Another Battle Begins
The Democrats work to kill another judicial nominee.
Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Priscilla Owen, President Bush's choice for a place on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, opened this morning with Democrats questioning whether Owen "stretches and goes beyond the law" in the opinions she has written as a justice on the Texas state supreme court.
California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who is chairing the hearings, pledged to "keep an open mind on this nominee," but told Owen she was concerned about the "feeling among some that you are, in a sense, a judicial activist."
Other Democrats have made clear they plan to oppose her on issues including abortion, civil rights, and consumer protection. "I am greatly troubled by her near-unwavering support for positions of businesses and corporations over that of injured individuals," Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy said in a statement. "I am equally troubled by Justice Owen's opinion over the important questions of a woman's right to choose."
Committee chairman Patrick Leahy said to Owen, "You seem to be outside the mainstream" of the conservative Texas high court. Owen answered that out of the 890-plus decisions she had participated in as a Texas supreme-court justice, she has been in dissent 86 times — a dissent rate of less than ten percent.
Utah's Orrin Hatch, the ranking Republican on the committee, pledged to fight what he called the "deceptions, distortions, and demagoguery orchestrated against [Owen's] nomination." As he has in the past, Hatch singled out liberal activists, who oppose the Owen nomination, and who in Hatch's words, "think that mainstream thought is more likely found in Paris, France, than Paris, Texas."
Indeed, liberal interest groups, such as People for the American Way, the Alliance for Justice, and National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League have all compiled detailed reports attacking Owen's record. The Senate hearing room — the same room in which Democrats nearly derailed the nomination of Attorney General John Ashcroft — was filled with representatives from those groups.
In a recent letter to Leahy, People for the American Way president Ralph Neas calls Owen "a judicial activist with a disturbing tendency to try to rewrite or disregard the law in order to achieve particular results." On abortion, NARAL's report says, "The Fifth Circuit's record on reproductive rights, together with Owen's support for greater obstacles to obtaining an abortion, would place a woman's right to choose in serious jeopardy if Owen is confirmed."
But Republicans say they are prepared to fight on Owen's behalf — far better prepared than they were during the confirmation battle for Charles Pickering, whose appeals-court nomination was killed by Democrats last March. GOP supporters have come up with a detailed rebuttal to the charges in the various anti-Owen reports. "Our team is three miles ahead of where it was with Pickering," says one Republican aide.
Still, it might not be enough to win. "This one could go down," says another Republican. "But it's not going to go down without a huge fight."
Because of the way the hearing had been scheduled — it conflicts with another Judiciary Committee hearing on an unrelated topic — there had been fears among Republicans that Democrats had planned to hold a short session for Owen and then demand that a second hearing be held, a tactic that was used in the Pickering battle. But this morning, Democrats announced that they planned to have the hearing continue through the day and no one has mentioned the possibility of a second hearing.
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