Or, if you prefer:
Harriet’s Hairballs Raise Eyebrows
MSNBC was mentioning the “w” word this morning (that’d be withdraw). And, Harriet Miers’ tenure as the first female president of the Texas state bar association “could provide new fodder for conservatives opposed to her nomination,” reports the WaPo (photo source). The article, “Miers Backed Race, Sex Set-Asides,” mentions that “the types of policies pursued by the Texas bar association amount to reverse discrimination.” Not popular with conservatives!
The Los Angeles Times finds that the few questions that Miers did answer have “left many constitutional experts shaking their heads.”
At one point, Miers described her service on the Dallas City Council in 1989. When the city was sued on allegations that it violated the Voting Rights Act, she said, “the council had to be sure to comply with the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause.”
But the Supreme Court repeatedly has said the Constitution’s guarantee of “equal protection of the laws” does not mean that city councils or state legislatures must have the same proportion of blacks, Latinos and Asians as the voting population.
“That’s a terrible answer. There is no proportional representation requirement under the equal protection clause,” said New York University law professor Burt Neuborne, a voting rights expert. “If a first-year law student wrote that and submitted it in class, I would send it back and say it was unacceptable.” (Emphasis mine.)
You know, I’m enjoying this FAR too much to step in and add my opinion about Ms. Miers. The conservatives and legal scholars are doing quite well on their own!
And now increasingly desperate conservatives — dizzyingly picking daisy petals (“I love the president, I love him not, I love him despite his jaw-jerking, I love the numbskull not”) — are left telling PlanetOut that they don’t mind that, in 1987, Miers’ helped out the Dallas chapter of Girls, Inc., “a youth organization that supports abortion rights and acceptance of lesbians.”
Miers chaired the advisory committee of Girls Inc., a non-profit organization dating to 1864 that serves about 800,000 girls a year, many from low-income families, according to the questionnaire she submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Miers received an award for her work with the local chapter and the Dallas Bar Association. […]
Questioned about Miers’ past involvement with the group, Tim Wildmon, president of the AFA, said it was not an issue.
“That’s been so long ago,” Wildmon said in a telephone interview. “I don’t think that factors in with her current situation. It was 18 years ago, people change, organizations change.”
What kind of moral compass does Tim Wildmon have that he buckles in to Miers’ record if it suits his purposes, but is sending his association after Girls Inc.? You bastard:
The American Family Association is urging its 2.2 million members to demand that American Girl, maker of popular dolls and children’s books, stop its support for Girls Inc. Proceeds from the sale of American Girl wristbands are helping support educational and empowerment programs of Girls, Inc.
The AFA and the Pro-Life Action League, a Chicago-based anti-abortion group, are urging their supporters to contact American Girl and express opposition to its contributions to Girls Inc.
In the advocacy section on its Web page, Girls Inc. backs Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, favors a girl’s right to have access to contraceptives and pledges support for girls dealing with questions about sexual orientation.(PlanetOut
Harriet’s work with this group makes me like her more. If only she’d stuck with it beyond 1987. She’s unqualified as a Supreme Court justice — that’s clear.
But she has done some decent things with her life, and that’s to be congratulated.
(She does seem to have a thing about her hair though.)