Controversial Nominee Owen Confirmed by Senate
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 5/25/2005
The Senate today confirmed (56 to 43) controversial judicial nominee Priscilla Owen to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.Owen had been previously rejected by the Senate, but was later renominated by the Bush administration. A last minute bipartisan deal rejecting the so-called "nuclear option" earlier in the week moved her nomination one step further toward confirmation.
Many civil rights groups, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), had opposed Owen's confirmation because of her "activist and extreme views on important civil rights, worker's rights, consumer's rights, and women's rights issues."
"Time and again, as a Justice on the Texas Supreme Court, Owen has demonstrated that she is a judicial activist with a disturbing willingness to effectively rewrite or disregard the law in order to achieve a particular result," LCCR wrote in a letter opposing her confirmation, citing as one example among many a case where Owen argued in dissent for the change to a key Texas civil rights law that would make it much more difficult for employees to prove a violation of their rights.
Reacting to the confirmation, LCCR Executive Director Wade Henderson said, "Priscilla Owen's record is one of protecting big business over the rights of individuals, consumers, and employees. Her confirmation is a disappointment. Even her own, very conservative Texas colleagues agree she is often outside the mainstream. Her confirmation proves that the White House not only supports, but actively embraces, activist judges as long as they are radical right activist judges."
Sen. Bill Frist, R. Tenn., had been expected to invoke what has come to be known as the "nuclear option" over Owen's nomination, calling for a change in Senate rules in order to eliminate senators' ability to filibuster controversial judicial nominees.
The deal reached by senators took the nuclear option off the table, but allowed some of President Bush's most extreme judicial nominees--including Owen--to move forward.
