Bush Chooses Miers for Supreme Court

Bush Chooses Miers for Supreme Court

By DEB RIECHMANN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush nominated White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court on Monday, turning to a lawyer who has never been a judge to replace Sandra Day O'Connor and help reshape the nation's judiciary.

"She has devoted her life to the rule of law and the cause of justice," Bush said as his first Supreme Court pick, Chief Justice John Roberts, took the bench for the first time just a few blocks from the White House.

If confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, Miers, 60, would join Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the second woman on the nation's highest court and the third to serve there. Miers was the first woman to serve as president of the Texas State Bar and the Dallas Bar Association.

Senate Republicans said they would press for confirmation by Thanksgiving - a tight timetable by recent standards that allowed less than eight weeks for lawmakers to review her record, hold hearings and vote.

Within hours of Bush's announcement in the Oval Office, Miers headed for the Capitol to begin courtesy calls on the senators who will vote on her nomination.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was first on the list. His welcome was a statement in praise. "With this selection, the president has chosen another outstanding nominee to sit on our nations highest court," it said.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid was complimentary, issuing a statement that said he likes Miers and adding "the Supreme Court would benefit from the addition of a justice who has real experience as a practicing lawyer."

At the same time, he said he looked forward to the "process which will help the American people learn more about Harriet Miers, and help the Senate determine whether she deserves a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court."

Smith reports President Bush has chosen White House counsel Harriet Miers to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court.

Reid had personally recommended that Bush consider Miers for nomination, according to several sources familiar with the president's consultations with individual senators. Of equal importance as the White House maps its confirmation campaign is that the Nevada Democrat had warned Bush that the selection of any of several other contenders could trigger a bruising partisan struggle.

At the same time, Republican strategists who spoke on condition of anonymity said they would have to work hard to assure the support of some of the more conservative Republicans in the Senate. All 55 GOP senators voted to confirm Roberts.

Miers, whom Bush called a trailblazer for women in the legal profession, said she was humbled by the nod.

"If confirmed, I recognize I will have a tremendous responsibility to keep our judicial system strong and to help insure the court meets their obligations to strictly apply the laws and Constitution," she said.

Whatever her credentials for the high court, Miers' loyalty to Bush - who once called her a pit bull in size 6 shoes - is above question. When he first decided to run for governor in the early 1990s, he hired Miers to comb his background for anything derogatory that opponents might try to use to defeat him.

Miers also introduced Bush to Alberto Gonzales, who served as Bush's counsel in Austin and later in Washington, before being named U.S. attorney general.

During Bush's first term as governor, Gonzales used information turned up by Miers to persuade a local judge to excuse Bush from jury duty, a civic task that would have forced him to disclose his 1976 arrest for drunken driving in Maine. The incident was not divulged until the waning days of Bush's 2000 campaign for the White House.

© 2005 The Associated Press

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