Extreme?

Four years late, Priscilla Owen waits for a vote.

Date published: 5/11/2005

By now White

JUDICIARY. FILIBUSTER. Nuclear option. Those are fighting words in the ongoing battle over President Bush's appeals- court appointments. Maybe a face would better define the struggle.

Mr. Bush on May 9, 2001, nominated Priscilla Owen, a justice on the Texas Supreme Court, to serve on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Note the date: Four years ago. Since then her nomination has stalled. Approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, rated "unanimously well qualified" by the ABA, Justice Owen nonetheless can't get an up-or-down vote by the full Senate because Democrats have filibustered her ascension.

Why? Liberal activists have railed against Justice Owen, calling her "unqualified." In fact, she's anything but. Attending law school in the mid-'70s when few women did, she graduated near the top of her class and received the highest grade on her bar exam. After practicing privately, Ms. Owen handily won election to the Texas Supreme Court in 1994, and got the endorsement of every major newspaper in the state when she ran for re-election.

Justice Owen is conservative. "She tries to follow the legislative will in every case and apply the law, not invent it," wrote the Houston Chronicle in 2001. While liberal groups claim that her former fellow jurist, Alberto Gonzales, now White House counsel, once accused her of "an unconscionable act of judicial activism" in an abortion case, Mr. Gonzales has testified under oath otherwise.

Does a conservative president have a right to install judges of his own persuasion? Apparently some senators think judges must be left wing--or left standing.

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Date published: 5/11/2005