NYT: Ruling Is Due for Justice Who Lobbied for Bush Pick (Miers)

[kskiska]

HOUSTON, Oct. 18 — A year after the Bush administration enlisted a Texas Supreme Court justice in its unsuccessful bid to put Harriet E. Miers on the United States Supreme Court, a special state court is to announce Friday whether the judge was guilty of “willful and persistent” violations of judicial ethics for his role in that effort.

The justice, Nathan L. Hecht, 57, the longest-serving member of the Texas high court and a friend of Ms. Miers for 30 years, testified before the State Commission on Judicial Conduct that he had given about 120 interviews to reporters in which he promoted her nomination.

Justice Hecht, a Republican who is running for re-election, also said he had reported back to the White House on questions he was asked about Ms. Miers, President Bush’s longtime counsel.

Justice Hecht was widely portrayed in news reports as Ms. Miers’s “spokesman.” Defending himself before commission members, he said he had been swept up in a “tsunami” of news coverage. “I felt I was drawn kicking and screaming into the process,” he testified.

But under questioning, he acknowledged, “Nobody forced me.”

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/washington/20miers.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1161317193-+OJxhP6uTRYx7mW0Jv0ODQ

[MADem]

1. Wow, what a shock, the White House throws a guy under a bus

But this is an important story that deserves a kick and a nom:

In testimony to the Special Court of Review in August, Justice Hecht traced the start of his involvement in Ms. Miers’s nomination to a call from President Bush’s senior adviser, Karl Rove, on Oct. 1, 2005, two days before Mr. Bush announced his choice to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Justice Hecht told the court that Mr. Rove had asked him to talk to callers about Ms. Miers’s “faith, about her religious background,” and that the group included James C. Dobson, a conservative leader and founder of Focus on the Family.

Justice Hecht said he also answered news media queries, which he said were so numerous that he was asked to report back to a White House aide on the nature of the questions.

He conceded to the court that he told one reporter, “I’m a P.R. office for the White House,” but he later called that a joke.