Priscilla Owen: Next Supreme Court Justice?

Stingray blog ^ | 09/12/2005 | Michael McCullough

[DallasMike]

In his Monday column, Replacing O'Connor could get ugly, Bob Novak reports that Judge Priscilla Owen is on President Bush's short list to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. He claims that Owen had a secret meeting with the President last week and that things went well. This comports with insider Washington speculation that Bush will name either a conservative woman or minority to fill the post. Here's some information about Owen:

• Many political and legal insiders consider Owen is viewed as the strongest choice. Owen is only 50 years old and would guarantee a conservative court for 20 years. Republicans tapped Owen to run for the Texas Supreme Court in 1994. Bush was candidate for governor that year and she and Bush sometimes campaigned together. Karl Rove served both of them as campaign consultant.
• The Senate voted 56-43 to confirm her for an appeals court slot in May, 2005 after a four-year filibuster fight. She is not well-like by liberals, which I consider to be a very good thing.
• Owen supported the elimination and narrowing of protest buffer zones around reproductive health care clinics in Houston.
• Under a relatively new Texas law, teenagers can go to court to bypass the normal requirement of having to get parental consent before obtaining an abortion. In every judicial bypass case that came before the Texas Supreme Court, Owen voted against granting the young woman the bypass. "According to Owen, for the teenager to prove she is "well informed," she must prove - regardless of her own religious background or lack thereof - that she knew about the many religious objections to abortion, and that some women who underwent abortions had serious remorse." (FindLaw's Writ)
• She is a member of St. Barnabas Episcopal Mission in Austin, Texas where she teaches Sunday School and serves as the head of the altar guild. I think that this is the church's website, but I'm not absolutely positive.
• She received a bachelor of arts degree, cum laude, from Baylor University (my own alma mater), and graduated in the top of her class from Baylor Law School in 1977. She also scored highest in Texas on the bar exams for the time that she took it. She was a member of the Baylor law review.

[DallasMike]

Michael McCullough

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[Rummyfan]

When is the Pres going to announce his next candidate for SCOTUS?

Hopefully he will get an additional one or two before 2008!

[ChronicMA]

I can live with these four women mentioned in Novak's column:

Owen, Pricilla
Williams, Karen
Jones, Edith
Corrigan, Maura

Just as long as we don't get a liberal/moderate like Clement.

[shield]

That'd be great she's a Baylor University graduate here in Texas. Put a TEXAN in there, Mr. President.

However, my choice would be Brown, a blk conservative women.

[shield]

bttt

[connectthedots]

Edith Jones would be an excellent choice; as well.

[EJayB]

I would like to see Janice Rogers Brown as a nominee also. Her opinions really sound like another Scalia. I love smart as* conservatives who don't buy into PC rhetoric.

[DallasMike]

When is the Pres going to announce his next candidate for SCOTUS?

It will be sooner rather than later. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement on July 1. Bush announced Roberts to be her successor on July 20th. When Rehnquist died on a Saturday, Bush nominated Roberts as Chief Justice on Monday.

I expect that there will be an announcement sometime in the next 7 days.

[DallasMike]

Janice Rogers Brown was my personal pick for last time around. I still consider her the perfect choice but I'll take the other front-runners. Priscilla Owen may just be a trial balloon.

 

 

[pelosi_is_a_dope]

dito EJayB Janice Rogers Brown is my choice !I would love to see The much hated one bruise his knuckles on a black well qualified conservative woman .This New York City ego freak needs to comedown a whole lot the man is a treasure in his own mind ,to me he is a rotten smuck !!

[sittnick]

I have no problem with Priscilla Owen, but I wuld try the following approach.

Hire a forensic psychologist and private investigator to study Judge Stevens. Find out everything you can about him, his likes, dislikes, especially work to find out what irritates him (like Winston Smith and "rats" in 1984). Whatever his pet peeve is, interview would be judges and check out their willingness to spend the first year irritating Stevens to the point that he quits or goes officially stark raving mad:

e.g.

Stevens: Now we are about to review...
Judge X: Rats, did I ever tell you about my cousin who was eaten alive by rats?
Stevens: What...does...that ... have to do with...
X: Rats have everything to do with it. Why think of those beady eyes, that long slithering tail, Then think of hundreds of them in a room...
Stevens: Are you out of your ...
X: Rats crawling all over your body, ripping your flesh. Eating your eyes out of their sockets, and then the maggots join in. Think about your dead decaying ...
Stevens:...Argh!!!!

[pelosi_is_a_dope]

I’m holding out for KARL CHRISTIAN ROVE FOR SCOTUS !
He solves all of our problems .Kennedy and Leahy and Schumer all would have heart attacks at the confirmation hearings. All the left wingers in the U.S. that didn't
die of shock would have laryngitis for life ,what a dream
scenario !

[pelosi_is_a_dope]

Stop you are making me sick lets try some other way .

[pelosi_is_a_dope]

One fight at a time get the RINO'S to shoot their best
shots at Roberts and bring in Brown when Roberts is safe !
The thing that boils me is these overblown pompous
Socialist swine who are impeding the presidents right
to full up/down vote of his electees as is his constitutional right !
Who gave the great bulbous fool Kennedy the right to pontificate on his betters ?
By rights the man should have been removed from office ,only in Massachusetts .
Who taught the slippery behind the scenes provocateur Schumer his craft as I well know
the ethics and honor of the United States has been substantially lowered by this repulsive creature !

[Pinetop]

Well, what about Janice Rogers Brown? Younger, similar credentials, just went through the same confirmation hearings and a minority.

I was pretty certain in March that Roberts would get the Presidential nod. At that time, it was seriously suspected that Roberts would get the nomination to be Chief. I think the President always had that in his back pocket notwithstanding the interim nomination to fill Justice O'Connor's seat.

But, the one caveat I have on my opinion about the elevation of Justice Brown is the President's loyalty to his colleagues in Texas. So, you and Novak are probably right.

[Pinetop]

You have the Hunter Thompson approach. In Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, Thompson said he believed the way to deal with Nixon was to study his approach to his passions. With Nixon, it was football--he was a fanatical football fan. So, Thompson undertook the study of Nixon studying football in order to understand him and try to defeat him.

Justice Stevens is a fanatical baseball fan.

[kidd]

LOL!