Owen deserves a vote but not a confirmation
Austin-American Statesman EditorialApril 29, 2003
The U.S. Senate is expected to resume debate soon over President Bush's nomination of Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears federal appeals from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. We have argued before that she deserved a hearing, and she finally got one from the Senate Judiciary Committee. That said, however, she should not be confirmed.
There's no question that Owen is qualified for the 5th Circuit by her legal training and experience. She was a standout at the top of her Baylor University Law School class; she became a partner at a major Houston law firm, Andrews & Kurth, where she practiced commercial litigation for 17 years; and she was elected in 1994 to the Texas Supreme Court, and re-elected in 2000. She received the highest rating, "well-qualified," from an American Bar Association committee that reviews judicial nominations.
But Owen is so conservative that she places herself out of the broad mainstream of jurisprudence. She seems all too willing to bend the law to fit her views, rather than the reverse.
One example was the state Supreme Court's interpretation of the then-new Parental Notification Act regarding abortions sought by minors. In early 2000, the nine justices, all Republicans, took up a series of "Jane Doe" cases to determine under what circumstances a girl could get a court order to avoid telling a parent that she intended to get an abortion.
Owen and Justice Nathan Hecht consistently argued for interpretations of the law that would make it virtually impossible for a girl to get such an order.
Finally, in one Jane Doe case, another justice complained that "to construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism."
The justice who wrote that was Alberto Gonzales, who is now Bush's general counsel.
Owen also could usually be counted upon in any important case that pitted an individual or group of individuals against business interests to side with business.
Owen is being appointed to a lifetime position in the judicial branch of government, not to a post in which her duty is to carry out the will of the president. And given the narrowness of his 2000 election victory, Bush is not in a position to argue that the public has said it wants ultra-conservative judges.
If the Senate Democrats invoke their power to filibuster, Owen would be the second judge nominated by Bush to be blocked in such a way. The other is Miguel Estrada, who was nominated to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and who Democrats suspect is a radical, ideological conservative.
Democrats are not blindly opposing all of the president's judicial nominees. Many have been confirmed by the Senate, and others have won committee approval without controversy, including Edward Prado of San Antonio, a federal district judge who was nominated to the 5th Circuit.
But Owen should not be confirmed. --
