October 04, 2005

Progress for America has put up a support-Harriet-Miers website, but the about page is... tepid, with such minimal accomplishments as "Miers Was A Commercial Litigator" and "She is licensed to practice law in... the District of Columbia" and "Miers Encouraged Bar Members 'To Do Pro Bono Work.'" By that standard, I could be nominated to the Supreme Court.

Of greater concern is a 2004 Legal Times article (cited on the same PFA page) that noted that, in 2001, Miers argued "against eliminating the American Bar Association's 50-year-old role of vetting potential federal judiciary nominations, a move led by [then-White House Counsel] Gonzales." As we noted on July 23, this move was a no-brainer because of the ABA's historical ideological bias.

The first signs of a paper trail have appeared in the form of a questionnaire that Miers answered when running for Dallas City Council in 1989. AMERICAblog is trying to claim that Miers supported gay rights in 1989, but a look at the actual questionnaire shows that Miers opposed repeal of laws criminalizing private sexual behavior between consenting gays, which would not only seem to be a vote with the dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, but would make Miers more socially conservative than Justice Thomas.