So why do more of Priscilla Owen's
peers rate her very unfavorably than favorably in a survey conducted by the Houston Bar Association?
HOUSTON (Reuters)- Tue May 24, 2005 11:16 PM
. . . None of the [Texas Supreme] court's eight other judges had as many "poor" votes and only one had fewer "outstanding" votes. ..."
HBA survey question –
"Is she impartial and open-minded with respect to determining the legal issues?"
Of 301 HOUSTON LAWYERS who responded to this question, 147 or 49% of them rated Owen POOR.
Reuters also summarized that
See the full ratings table at
http://www.hba.org/Supreme05.pdf [PDF, page 2]
If you want to know why there's an opening now for Priscilla Owen on the 5th circuit, here is why [as published by rawstory.com]--
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas
blocked two Circuit Court nominees to the 5th Circuit, leaving open the seat Republicans are now trying to hand to Priscilla Owen. Hutchison blocked Jorge Rangel and Enrique Moreno, both of whom were nominated for the 5th Circuit. [Fulton County Daily Report, (Georgia) 2/5/02]
SENATOR HUTCHISON'S RECORD:
* Voted to filibuster 11 Clinton executive nominees: Walter Dellinger, Janet Napolitano, Sam W. Brown (twice), Derek Shearer, Ricki Tigert, Henry Foster (twice), and 5 State Dept nominees en bloc.
The full list of senators (Republican and Democratic) who kept nominees from getting up-or-down votes in the 1990s is here at rawstory.
more from Reuters
- U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has endorsed Owen's nomination but they clashed on a number of cases when they were on the Texas Supreme Court, most famously in an abortion rights case in 2000. Owen was a dissenter on the court's vote upholding a teenage girl's right to abortion without notifying her parents. In his opinion, Gonzales wrote that dissenting justices advocated a position directly contradicting state law and that adopting their view "would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism."