Owen at center of filibuster fight - Both sides use justice's record to argue their points

WASHINGTON - The Senate moved closer Monday to a confrontation over a Republican threat to block a Democratic filibuster of some of President Bush's judicial nominees.

Both sides pointed to the record of Priscilla Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice who was nominated by President Bush four years ago and whose case may be used by Republicans in a procedural challenge to the filibuster.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, charged that Owen's nomination to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has been stalled by Democrats eager to score political points.

"This debate is not about principle; it is all about politics and it is shameful," said Cornyn, who offered a detailed defense of Owen on the Senate floor while standing by an oversize photograph of the nominee.

But critics, including representatives from liberal Texas groups, contend that even on the Texas Supreme Court, now entirely Republican, Owen has stood out for her conservative dissents on issues from abortion to medical malpractice.

Democrats unapologetic "Over time Texans have learned that when Owen is on the bench it is time for us to duck and cover," said Craig McDonald, director of Austin-based Texans for Public Justice.

McDonald was joined at a Capitol press conference by Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who were unapologetic for blocking 10 Bush appellate court nominees in his first term.

"We're proud that we blocked Owen because over and over again she defines judicial activism," Schumer said.

Cornyn said the Texas groups opposing Owen, which include the American Association of University Women of Texas, the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas and NARAL Pro-choice Texas, were "outside the mainstream of Texas politics."

The public relations campaign and political maneuvering intensified as the senators returned from a break and marked the four-year anniversary of the first batch of judicial candidates nominated by Bush.

Republicans have threatened to change the rules that allow filibusters on judges and instead require a simple majority for confirmation. Democrats hold 44 of the Senate's 100 seats and it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster.

Bush urges simple vote President Bush, traveling overseas, issued a statement saying his judicial nominees "deserved a simple up-or-down vote by the entire Senate."

As the rhetoric heated up, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urged his colleagues to step back.

"Let's try cooperation rather than confrontation, which seems to be what we're doing here lately," he said.

As a peace offering, Reid said Democrats would not block a vote on Thomas Griffith for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Some Democrats have opposed Griffith, considered one of the least controversial nominees.

The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported Monday that Sens. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., were working on a compromise in which six GOP senators would continue to support the filibuster.

In return Democrats would agree not to filibuster four of the seven appellate court nominees that they oppose. Except in "extreme circumstances" Democrats would also agree to drop any filibuster of future judicial nominees as well as any Supreme Court picks.

The compromise was immediately panned by a number of Republican and Democratic senators, including Kennedy and Cornyn.

Liberal and conservative groups have stepped up efforts to pressure senators not to bend. People for the American Way, a liberal group, has been running ads urging senators to maintain the filibuster.

Meanwhile, a coalition of conservative groups demanded that Republicans fight the filibuster. "You can't compromise with a bully," said Jan La Rue, chief counsel for Concerned Women of America, referring to Democrats. "Losers get to vote, but they don't get to rewrite the rules."

OWEN NOMINATION CLEARS SENATE PANEL…AGAIN

Thursday, April 21, 2005

WASHINGTON—Nearly four years after she was first nominated by President Bush to serve on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted to send the nomination of Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen to the full Senate. The committee voted 10-8 along party lines.

The vote was her third in the committee, but her nomination has been stalled through the use of a filibuster by Senate Democrats who denied a vote by the full Senate. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the committee who served with Justice Owen on the Texas Supreme Court, said that “after waiting four long years for an up-or-down vote on the floor of the United States Senate, her wait should come to an end.”

“Priscilla Owen, with whom I served on the Texas Supreme Court, is an outstanding nominee. She’s been waiting four years and now will receive a vote out of the Judiciary Committee to go to the Senate Floor, where I hope she will receive an up or-down-vote,” Cornyn said. “But she has been waiting more than four years, due to the insistence for the first time in the history of the United States Senate, to require 60 votes just to get the opportunity to get an up or down vote. My hope is that we will restore the 200 year tradition of majority rule, and simply allow a bipartisan majority to confirm her for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. She’s waited too long.”

Cornyn continued: “Justice Owen is among the finest legal minds of our time. Unlike her partisan opponents and fringe special interest groups, I served with her on the Texas Supreme Court and know her to be a fair, reasonable and highly skilled member of the bench. The obstruction is wrong and must be stopped. Priscilla Owen, judicial nominees now and in the future, and the American people deserve better than the treatment they’ve received by this partisan minority of the Senate.”

Though a bipartisan majority of the Senate stood ready to confirm her nomination in the last Congress, partisan Democrats obstructed the process, and refused to allow her nomination to be heard by the full Senate. Four cloture votes were held on her nomination, all were blocked by a partisan minority of the Senate.

Justice Owen received the American Bar Association’s highest possible rating: a unanimous “well qualified.” Prior to her election to the Texas Supreme Court in 1994, she was a partner in the Houston office of Andrews & Kurth L.L.P. where she practiced commercial litigation for seventeen years. She received her bachelor’s degree from Baylor University, and graduated in the top of her class from Baylor Law School in 1977. In her successful re-election bid to the Supreme Court of Texas in 2000, every major newspaper in Texas endorsed Owen.

Sen. Cornyn is chairman of the Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship subcommittee and former chairman of the Constitution subcommittee. He served previously as Texas Attorney General and was a Texas Supreme Court Justice. Cornyn is a former Bexar County District Judge and the only former judge to sit on the Judiciary Committee.

http://cornyn.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=236719&ref=home

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