The conservative case against Alberto Gonzales by Ken Herman, Cox News Service
The conservative case against Gonzales is based on his Texas Supreme Court record and comments he has made. The topics include a menu of conservative hot-button issues, including abortion, property rights, judicial activism and affirmative action.
On those topics, Gonzales has cast votes and said things that are cause for concern among some conservatives who have long waited for the day when one of their own could replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the court’s most pivotal swing vote in many cases. …
In addition to Gonzales’ decisions while a Bush appointee on the Texas Supreme Court, Weyrich is troubled by something he heard from Gonzales at a meeting of conservatives.
A questioner asked Gonzales to choose between two legal concepts: “stare decisis” and original intent.
Stare decisis means “to stand by things decided,” and, to some, is a code word for judicial activism. In the legal world, “original intent” means looking to the framers’ original intent as the basis for rulings. It can be a code word similar to “strict constructionist.”
Weyrich said Gonzales came down on the side of stare decisis, fighting words for good conservatives.
“That’s very troubling to somebody who feels as I do that the Supreme Court has bent the Constitution way out of whack,” Weyrich said.
Some conservatives also find cause for concern in Gonzales’ handling of cases while on the Texas Supreme Court and his comment that he benefited from affirmative action.
Conservative concern about Gonzales’ feelings on abortion arise from a February 2000 Texas Supreme Court case in which Gonzales sided with a majority in granting latitude for a teen seeking judicial approval to bypass a state law, signed by then-Gov. Bush, requiring parental notification prior to an abortion. …
Opinions followed in June 2000, evidencing a nasty 6-3 split, with the majority – including Gonzales – ruling that the legislature meant for it to be fairly easy for a teen to get judicial approval for an abortion without parental notification.
Gonzales, in a concurring opinion, said narrow interpretation of the bypass provision “would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism.”
“While the ramifications of such a law and the results of the court’s decision here may be personally troubling to me as a parent, it is my obligation as a judge to impartially apply the laws of this state without imposing my moral view on the decisions of the legislature,” Gonzales wrote.
Then-Justice Priscilla Owen, now a Bush appointee on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote that the majority “manufactured reasons to justify its action.”
In 2001, as Gonzales was floated as a possible Supreme Court justice, Terence P. Jeffrey, editor of the conservative publication Human Events and former presidential campaign manager for Pat Buchanan, blasted Gonzales’ role in the abortion case.
“In the process of approving Baby Doe’s abortion, Gonzales demonstrated that he is a judicial activist of the worst sort,” Jeffrey wrote, adding that putting Gonzales on the Supreme Court “would be an uncharacteristic blunder [mjh: snicker] for Bush, and could permanently mar his presidency.”
Another Texas Supreme Court case has left some conservatives concerned about Gonzales’ loyalty to the concept of private property, a key tenet of modern conservatism in its battle against big government. …
In another 2000 case, Gonzales also was in the majority in siding with a governmental entity in a battle with private citizens. …
Overall, according to a report by Austin-based Texas Watch, a non-profit watchdog group, Gonzales’ votes on the state Supreme Court “positioned himself in the middle of the court and as a swing voter in an overall conservative court.”
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High court politics split right, Latinos By Dan Balz, Washington Post
[A] fierce battle has erupted over Gonzales, the former White House counsel and Texas Supreme Court justice. It pits the ideological priorities of social and religious conservatives, who think Gonzales is insufficiently opposed to abortion, against the aspiration of the Latino community to see the first Hispanic named to the high court.
Bush has skillfully balanced his appeals to both groups throughout his career as an elected official, but he faces the prospect of disappointing one side, with potentially serious repercussions for his party.
Nothing prevents Bush from trying to skirt the conflict by naming another Latino who would be more acceptable to the right than Gonzales, such as Emilio Garza, a judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But the uproar over Gonzales, longtime friend and confidant of the president, has heightened the political stakes of Bush’s decision and has alarmed some senior GOP strategists. …
Republicans offered differing views about what Bush’s choice may do to his coalition. Sean Rushton, executive director of the Committee for Justice, a group formed to support Bush judicial nominations, questioned whether a conservative nominee would alienate moderates. “That’s nonsense,” he said. “The worst thing the president could do for his party’s 2006 election hopes — and especially for Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania — is to go with a nominee who is seen as less principled by conservatives. That would completely dry up the funding. That would completely dry up the enthusiasm.”
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Texas Hispanics drawing support for court seat
Factions line up for two Texas Hispanics
By MICHAEL HEDGES
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
[Federal appeals Judge Emilio] Garza, of San Antonio, tops the list of acceptable Hispanic nominees for right-wing activists in part because of what they view as his like-minded approach to legal issues involving religion and abortion. …
[L]egal experts have already combed through the written opinions and public statements of Gonzales and Garza. The consensus: Garza comes across as a hard-line conservative on issues like abortion and the intersection of government and religion. Gonzales appears more flexible on those issues, though still firmly in the conservative camp.