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On the first Monday in October, the US Supreme Court began its 2005-06 term under newly installed Chief Justice John Roberts. Selected by President Bush to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (see The Guide, September 2005), Roberts was designated chief justice after William Rehnquist, who had occupied that post for 18 years, died of cancer on September 3.

The President had then been expected to name Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to succeed O'Connor, a critical swing vote who remains on the high court pending confirmation of her successor. Instead Bush nominated White House counsel Harriet Ellan Miers, 60, his longtime advisor, confidante, and personal lawyer. Miers has never been a judge and has no background in constitutional law, but is indefatigably loyal to George W. Bush.

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The cronyism that animates the Bush Administration is an obvious factor in the Miers nomination; another is the lack of records linking her to any unequivocal ideological stance. In the face of plummeting opinion polls, President Bush is determined to not to make waves. Almost no written evidence exists articulating Miers's biases on same-sex marriage, abortion, or other social issues. The President has insured a paucity of information regarding Miers's views by withholding records of her recent work, citing a need "to guard executive privilege in order for there to be crisp decision-making in the White House."

Miers's resumé, is slanted toward a corporate boardroom seat, not a place on America's highest court. After obtaining a JD from Southern Methodist University, she joined the Dallas law firm now known as Locke Lidell & Sapp in 1972. Gaining recognition as an aggressive defender of business interests, she represented Disney and Microsoft. Bush once described her as "a pit bull in size six shoes."

A former Democrat who was raised Catholic, Miers embraced evangelical Protestantism in 1979.

Her conversion was influenced by a romantic attachment to born-again attorney Nathan Hecht. Baptized as an adult, she began attending Valley View Christian Church in Dallas.

The first woman to be elected president of the Texas State Bar, she served on the Dallas City Council from 1989 to '91. She chaired the Texas State Lottery Commission from 1995 to 2000, when she followed her friend George to Washington, DC. Her association with Bush began in 1993, when she represented him in a squabble over ownership of a fishing shack.

Hates the sin

Shortly after her Supreme Court nomination was announced, Miers was accused of ties to the ex-gay movement Exodus International. In fact, she has been involved in the unrelated Exodus Ministries, an evangelical outreach to former prisoners.

A survey retrieved from storage by Dallas lesbian activist Louise Young suggests that Miers supports the rights of gay Americans who don't have sex. Responding to a questionnaire while campaigning for her at-large city council seat, she said she thought gay citizens merited the same civil rights as everyone else, but that she favored retaining the Texas statute criminalizing "homosexual conduct"-- i.e., the sodomy law the Supreme Court later voided in its historic 2003 Lawrence v. Texas ruling. The questionnaire appears to be the only extant record of Miers's take on GLBT issues.

President Bush has disavowed any knowledge of her position on abortion, but other associates readily say she opposes the practice.

She travels in anti-abortion circles, has attended pro-life fundraisers, and belongs to a church whose congregation equates abortion with murder. While president of the Texas Bar, she led efforts to neutralize the American Bar Association's official support for reproductive rights as decided in Roe v. Wade.

"I know she is pro-life," her friend and former colleague Nathan Hecht told the Washington Post. Hecht, a hard-line conservative now on the Texas Supreme Court, recalls Miers stating that life begins at conception, and that abortion is "taking a life."

Right-wing in Splitsville

Her reception from the Right has been mixed, however. Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian Coalition spinoff, calls her an "excellent choice." Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have supplied ringing endorsements. James Dobson, the passionately homophobic head of Focus on the Family, insists that evangelicals can count on this nominee, hinting darkly that he holds privileged information about Miers, apparently gleaned from presidential advisor Karl Rove.

But William Kristol of the neocon Weekly Standard, which had supported Roberts's nomination, said the prospect of a Justice Miers left him "disappointed, distressed, and demoralized." Bush once pledged to install more judges in the archconservative mold of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. Many conservatives had hoped for a credentialed right-wing activist clearly bent on overturning Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas, and other legal milestones they abhor.

If confirmed, Miers would hardly be the first Supreme Court Justice not to have had prior judicial experience. But she would be one of most tepidly qualified Supreme Court Justices in US history, adding to the Bush Administration's legacy of sheer mediocrity. As The Guide goes to press, the US Senate Judiciary Committee has set no date for her confirmation hearing.