Activists Hunt for Paper Trail on Miers
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As President Bush defended his pick of White House Counsel Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, activists on both sides scrambled to prepare for a Senate clash that is as ill-defined today as many of the nominee’s views. Conservatives and liberals mined each other’s Web sites for scraps of information on Ms. Miers’s positions on abortion and other issues. Since she has never been a judge, activists searched for speeches and law articles that could illuminate her legal philosophy. Amid the frantic searches, the Human Rights Campaign, a gay-rights group, sent a jolt through the system by hinting that it may support Ms. Miers. An assertion in 1989 that homosexuals deserve the same civil rights as all other people “certainly raises the possibility she is more fair-minded than our opponents hope she is,” says the group’s president, Joe Solmonese. The statement came in a candidate questionnaire Ms. Miers completed while running for Dallas City Council. The nomination has shaken activists on both the left and right, suggesting the debate over Ms. Miers’s confirmation could be more complex than the recent hearings for Chief Justice John Roberts. In the end, it may end up doing more damage to Republicans than to Democrats, who never expected to see a nominee sympathetic to their philosophy. Tony Perkins, head of the conservative Family Research Council, offered a tepid endorsement of Ms. Miers when Mr. Bush announced her nomination earlier this week. But the revelations from her 1989 questionnaire yesterday began to set off alarms. “I have a concern that Miss Miers was helping to legitimize the drive of homosexual organizations for power and influence over our public policies,” Mr. Perkins said in a statement. “You can be sure Harriet Miers will be closely questioned on these and other matters when she appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee.” More : online.wsj.com |