President Bush is repeating a tired message in his recent nomination of Harriet Miers to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Once again, he asks this country to "trust him" but fails to prove why. Miers is a lawyer with 30 years of experience, but she has never been a judge. Of course that is not a requirement; the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist had never been a judge before his rise to the bench.
However, Miers has no record of jurisprudence on which to evaluate her as a prospective member of the nation's highest court. She is the second in as many nominees that Bush has chosen with a scant judicial history on which to base an investigation. However, the tactic may be tougher this time around.
Miers has not been received well by Republicans, most of which believe the President should have nominated a judge with a more conservative background. In fact, Miers' political affiliation is questionable, considering her 1988 donation to the presidential campaign of Democrat Al Gore.
On Oct. 10, the Washington Times reported that nearly half of Senate Republicans say they remain unconvinced that Miers is worthy of being confirmed to the Supreme Court. Unlike the nomination of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, there seems to be a mounting challenge to confirmation from people within Bush's own party.
Furthermore, questions have arisen concerning Miers' qualifications. Although she is an attorney, the legal mind that a Supreme Court justice must possess takes decades of study to develop. Roberts specialized in Supreme Court law, and both he and Rehnquist had argued cases in front of the Supreme Court before taking their seats on the high court's bench. Miers, however, has not argued a single case there. This is a very serious problem, especially since Miers will be the Court's swing vote.
The cases that reach the Supreme Court are significant in nature, and many alter the way we live our daily lives. Meirs was the first woman to ever head the State Bar of Texas, but that tells us little about her philosophy on abortion, assisted suicide, copyright laws and a host of other issues that will face the bench during her possible tenure.
We should not hastily appoint a nominee to the Supreme Court. If a thorough investigation of her judicial philosophy can safely conclude she is the most qualified candidate for this position, then she must be confirmed. However, with so little background to judge, we wonder if a meaningful investigation into the background of Harriet Miers is even possible. If not, President Bush had better be willing to nominate a new candidate with more than a warm smile.
This editorial was published in The Marquette Tribune on October 13, 2005.