Jeff Johnson, CNSNews.com
Friday, Sept. 6, 2002

Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen's nomination to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was voted down on 10-9 party line votes three times. The ten Democrats on the committee voted unanimously against sending her nomination to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation, with an unfavorable recommendation and with no recommendation.

President Bush responded swiftly to the votes.

"What the Democrat members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have done to Justice Owen is shameful, even by Washington standards," the president said. "They have distorted her record and misconstrued her opinions. They have determined that a nominee's experience, academic credentials, and character are inconsequential.

"Today's action by this small group of Democrat senators is wrong," he continued. "It has harmed a good person, harmed our courts, and harmed the American people."

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the ranking Republican on the committee called the vote against Owen "an injustice ... like no other the committee has ever inflicted."

Hatch believes pro-abortion lobbyists in Washington orchestrated Owen's defeat because of her decisions upholding a Texas law requiring minors to notify at least one parent or legal guardian before procuring an abortion.

"The assault against Justice Owen is not about abortion rights, it is about abortion profits," he asserted. "It is not about a woman's right to an abortion, it is about assailing parental notification laws that threaten the men who pay for the abortions."

Parents should at least have the right to know when their minor daughter is having an abortion paid for by an adult male, Hatch argued, as the Texas law requires except under "very limited conditions." Owen was targeted, he believes, because she upheld the intent of the legislature.

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., claimed that, to the contrary, his votes against Owen were not because of her alleged opposition to abortion.

"I have never used that as a litmus test on nominees in my own state or before this committee," he said. "The fact that I disagree with Justice Owen has little to do with her position on abortion."

New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer freely admitted that he was voting against Owen, despite her qualifications for the position, because he considers her to be pro-life.

"We are not going to simply say that someone has excellent legal mind and an unblemished character and then just approve them," he said. "Ideology will make a difference."

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., recalled that Democratic senators during the Clinton administration had different standards for judicial nominees.

Different Standard

"Senator Schumer and others warned us that the majority of the committee would insist on a different standard than had been applied to nominees before," Kyl said. "I can't believe, however, that those who have previously opposed litmus tests so eloquently would now impose them so brutally."

Republicans were also angered that Democrats reintroduced so-called "evidence" against Owen that had been disproved in previous committee hearings.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., echoed a charge originally made by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that Owen contributed to the death of plaintiff Willie Searce in a case heard by her court.

Searce, who was paralyzed in an auto accident, was a plaintiff in a lawsuit over an alleged malfunctioning seatbelt. He was on a respirator, which failed causing him to die.

"After oral argument, Justice Owen was assigned the task of writing the decision, but it took about a year and a half after oral arguments for a decision to be issued in the case," Kennedy claimed. "While the case was awaiting trial on remand, Willie Searce died."

Hatch asked rhetorically, "Why have a hearing at all" if false information was to continue being added to the record as fact?

"The truth is that Justice Owen wrote an opinion for the majority in that case just five days after the majority reached their decision. She did not delay it at all," he explained. "The boy died three years later, not pending her decision."

Schumer admitted that his vote was intended not only to defeat Owen, but also to send a message.

"We're going to continue to be at loggerheads on this committee when nominees way out of the mainstream - no matter how legally excellent their thinking is - are sent to us," he warned. "The White House has to understand that they cannot pack the courts with only conservative nominees and expect this committee to be a rubber stamp."

But Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., questioned Schumer's characterization of Owen as "way out of the mainstream."

"She was reelected in Texas with 84 percent of the vote," he pointed out. "If she's out of the mainstream, I guess 84 percent of Texans are, but I don't think that's quite the case."

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told his colleagues that he was trying to control his reaction to the distortions of Owen's record.

"I think it's important when you serve in the Senate not to get angry, but it's hard not to be angry today," he admitted. "No president in recent memory has been treated with this level of obstructionism."

McConnell warned Democrats on the committee that they were "passing a threshold" by rejecting nominees based not on lack of qualifications, but rather over purely political disagreements.

"I'm not going to be voting, I don't think, in the future in the same way I have in the past," he added. "And it is important to remember in the Senate, what goes around comes around."

The vote was especially disappointing to Republicans since Georgia Democratic Sen. Zell Miller had announced that he would vote to confirm Owen if her nomination made it to the full Senate.

"[He] announced yesterday that this committee ought to let Justice Owen out and that he would vote for her, so it's clear that she would be confirmed if the full Senate was given an opportunity to speak."

Miller's vote, if he was the only Democrat to cross party lines, would create a 50 to 50 tie, which would then be broken by Vice President Dick Cheney in his capacity as president of the Senate.

John Nowacki, director of legal policy for the Free Congress Foundation, said after the votes that he was not surprised by Democrats' treatment of Owen.

"They're not concerned with the truth. There's not even a pretense of fairness towards her," he said. "Their refusal to acknowledge the truth about her record only backs that up."

Nowacki hopes voters will remember the Democrats' actions in the November elections.

"This should give conservatives a reason to be forceful about trying to retake the Senate," he urged. "If they're at all concerned about having judges who follow the laws as written, and don't put politics into the process, then they ought to take action.

"The only way this situation is going to change," Nowacki concluded, "is if control of the Senate changes."

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