October 2005

Well, we all knew it was coming. Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to replace Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. She submitted her letter [.pdf] this morning, and President Bush made a short statement reluctantly accepting.

If you’ve visited the site in the last few days, I’m sure you’ve noticed a drastic overhaul in the design. The main design is finished, but I’ll be implementing other bits and pieces over the next week. If you discover any bugs or you think some important functionality is missing, let me know in the comments.

President Bush “announced”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100300252.html?sub=AR this morning that Harriet Miers, current White House Counsel, is his second nominee to the Supreme Court. Before coming to Washington, Miers served as Bush’s personal attorney in Texas, and was a partner at Locke Liddell & Sapp. ACS has some “background”:http://www.acsblog.org/judicial-nominations-2018-who-is-harriet-miers-.html and “commentary”:http://www.acsblog.org/news-and-announcements-2031-harriet-miers-tapped-to-replace-oconnor.html on Miers. Other commentary:

* “Lyle Denniston”:http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/2005/10/the_burden_of_p.html and “Tom Goldstein”:http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/2005/10/commentary_some.html both have comments—mostly unfavorable—at SCOTUSblog.
* Jack Balkin calls Miers a “stealth candidate”:http://balkin.blogspot.com/2005/10/miers-nomination.html, taking the nomination as a sign “a sign that the President wants to avoid a fight, either because he is in a relatively weak political position, because he fears that his supporters disagree among themselves, or because he would rather expend his energies and influence elsewhere.”
* UTR “suggests”:http://underneaththeirrobes.blogs.com/main/2005/10/harriet_miers_a.html that Miers might benefit from a make over, and expresses concern about her conservative credentials.
* Stephen Bainbridge “weighs in”:http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2005/10/harriet_who.html, also critical of the nomination.
* “Larry Solum”:http://lsolum.blogspot.com/archives/2005_10_01_lsolum_archive.html#112834852634675411 quotes “Federalist #76″:http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/funddocs/fed/federa76.htm:

bq. To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. In addition to this, it would be an efficacious source of stability in the administration.

bq. It will readily be comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body, and that body an entier branch of the legislature. The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other. He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.