The Shifting Supreme Court, Part 2

As more information comes out about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, it appears that several people on both sides are not happy campers. Some of the concerns that have been raised deal with her involvement with the Texas Lottery, her lack of judicial experience, her originalist (or not) stance, her donations to Democrats, or her nomination to mollify the left wing (or at least not have a fight over her). Interestingly, David Frum, who said he had worked with Miers, had concerns about her ability to stand up against the more liberal forces on the court (from 10/3/05):

I worked with Harriet Miers. She's a lovely person: intelligent, honest, capable, loyal, discreet, dedicated ... I could pile on the praise all morning. But there is no reason at all to believe either that she is a legal conservative or--and more importantly--that she has the spine and steel necessary to resist the pressures that constantly bend the American legal system toward the left.... There have just been too many instances of seeming conservatives being sent to the high Court, only to succumb to the prevailing vapors up there: O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter. Given that record, it is simply reckless for any conservative president to take a hazard on anything other than a known quantity of the highest intellectual and personal excellence....The pressures on a Supreme Court justice to shift leftward are intense. There is the negative pressure of the vicious, hostile press that legal conservatives must endure. And there are the sweet little inducements--the flattery, the invitations to conferences in Austria and Italy, the lectureships at Yale and Harvard--that come to judges who soften and crumble. Harriet Miers is a taut, nervous, anxious personality. It is hard for me to imagine that she can endure the anger and abuse--or resist the blandishments--that transformed, say, Anthony Kennedy into the judge he is today.

So she may perhaps be a great lawyer. She may hold some conservative values. She may be assertive at times when needed. But time will tell--as we learn more about her and if she is confirmed and serves on the Court--if she was the right choice.