Texas Ad Hoc Coalition on Judicial Nominees
P.O. Box 684602, Austin, Texas 78768Honorable Patrick LeahyJuly 9, 2002
Chairman, United States Senate Judiciary Committee
Washington, DC 20510Dear Senator Leahy:
We, the undersigned Texas organizations, are writing to express grave concerns about the nomination of Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. We believe that Justice Owen’s record of conservative judicial activism on the Texas Supreme Court makes her an inappropriate candidate for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.
In seven years on the Texas Supreme Court, Justice Owen has proven herself to be an conservative whose opinions not only stray well beyond the American mainstream but even run far to the right of the conservative majority of her own court. With the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court being near the ideological center in 1998, Justice Owen and Nathan Hecht have presented themselves as an isolated bloc of ultra-conservative dissenters. Justice Owen’s dissents, often sharply criticized by her fellow jurists, came nearly twice as often as the average of all the court’s remaining justices.
Justice Owen’s activism betrays a judicial philosophy at odds with President Bush’s stated goal of nominating judges who will interpret rather than write the law. Even White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales leveled sharp rebukes of Owen’s result-oriented activism when he served with her on Texas’ High Court.
Justice Owen’s rulings are all the more troubling given that they often favor the interests of corporate Texas or government at the expense of ordinary Texans. Justice Owen’s opinions are outside the mainstream of Texas jurisprudence in the areas of discrimination and employee rights, reproductive rights, sexual harassment, public information rights, environmental protection and consumer and citizen rights.
The U.S. Senate has the Constitutional responsibility to carefully review each judicial nominee. We believe that on careful examination, Justice Owen is an inappropriate nominee for this important lifetime position in the federal courts. We urge you to oppose Owen’s nomination and support the confirmation of a moderate nominee who will not roll back our rights.
Sincerely,
American Association of University Women of Texas
P.O. Box 141473
Austin, TX 78714Gray Panthers of Texas
3710 Cedar Street
Austin, TX 78705National Council of Jewish Women, Texas
6102 Queensloch
Houston, TX 77096National Organization for Women, Texas
5911 Shoal Creek Blvd.
Austin, TX 78757Planned Parenthood of San Antonio & South Central Texas
104 Babcock Road
San Antonio, TX 78201Planned Parenthood of the Texas Capital Region
707 Rio Grande Street
Austin, Texas 78701Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
P.O. Box 3934
Austin, TX 78764-3934Texas Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (TARAL)
905 W. Oltorf St.
Austin, TX 78704Texas AFL-CIO
1106 Lavaca
Austin, TX 78701Texas Civil Rights Project
2212 E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Austin, TX 78702Texas State Conference of NAACP Branches
316 W. 12th Street, Suite 307
Austin, TX 78701Texans for Public Justice
609 W. 18th Street, Suite E
Austin, TX 78701Texas Watch
1300 Guadalupe, Suite 108
Austin, TX 78701Women's Health and Family Planning Association of Texas (WHFPT)
P.O. Box 3868
Austin, TX 78764