I just sent the following to Arlen Specter via email and snail mail. If any of you live in PA or other states that have Senators on the
Judiciary Committe, I urge you to send similar requests. (NY and DE kossacks, I'm looking in your direction- contact Schumer and Biden. VT, MA, WI, IL, and CA kossacks, your wonderful Democratic Senators also sit on the committee.)
Letter below the fold:
Dear Senator Specter,
I'm writing to you because you're my Senator and because of your chairmanship of the Senate Judicial Committee. I am very concerned with President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
First of all, most members of the legal community have been saying that this nomination (in comparison with Chief Justice Roberts' nomination) is underwhelming. It seems that the nominee's only qualifications are that she is an experienced lawyer and is very close to President Bush. The former is shared by thousands of others in the country and the latter is irrelevant. Long after President bush has completed his second term his appointments to the Supreme Court will still be handing down landmark rulings. Harriet Miers is not up to that task.
Most troubling is her relationship with the President. A pivotal moment in the development of the Watergate case happened when the Supreme Court ruled that Nixon had to release his personal tapes for investigation. How would this have turned out if Nixon's personal attorney and good friend was on the court?
During your questioning of the nominee be sure to ask her whether or not she would recuse herself from cases involving President Bush or members of his administration if they appear before the Supreme Court.
I would appreciate a response as to whether you will take this line of questioning to the nominee.
Sincerely,
Neil B__
Pittsburgh, PA
Take Action
Write to your Senator with a similar request (feel free to copy my language, but you can probably phrase it better yourself). Check the link above to see if your senator is on the Judiciary Committee