Bush Reassures Conservatives Once Again on Court Nominee - New York TimesBush Reassures Conservatives Once Again on Court Nominee
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 - President Bush sought again today to reassure conservatives about his Supreme Court nominee, Harriet E. Miers, and he said that Ms. Miers's religion was pertinent to the overall discussion about her.
"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers," Mr. Bush said. "They want to know Harriet Miers's background. They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions.
"Part of Harriet Miers's life is her religion," Mr. Bush went on, in remarks that may be revived during Ms. Miers's confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee several weeks from now. "Part of it has to do with the fact that she was a pioneer woman and a trailblazer in the law in Texas."
The president went on to say, in a brief question-answer session with reporters at the White House, that Ms. Miers was "eminently qualified" to sit on the court, and that she would be a justice who "will not legislate from the bench but strictly interpret the Constitution."
Mr. Bush's allusion to Ms. Miers came shortly after the conservative James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, was quoted as saying on a radio program that he had discussed the nominee's religious views with the president's chief political adviser, Karl Rove.
Mr. Dobson said he talked to Mr. Rove on Oct. 1, two days before Mr. Bush announced his choice, and had been told that "Harriet Miers is an Evangelical Christian, that she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life, that she has taken on the American Bar Association on the issue of abortion and fought for a policy that would not be supportive of abortion, that she had been a member of the Texas Right to Life."
Mr. Dobson went on to say that he and Mr. Rove had not discussed cases that might come before the court and that "we did not discuss Roe v. Wade in any context." The Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade established a woman's right to have an abortion.
The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, rejected any suggestion that Mr. Rove was speaking in "code," as one questioner put it, to reassure conservatives about the nominee's beliefs.
"What Karl emphasized in that conversation is that she is someone that has the qualifications and experience and the judicial philosophy that the American people want to see on our nation's highest court," Mr. McClellan said.
Mr. McClellan also tried to swat down a suggestion that the White House was "trying to calm a revolt on the right" over fears that Ms. Miers is not conservative enough. "It seems like the media want to focus on things other than her qualifications," he said.
A leading Democrat expressed unease over what Mr. Dobson said in his conversation with Mr. Rove. "The rest of America, including the Senate, deserves to know what he and the White House know," said Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking minority member on the Judiciary Committee. "We don't confirm justices of the Supreme Court on a wink and a nod. And a litmus test is no less a litmus test by using whispers and signals."
President Bush has said that he has no "litmus test" for judicial nominees, and that he has not discussed the Roe v. Wade decision with Ms. Miers.
The Miers nomination has already been greeted with wariness, even near hostility, by some conservatives Republicans, who have expressed doubts that Ms. Miers is really one of their own. The nominee has never been a judge and so has left no "paper trail" of opinions to dissect.
Critics on the right have also complained that Ms. Miers has given no sign that she has studied or even pondered the sort of constitutional issues that define the modern conservative-liberal divide, and that the White House bypassed conservative legal scholars and justices who had done so in favor of a presidential aide whose chief qualification appeared to be her proximity and loyalty to Mr. Bush.
Conservative Christians initially resisted discussion of religion when Judge John G. Roberts Jr., a Roman Catholic, was nominated for the Supreme Court. "We are going to be vigilant to make sure that there is not this religious litmus test imposed," Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, an evangelical Protestant group, said in August.
Judge Roberts told the Judiciary Committee that his private beliefs would not affect how he rules on matters of law. He was endorsed by the committee and confirmed overwhelmingly by the Senate as chief justice of the United States.
The liberal group People for the American Way condemned Mr. Bush's remarks today, accusing him and his aides of sending signals to conservatives that Ms. Miers would oppose abortion rights once she was on the bench.
"What's wrong for John Roberts can't be right for Harriet Miers," said Ralph G. Neas, the organization's president. "Her legal views on constitutional issues must be thoroughly explored. But whether they're shouting it from the rooftops or whispering into the ears of their right-wing supporters, Miers's personal religious beliefs should have no place in her nomination."
The White House spokesman, Mr. McClellan, was asked whether the White House was emphasizing Ms. Miers's religion more than it emphasized the religion of Judge Roberts.
"Harriet Miers is a person of faith," Mr. McClellan replied. "She recognizes, however, that a person's religion or personal views have no role when it comes to making decisions as a judge." He said it was necessary for the White House to convey information about the nominee because "Harriet Miers is not someone who has sought the limelight."
Now we see the real danger to which the President's political calculations concerning Ms. Miers has opened the door. The Presdient tried to signal the religious right that Ms. Miers can be trusted to enact her evangelical Christian beliefs into law thru Supreme Court decisions, such as outlawing abortion. But in doing so, Mr. Bush also revealed that he and his Administration are either profoundly ignorant or must instead have a most cynical and even more profound contempt for the US Constitution itself. Perhaps thru pressured political miscalcuation, Mr. Bush now has brought the most important question about his Supreme Court nominees to the foreground. Perhaps now it will be possible to show to all the American people just what this Republican, so-called "conservative" majority is all about: the cynical exploitation of those with religious beliefs who wish to see those beliefs imposed thru law on all Americans. The religious right now is beginning to sense the duplicity here: the Republican insiders and leaders don't want their new Supreme Court appointees actually to succeed in establishing in law religious beliefs about abortion or any other hot button social issue -- to do that would take the issue away. With abortion outlawed, who would carry the signs and march for the conservative cause? But if Mr. Bush's nominees act as independent judges, as they should, and fail to outlaw abortion, why then Republicans can still carry on as though they were frustrated by those shadowy "liberal" elites in the courts. Without the abortion issue, the army of the faithful might turn to other concerns and away from marching together with Republicans. These faithful might even turn to issues like economic justice for themselves as middle class people as well as America's deteriorating infrastructure at the hands of these cynical modern day robber barons. They might awaken to the massive growth in government under these so-called "conservatives" while government's competence and efficiency in providing for the public interest has plummeted on their watch. What every American needs to understand is that deciding questions like abortion or any other issue before the US Supreme Court by establishing in law one's religious beliefs -- beliefs to be imposed on everyone -- is unconstitutional on its face. Thomas Jefferson could not have been more clear on this. The right of each and every American to practice his or her own religion, or no religion at all, is among the most fundamental of freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The Constitution's framers understood very well that religious liberty can flourish only if the government leaves religion alone. The free exercise clause of the First Amendment guarantees the right to practice one's religion free of government interference. The establishment clause requires the separation of church and state. So, it doesn't matter what church Ms. Miers goes to -- if she can't leave her religion out of her judicial decision making, then she can't be qualified to be a US Supreme Court Justice. That is the issue that now must come out during confirmation hearings. That is the question I most want to hear asked: is it appropriate, or even constitutional to base Supreme Court decisions on religious beliefs?
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