Harriet Miers Supreme Court Nomination - An Epiphany

It turns out most of us have been chasing a false trail.



Here is actual new information about the Miers nomination in the Houston Chronicle. Business leaders are backing her because they think she'll be good for tort reform. Obvious implications: 1) This makes her a much stronger nominee from a capitalist point of view 2) Look out for the ABA to attempt an assassination, either in the bar evaluation or in the Senate.



Professor Reynolds of Instapundit fame, on the other hand, has an Op-Ed article which makes an excellent point about the aftereffects of promoting a White House Counsel to the Supreme Court.



Kudlow's Money Politic$ has more, as does Conglomerate, Investors.com, FindLaw (and another, here's a link to an ATRA annual meeting, a personal injury lawyer who for some reason doesn't like tort reform, Business Week likes her because they figure she'll grant cert to more business cases, even the Washington Post gets into the act, here's a SF Chronicle article on Miers and Marvin Belli, which tells us she knows the other side as well, Washington Times writes about the political and business perils of tort and tort reform, ATRA has endorsed her, NRO doesn't care, here's an op-ed in the Los Angeles rag about her, Evan Schaeffer's Legal Underground has some good perspective.



This morning's reads were something of an Epiphany for me on the subject of the Miers nomination. It's not about Roe vs. Wade, or any other constitutional issues. It's about the legal climate for business. And on that front, I believe Professor Reynolds is right in that promoting a White House Counsel is a bad thing to do, but she becomes a much stronger pick on all other fronts. From this point of view, I don't have to trust the President - I can see her paper trail on the issues, and I have become a much stronger Miers supporter.



As I said also, look for some serious efforts to derail her nomination from the Trial Lawyers, whether by forte main or by stealth.