Initial Thoughts on the Supreme Court and Harriet Miers
by Rense Johnson, Chairman, Citizens for Term Limits
With the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, President Bush could have stated that he considered her to be in the mold of Justices Scalia and Thomas, as has so often promised, but he did not. I wish he had. But most conservative observers give the President high marks for his other court nominees. Why would he wimp out at this time?
In my scenario, I don’t believe he did. Miers’s friends from both
conservative and liberal backgrounds have come out with fulsome praise for her real-world record and achievements, despite lack of experience on the bench. And by the way, whatever is wrong about a justice with real world experience?
I believe Bush was convinced that the Miers nomination might have fairly smooth sailing, given her minimal paper trail. Now we are told that fair weather Senate conservatives are falling all over themselves to distance themselves from the nomination. Don’t they give him any credit at all for his past record of excellent picks? And where are the right-to-lifers? Have they abandoned him too?
So I have a hunch. I believe Bush knows more than he is letting on. I think the President strongly suspects there will be another resignation in the foreseeable future by a liberal sitting justice.
Is liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, age 85, planning to retire? If so, the nomination to replace him could be Bush’s Coup de Court with a known conservative strict constructionist. One thing we know about George W Bush: he does not abandon his positions just to please the pollsters. An encouragement to Stevens would be that with a Miers success the Court would have already been given restoration of a conservative balance.
With his Texas six-guns blazing I believe Bush will gear up for the
mother of all Supreme court battles with that original intent strict
constructionist. He will be pulling out all the stops, including the
so-called nuclear option to change the filibuster rule on advise and
consent.
If I am right, Bush will have truly changed the complexion of the
Supreme Court. At that point additional retirements could well be
encouraged (“What’s the use of hanging on to wait for a new president”) which would then be lagniappe.
So in this scenario, the future will depend on the success of the Miers nomination and the conservatives of little faith.
