brought donuts: "Nothing she's asked to do in church is beneath her." On abortion, choosing his words carefully for an on-the-record statement, he says "her personal views are consistent with that of evangelical Christians... You can tell a lot about her from her decade of service in a conservative church."
Harriet Miers -- pro, part 3
Hecht says about Miers' judicial philosophy: "She's an orginalist -- that's the way she takes the Bible," and that's her approach to the Constitution as well -- "Originalist -- it means what it says." He notes that her legal practice involved writing contracts rather than tort law, so she was always looking at the plain meaning of the words: "Originalist." He also says she's not a social butterfly who will be swayed by Washington dinner table conversation: "She goes to the dinners she's supposed to go to. She's not on the social circuit."
Harriet Miers -- pro, part 4
Hecht says Miers never got married because she "probably worked too hard. She's close to her family, has a sister and three brothers, goes to her nephews' high school football games, bought a car for one of them." She "had a Catholic upbringing, had not been close to the church, it was off again, on again, then she came to a point in her life when she wanted to change that…. She made an abrupt change in 79 or 80. She was very hard-working and successful, she wanted new meaning, substance in her life.” Her father died when she was a freshman in college. "Look at her commitment in taking care of her [now 93-year-old mother] all these years. Look at her tax returns. She tithes, gave a full tithe to the church. Helps out in missions, Bible translation. These are the kinds of values she shows." Hecht and Miers "went to two or three prolife dinners in the late 80s or early 90s."
Harriet Miers -- pro, part 5
Questions are being raised about Harriet Miers' politics because published records show her making contributions of $1,000 to Lloyd Bentsen in 1987, Al Gore in 1988, and the Democratic National Committee that same year. Hecht says, "She was a Democrat years and years ago, in the early 80s." As far as the late 80s contributions, "If she did it, it was because the [law] firm made her do it." She is loyal to President Bush and he to her: "The president demands a lot. The people he's loyal to are productive." Miers and Laura Bush are "very close. Harriet just loves Laura, has the deepest respect for her. Laura has migrated in her faith, it’s stronger than when she got to Washington.”
Harriet Myers -- anti
Hecht's evaluation needs to be taken seriously, but here's one negative analysis from a lawyer who is a conservative Christian and worked with Harriet Miers in Texas (I agreed to go off-the-record with this lawyer, a credible person whose practice could be seriously hurt by this criticism of Miers): "Harriet could have become a conservative in Washington, but unless she did, she doesn’t have any particular judicial philosophy… I never heard her take a position on anything… We’ll have another Sandra Day O’Connor… Harriet worships the president and has called him the smartest man she’s known. She’s a pretty good lawyer…. This president can be bamboozled by anyone he feels close to. If a person fawns on him enough, is loyal, works 25 hours a day and says you’re the smartest man I ever met, all of a sudden you’re right for the Supreme Court."
Harriet Miers -- her pastor's view
I talked yesterday with Miers' pastor, Ron Key, who for 33 years (until a few weeks ago) was pastor of Valley View Christian Church in Dallas. “She started coming to church in 1980. She helped out with kids, made coffee, furnished donuts, served on missions committee. She worked out her faith in practical, behind-the-scenes ways. She doesn't draw attention to herself, she's humble, self-effacing." Key has still seen her in recent years because "her mother is 93. Harriet tries to get home as much as she can." When Key and Miers met in 1980, "I don’t know how strong her faith was at that time. She came to a place where she totally committed her life to Jesus. She had gone to church before, but when she came to our church it became more serious to her.... Our church is strong for life, but Harriet and I have not had any conversations on that…. We believe in the biblical approach to marriage."
Atually, I think the confirmation hearings could be quite comical. Senators trying to convert her back to the Liberal side.
Could be a hoot.
If she is a conservative Christian, that's a good clue that she won't feel that bound by stare decisis. Luther did not feel bound by stare decisis.
Beginning with the pietistic movement in the late 19th century, Christians increasingly stayed away (or kept their faith away) from involvement in the arts, sciences, and politics for most of the 20th century. And when they didn't (think Moral Majority and Christian Coalition), what was the general reaction then? Has it changed, even within the Republican Party, today?
Some Christians practice a strict separation of "private life" and "public/professional/political" life when it comes to applying the Bible to public affairs. If Harriet Miers is such a person (or if her church stayed away from "divisive" social positions, such as abortion) there's no telling (not by her church membership, anyway) which direction she'll lean in court matters.
After all, we just learned this year that Billy Graham was a registered, participating Democrat his whole life. If he didn't have a problem being on the left politically, maybe Miers won't, either.
Oops. My mistake. See post #59.
I need more coffee....
We have to wait and see now--if she is a conservative, I hope she has a sronger personality than imbecile Ginsberg and is not swayed.
I must be of superior intelligence then. I'm 52, not married and definitely not gay. :)
So would I. But the dem party of 1975 was such a different party than it is today. I tended to vote more for the person back then; now I tend to vote more along party lines. Usually I want to vote for the Republican candidate, but if I don't, I weigh the character of the dem candidate against the Republican party. Yet, I do not always like the direction of the Republicans either.
...the pietistic movement in the late 19th century...
I'll Google that later...
I fully understand your concern with Miers' contributions to DNC and Gore. However, as a sixth-generation Texan, I can assure you that supporting Democrats in Texas was the norm, even for solid conservatives, until the relatively recent past.
During the 80s, there were mass defections into the Republican party, largely a result of the Reagan years. Still today, many Texas Democrats are more conservative than Republicans in other states.
I know very conservative voters in rural areas who wouldn't vote for a Republican for any office -- bitterness left over from the Hoover years and the great depression. Honest.
There are numerous explanations for those contributions; let's hold judgement and see what we hear. Could be that Miers' seeming bi-partisanship plays a part in getting votes for a solid conservative to the court.
What irony.
It seems to me that YOU are the one betraying the base.
You thought Souter was OK, supported GWHB as a conservative...
What can you possibly say that we should listen to?
Anyway, I have one word for this appointment.
Weird. Weird-weird-weird...
Oh go soak your head. You've been saying the same crap forever. You hate President Bush, you've always hated President Bush. Nothing he has done or could do would make you happy. Go to LoonyPlace, your mindset fits in with them.
I also voted for Perot in "92, but I do not feel resposible for Clinton's election. I would lay that resposibility at the feet of GHWB. I would rather see a skunk with a skunks name on it, than a skunk with my name on it.
I am not overly convinced that the present version could be classified as conservative. His almost passionate aversion to do anything that might damage Clinton's, or his sychophant's, reputations is disconcerting, to say the least.
Dittos
This is one of the most informative posts on Miers put on FR during the past four months.
Agreed. But the Dems are NOT an answer today, as SOME Dems were back in the 1970s.
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