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Articles and Excerpts

• Ten Questions for Harriet MiersBy Morton Mintz
• Miers Roots Are Not Ivy LeagueBy Marvin Olasky/Peter Olasky
• Miers and the Moral ArenaBy Thomas Reeves
• What Was Bush Thinking When He Nominated Miers?By Peggy Noonan
• Alonzo Hamby on Truman's Crony Picks for the Supreme Court
• On Bush's Bad Choice of Harriet Miers By Richard Jensen
• Faith-Based Nomination By WSJ Editorial
• Alexander Hamilton wouldn't approve of Justice Harriet Miers By Randy E. Barnett

News Stories

• Miers Withdraws Harriet E. Miers withdrew her nomination for the Supreme Court this morning after her selection by President Bush led to criticism from conservatives and liberals and opposition to her appointment began to grow more intense.

• Miers Gets Criticisms Rare for Nominees to Court "I would be very hard pressed to think of a good historical analogy," Richard Baker, the Senate historian, said."I don't think there is one."

• Court Nominee Supported Minority Program for State Bar When Harriet E. Miers, President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, was moving toward the presidency of the State Bar of Texas in 1992, she enthusiastically supported an effort by the group to guarantee positions on its board of directors to female and minority lawyers.

• Court Nominee Backed Anti- Abortion Amendment in 1989 President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, Harriet E. Miers, pledged support in 1989 for a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions except when necessary to save the life of the woman.

• Miers's Favorite Supreme Court Justice Was ... ? This much is clear: One of the former Supreme Court justices most admired by nominee Harriet Miers is Warren E. Burger. But just how quickly Miers recalled his full name and whether she ever referred to him simply as"Warren" is now a matter of dispute.

• An Hruska Moment in the Debate Over Harriet Miers? Harriet Miers's defenders have said she does not have to be a constitutional scholar to sit on the court, a sentiment that Dan Coats, the former Republican senator who has been asked by the White House to shepherd Ms. Miers through the Senate confirmation process, reiterated Friday, his first full day on the job.

• Experience needed? The long history of nonjudge justices John Marshall is widely revered as"the great Chief Justice," but before joining the Supreme Court in 1801 he had never served a day in judicial robes and lost the only case he argued at the high court.

• Miers Brought Gloria Steinem to School FOR SOMEONE BOTH HERALDED AND FEARED as a potentially conservative voice on the U.S. Supreme Court, President Bush's nominee, Harriet E. Miers, has played a key role in exposing college students to some unmistakably liberal ideas. In the late 1990s, she helped create a lecture series in women's studies at Southern Methodist University whose inaugural speaker was Gloria Steinem.

• In Midcareer, a Turn to Faith to Fill a Void for Miers By 1979, Harriet E. Miers, then in her mid-30's, had accomplished what some people take a lifetime to achieve. She was a partner at Locke Purnell Boren Laney & Neely, one of the most prestigious law firms in the South, with an office on the 35th floor of the Republic National Bank Tower in downtown Dallas. But she still felt something was missing in her life.

• Miers Gave to GOP Candidates, Democrats Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers gave $1,000 to Democrat Al Gore's unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988 _ and 12 years later contributed to the effort to end Gore's chance of winning the White House.

• History shows that dozens of justices never served as judges The liberal Chief Justice Earl Warren is today regarded as a towering figure in the law. Yet before President Dwight D. Eisenhower named him chief, Warren hadn't spent a day as a judge. In fact, a host of big names on the court got their courtroom start on the highest court in the land. They include the trailblazing John Marshall, Byron White — nominated by President John F. Kennedy — Harlan Fiske Stone, William O. Douglas and Louis Brandeis.

• Miers Was Leader in Effort Within Bar to Rescind Support for Abortion Abortion rights activists were prepared for a climactic struggle over the successor to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a critical swing vote on the constitutional right to abortion. But the choice of Harriet E. Miers presented them with a very different challenge - not a clear-cut opponent of abortion, but someone with very little record on the issue at all. Most of their attention was focused Monday on what public record existed on the issue: Ms. Miers's leadership, as president of the State Bar of Texas from 1992 to 1993, in an effort to roll back the American Bar Association's support for abortion rights.

• If Approved, a First-Time Judge, Yes, but Hardly the First in Court's History In the last 30 years, almost all justices had served on United States Courts of Appeals, presumably because that gave the presidents who appointed them a way to assess how they might decide. But in the history of the court, drawing on the pool of appeals judges is a relatively recent trend. Of the 109 people who have been on the Supreme Court, 41 had no previous judicial experience, according to the"Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court," published by Congressional Quarterly.

• Wa Po Profile Harriet Ellan Miers was born in Dallas on Aug. 10, 1945. Miers received her bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1967 and JD in 1970 from Southern Methodist University. Upon graduation, she clerked for U.S. District Judge Joe E. Estes from 1970 to 1972. In 1972, Miers became the first woman hired at Dallas's Locke Purnell Boren Laney & Neely. In March 1996, her colleagues elected her the first woman president of Locke, Purnell, Rain & Harrell, at that time a firm of about 200 lawyers. She became the first woman to lead a Texas firm of that size.

• NYT Profile The parallels to the woman she would replace are apparent. Both were born in Texas. Both graduated at the top of their law school class, and yet had trouble finding jobs. Both served in elective office, Justice O'Connor in the Arizona State Senate and Ms. Miers a single two-year term on the Dallas City Council, but neither had been a federal judge. Both have now made history - beyond their wildest early dreams."I really came out of high school believing I wasn't bright enough to be a doctor," Ms. Miers told The Dallas Morning News in 1991."Career days at high school, you just got no encouragement."