Everything about Harriet Miers totally explained
Harriet Ellan Miers (born
August 10,
1945) is an
American lawyer, and former
White House Counsel. On
January 4,
2007, she submitted her resignation from the position of
White House Counsel, effective January 31.
President
George W. Bush nominated her on
October 3,
2005 for
Associate Justice of the
U.S. Supreme Court to replace Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor. The nomination was met with opposition from both sides of the political spectrum, and on
October 27, President Bush withdrew her nomination, saying Miers had asked him to do so.
Early life and education
Miers was born in
Dallas, Texas, and spent most of her life there until 2001, when she moved to
Washington, D.C. to work in the
Bush administration. She describes herself as a "Texan through and through." The fourth of five children, she's the daughter of real estate investor Harris Wood Miers, Sr., and his wife, the former Erma (Sally) Grace Richardson.
Miers entered
Southern Methodist University intending to become a teacher. The economic plight of her family was so dire that she almost dropped out in her freshman year, but she was able to find part-time work that put her through college. Then her father had a debilitating
stroke. When a lawyer helped organize her family's financial situation, Miers was inspired to enter law school . Miers graduated from Southern Methodist University with a
bachelor's degree in mathematics (1967) and from its
Law School with a
Juris Doctor degree (1970).
Career
In the summer of 1969, between her second and third years of law school, Miers worked as a clerk for Belli, Ashe, Ellison, Choulos & Lieff, the San Francisco law firm founded by "King of Torts", the eccentric attorney,
Melvin Belli. Miers was immersed in tort law. Her supervisor was
Robert Lieff
, then a partner in the Belli firm and later a founder of the nationally prominent plaintiffs' law firm
Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP. In a 2005 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Lieff stated that Miers "saw what we did for people who needed to get a lawyer and were only able to get a lawyer by a contingent fee." .
After graduating from law school, from 1970 to 1972, Miers was a
law clerk for the Chief Judge of the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Joe E. Estes. She was admitted to the bar in Texas 1970, and hasn't been admitted to the Washington DC bar.
In 1979, after she made partner in her law firm, she became an evangelical Christian after having had a series of long discussions with
Nathan Hecht, her close friend and colleague at the firm.
In the late 1990s, while Miers was on the advisory board for Southern Methodist University's law school, she helped create and fund a Women's Studies lecture series named after pioneering Texas lawyer, Louise B. Raggio, who was a mentor to Miers (see
(External Link)).
From 1972 until 2001, Miers worked for the Dallas law firm of
Locke, Liddell & Sapp (and predecessor firms prior to mergers). She was the first female lawyer hired by the firm, and later became its president. When the merger that created Locke, Liddell & Sapp took place in 1999, she became the co-managing partner of a legal business with more than 400 lawyers. In 2000 the firm settled a lawsuit which accused the firm of having "aided a client in defrauding investors" for $22 million; according to the Class Action Reporter, Miers "said the firm
denies liability in connection with its representation of Erxleben.
'Obviously, we evaluated that this was the right time to settle and to
resolve this matter and that it was in the best interest of the firm to
do so,' Miers said."
As a commercial litigator, she represented clients including
Microsoft and the
Walt Disney Company.
In 1986, Miers became the first female president of the Dallas Bar Association. In 1992, Miers became the first woman to head the State Bar of Texas. She has also served as chair of the Board of Editors for the
American Bar Association Journal and as the chair of the ABA's "Commission on Multi-Jurisdictional Practice".
In 1989, Miers was elected to a two-year term as an at-large member of the Dallas City Council. She didn't run for reelection in 1991 after a restructure of the city council converted Miers' at-large seat, elected by voters citywide, into a single-district seat.
Miers met
George W. Bush in January 1989 at an Austin dinner, an annual affair held for legislators and other important people.
Nathan Hecht, a mutual friend and Miers' date, made the introduction. Miers subsequently worked as general counsel for Bush's transition team in 1994, when he was first elected
Governor of Texas. She subsequently became Bush's personal lawyer, and worked as a lawyer in his
2000 presidential campaign.
While head of the State Bar of Texas, Miers joined an unsuccessful effort to have the
American Bar Association maintain its then-official position of neutrality on abortion. The ABA had adopted abortion neutrality at its 1990 annual meeting in Chicago. By the summer of 1994, at its annual meeting in San Francisco, the issue was again pending before the ABA assembly. Miers, who hadn't been involved in the Chicago meeting, supported ABA abortion neutrality in San Francisco on two grounds. First, the State Bar of Texas was statutorily prohibited from taking positions on political issues. Second, Texas had made bar membership an attorney licensure requirement, thus forcing all Texas attorneys to support financially the ABA's position, regardless of their personal convictions. ABA neutrality on abortion was defeated at the San Francisco meeting. The association has remained supportive of the
pro-choice position ever since.
Since September 1994, Miers has contributed to the campaigns of various Republicans (at about the same time she began to work for George W. Bush), including
Kay Bailey Hutchinson,
Phil Gramm, and
Pete Sessions, with recorded contributions to Republican candidates and causes totaling nearly $12,000. Her earlier political history shows support for the
Democrats during the 1980s, with recorded contributions to Democratic candidates and causes, including the
Democratic National Committee, the Senate campaign of
Lloyd Bentsen and the
1988 presidential campaign of
Al Gore, totaling $3,000. Her last recorded contribution to a Democratic cause or campaign was in 1988.
Ed Gillespie said that she was a "conservative Democrat" at the time.
Personal life
Miers' mother and two of her brothers still live in Dallas; a third brother lives in
Houston, Texas. She also had a sister, Kitty, who is deceased. Miers never married and has no children.
She is a close friend of
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former
Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman.
Texas Supreme Court Justice
Nathan Hecht has known her for over 25 years. After her nomination to the Supreme Court, Hecht was cited as an unofficial spokesperson representing her views.
Government service
Prior to assuming the position of
White House Counsel, Miers had served as White House
staff secretary, and
Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. Before joining the Bush administration, Miers was a lawyer in private practice for 27 years, handling business cases, and acting as then-Governor Bush's personal lawyer. She served as the first female president of both the
Dallas Bar Association and later the
State Bar of Texas, and also served one term on the Dallas City Council.
In 1995, George W. Bush, then Texas governor, appointed Miers to chair the
Texas Lottery Commission. Some have credited Miers with reforming the commission after a previous corruption scandal .
Her tenure has also been criticized, however. In 1997, the commission under Miers hired Lawrence Littwin as executive director, but then fired him five months later. At the time, the contract to operate the lottery was held by the politically connected
GTech Corporation (see
(External Link)), which had obtained the contract with the help of a former
Lieutenant Governor of Texas (
Democrat Ben Barnes) . Littwin, as director, began an investigation into whether GTech had made illegal campaign contributions and whether GTech owed the commission millions of dollars for breaches of its contract. He stated that Miers ordered him to stop the investigation. He brought a lawsuit alleging that he was fired in retaliation for the investigation and to ensure that GTech would keep its contract (see
(External Link)).
According to Texans for Public Justice, GTech paid Littwin $300,000 to settle the suit (see
(External Link)).
Miers resigned from the lottery commission in early 2000, a year before her term ended. She said her resignation had nothing to do with lagging sales in the system's biggest game,
Lotto Texas, but rather that she wanted to allow her successor time to prepare for rebidding the lottery's primary operator contract.
There was some speculation during Bush's 2000 campaign that Bush would appoint Miers to the position of Attorney General. This was seen as possible with her trusted role as Bush's personal attorney, her many appointments during his tenure as governor. This also recalled
William French Smith who was Ronald Reagan's personal attorney before being named Attorney General. Miers wasn't chosen and John Ashcroft became Attorney General instead.
In January 2001, Miers did follow Bush to
Washington, D.C., serving as Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary during the first two years of his presidency. In that role, she opposed the administration's 2001 decision to stop cooperating with the ABA
rating of judicial nominees. In 2003, she was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. In November 2004, Bush named her to succeed
Alberto Gonzales, his nominee for
Attorney General, to the post of White House Counsel, the chief legal adviser for the
Office of the President.
Miers is said to be one of Bush's closest personal friends, and appears given to effusive praise for the President. According to former Bush speechwriter
David Frum, Miers has called Bush the most brilliant man she'd ever met and says he was the "best Governor ever" (see
(External Link)). She also stated that "serving President Bush and Mrs. Bush is an impossible-to-describe privilege" and noted that Bush's personal qualities "make a brighter future for our nation and people all around the world possible." (see
(External Link)).
Miers' last public speech before her nomination was given to the
North Dallas Chamber of Commerce on
June 2,
2005.
Supreme Court nomination and withdrawal
On
July 1,
2005, Supreme Court Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor announced her intention to retire upon the confirmation of a successor. Bush appointed Miers as head of the search committee for candidates to replace O'Connor. On
July 19,
2005, Bush announced
John G. Roberts, Jr. as O'Connor's replacement. After
William H. Rehnquist died of
thyroid cancer on
September 3, Bush withdrew this nomination and renominated Roberts for
Chief Justice of the United States. The Senate confirmed the nomination on
September 29.
Meanwhile, then-
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (
D-
Nevada),
recommended Miers as O'Connor's successor.
Bush took the recommendation seriously, factoring into account suggestions by several senators that the nominee should come from outside the
appellate court system. This caused several commentators to draw parallels with the 2000 election, when
Dick Cheney, the head of Bush's vice-presidential search committee, was ultimately selected as the running mate.
On
October 3,
2005, Bush nominated Miers to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Miers' nomination was criticized from people all over the political spectrum, based on her never having served as a judge, her perceived lack of intellectual rigor, her close personal ties to Bush, and her lack of a clear record on issues likely to be encountered as a Supreme Court Justice. Many notable conservatives vigorously criticized her nomination, and numerous conservative groups normally considered part of Bush's political base planned to mount an organized opposition campaign. Summing up the complaints from all sides that her appointment was an exercise in
cronyism, social satirist
Calvin Trillin wrote:
Who's willing to draw water for George Bush and carry it?
Harriet.
Who worked to take his DWI rap and bury it?
Harriet.
Who thinks that anyone critical of him is Judas Iscariot?
Still Harriet.
Rah! Rah! Rah!
Early one-on-one meetings between Miers and the members of the
Senate Judiciary Committee were said to have gone poorly, and the White House considered suspending them to focus on preparation for the confirmation hearings. In an unprecedented move,
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Arlen Specter and ranking Senator
Patrick Leahy also requested that Miers re-do some of her answers to the questionnaire submitted to her by the Committee, noting that her responses were "inadequate," "insufficient," and "insulting" because she failed or refused to adequately answer various questions with acceptable accuracy or with sufficient detail. Her answers also included an error on constitutional law where she mentioned a constitutional right for proportional representation which the Supreme Court had previously ruled didn't exist.
In addition to the demand for new questionnaire responses, the Committee repeated its request to review internal White House documents that would illustrate her experience as White House Counsel and the constitutional issues she worked on.
Senator
Charles Schumer (D-NY) stated shortly afterwards that "I think, if you were to hold the vote today, she wouldn't get a majority, either in the Judiciary Committee or on the floor." However, Specter, the committee chairman rejected the notion that Miers' nomination was shaky. He said that most senators were waiting for the hearings before making up their mind. "There are no votes one way or another," he said on CBS'
Face the Nation. On
October 19,
2005, Specter and Leahy announced their intent to begin confirmation hearings for Miers on
November 7,
2005.
On
October 27,
2005, the
White House announced that Harriet Miers had asked President Bush to withdraw her nomination, citing fears that the nomination would create a "burden for the White House and its staff and it isn't in the best interest of the country." President Bush stated that the Senate's interest in internal White House documents "would undermine a president's ability to receive candid counsel," and he'd "reluctantly accepted" her request. Miers was the first Supreme Court nominee to withdraw since
Douglas H. Ginsburg in 1987, and the seventh to do so in U.S. history.
Although many in Washington and in the media expressed surprise at Miers' decision to withdraw, the move was widely anticipated. Some commentators suggested the White House's staunch refusal to release documents relating to Miers' White House service provided a pretext for withdrawal.
Bush nominated
Samuel Alito for the seat on
October 31,
2005 and he was confirmed on
January 31,
2006. Miers remained as
White House Counsel for another year, until announcing her resignation on
January 4,
2007.
Resignation and departure from the White House
Joshua B. Bolten, upon becoming G.W. Bush's chief of staff in April of 2006, pressed for Ms. Miers' resignation, but the idea was rejected by President Bush. After the 2006 elections, when Democrats won a majority of both houses of Congress, Mr. Bolten asked again for her departure, arguing that the president needed an aggressive lawyer and increased staff for the Office of Legal Counsel to fend off congressional inquiries and subpoenas. The second effort succeeded, and Ms. Miers announced her resignation
January 4,
2007, and left
January 31,
2007. In April 2007, Ms. Miers rejoined her previous firm, Locke Liddell & Sapp and became a partner in its litigation and public policy group. She maintains offices in Austin, Dallas and Washington, D.C. The firm is now known as
Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell LLP.
Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy
Kyle Sampson, chief of staff to
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, wrote in January 2006 to White House counsel Harriet Miers that he recommended that the Department of Justice and the Office of the Counsel to the President work together to seek the replacement of a limited number of U.S. Attorneys, and that by limiting the number of attorneys "targeted for removal and replacement" it would "mitigat[e] the shock to the system that would result from an across-the-board firing."
In March 2007 the White House had originally suggested that the plan came from Miers who had already left the White House in January 2007, before the dismissal received public attention.
The firings have led to Congressional investigations regarding the
dismissals.
On
June 13,
2007 The Senate and House judiciary committees issued subpoenas to
Harriet E. Miers, former White House counsel, and
Sara M. Taylor, former deputy assistant to President Bush and the White House director of political affairs to production of documents and appear before the committees to testify about what role, if any, both may have had in the U.S. Attorney firings controversy. Miers was requested to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on
July 11,
2007. The White House reiterated its longstanding demand that no past or present White House officials would be permitted to testify under oath before the panels, and that private interviews, not under oath, and without transcripts would be permitted. The Chairs of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees reiterated that the White House terms were unacceptable.
Ranking member of the Senate Judiciary committee,
Spector (R-PA) said that the committee had “really had no response from the White House” regarding possible testimony on the firing of several U.S. attorneys, and that that had prompted the subpoena to compel a response. Miers refused to appear before Congress because Bush ordered her not to.
On Wednesday, July 25, 2007, the
House Judiciary Committee voted 22-17 to cite Miers for
contempt of Congress for her failure to appear before the committee in response to its subpoena.
(External Link) On Feb. 14, 2008, the full House of Representatives voted to cite her for contempt by a vote of 223-32. Many Republicans walked out of the chamber in protest, deriding the priorities of the speaker in calling the vote, as opposed to a vote on a surveillance bill.
(External Link)
Awards and honors
Timeline
- August 10, 1945: Harriet Miers born in Dallas, Texas.
- 1967: Miers graduates from Southern Methodist University with a bachelor's degree in mathematics
- Summer 1969: Miers works for the firm of Belli, Ashe, Ellison, Choulos & Lieff
- 1970: Miers graduates from Southern Methodist University School of Law with a law degree
- 1970-1972: Miers works as a law clerk for Joe E. Estes, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas
- 1972: Miers begins working in private practice for the Dallas firm of Locke, Liddell & Sapp and predecessor firms prior to mergers.
- 1986: Miers becomes the first female president of the Dallas Bar Association
- January, 1989: Miers meets George W. Bush.
- 1989-1991: Miers elected an at-large member on the Dallas City Council; didn't run for reelection.
- 1992: Miers becomes the first female head of the State Bar of Texas.
- 1994: Miers works as general counsel for Bush's transition team when Bush becomes governor of Texas.
- 1995: She becomes Bush's personal lawyer.
- 1995: Texas governor George W. Bush appoints Miers to chair the Texas Lottery Commission.
- 2000: Miers resigns from the Texas Lottery Commission, a year before her term ended.
- 2000: Locke, Liddell & Sapp settle a lawsuit asserting that "it aided a client in defrauding investors" for $22 million.
- 2000: Miers as a lawyer in his 2000 presidential campaign.
- 2001-2003 Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary
- 2003: Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy
- 2004: White House Counsel, the chief legal adviser for the Office of the President.
- 2005: Nominated to Supreme Court.
- October 27, 2005: Supreme Court nomination withdrawn.
- January 4, 2007: Announced resignation as White House Legal Counsel.
- January 31, 2007: Effective date of resignation and departure from the White House.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Harriet Miers'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://harriet_miers.totallyexplained.com">Harriet Miers Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
