The Unconsionable Judicial Activism of Priscilla R. Owen

The Texas woman judge, Priscilla R. Owen ... whose nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals provides the current pretext for the "nuclear option" .... We've been hearing what Alberto Gonzales wrote about her, while they were on the Texas High Court together. Saw the context today in the WashPost.

There was this case, involving an unidentified 17-year-old girl, Jane Doe, who sought an exception to a Texas law requiring minors to notify their parents or guardians before undergoing an abortion. The law provided several ways to bypass the requirement, including a showing that the minor was "mature and sufficiently well informed" to make the decision herself. The Texas high court ruled 6 to 3 in favor of Doe, with Gonzales in the majority and Owen among the dissenters. Gonzales wrote his own concurring opinion, in which he defended the court's ruling and attacked Owen's minority view:

"Thus, to construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism."

Now that he's a high-caste official for El Presidente, Gonzales is having to eat those words.

They were wise words then, and they still are. The Religious Right is all about judicial activism. But not just "liberal" judicial activism. They're about attacking a largely make-believe "liberal" bugaboo as a cover for trying to slip in the real thing, a religious activism that says America "went wrong" along about 1900, what with women's rights, government aid, corporate control, name the demon of your choice. All such laws are seen as "meddling" with the Constitutional Order.

It's a fundamentalist's world that Bush's crazy judges are wanting to bring to pass, and may the Good Lord protect us all.