Documented Rove-Owen connection shows real reason for pushing * nominees

[Roland99]

http://www.dailykos.com/

by mikepridmore
Fri Apr 29th, 2005 at 11:49:12 PDT


I recently wrote a diary connecting the Texas shenanigans of Tom DeLay and Karl Rove with the current White House effort to push through conservative judges. I posited that the Christian Right is just the cover story with the real agenda being to support big business. (link) Little did I know at the time that there is a documented connection between Rove and Priscilla Owen that proved my case. From the November/December 2003 issue of Mother Jones (link)

From the MotherJones site:

The conflicts this created were on full display in the case of Priscilla Owen, now a Bush nominee to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. When she first decided in the early 1990s that she wanted to run for a spot on the Texas Supreme Court, she called on Ralph Wayne, president of the Texas Civil Justice League, a trade group formed by the state's manufacturing, transportation, and energy industries. "I said, 'Have you talked to Karl Rove?'" Wayne remembers. "She said, 'No, but I think I should.'"

After Rove met with Wayne and Owen, he signed on, giving the candidate the seal of approval from the state's corporate establishment. The money followed. Owen raised $1.1 million for her successful 1994 state Supreme Court campaign, with a record 21 percent coming directly from the business community and much more coming from corporate defense lawyers. Judge Owen later repaid the favor, in part, by lending her endorsement to a Texas Civil Justice League fundraising appeal.

By the time Rove was done, the last Democrat had been purged from the Texas Supreme Court. "The cases all started getting decided anti-consumer, on the side of big business," says Phil Hardberger, a retired Texas appellate court judge who is a Democrat. Jury verdicts, once embraced by the Democratic court, were now overturned or reduced. By the 1997-98 term, defendants were winning 69 percent of the time, and insurance companies, doctors, and pharmaceutical firms were winning nearly every case. Owen consistently distinguished herself as one of the conservative court's most strident conservatives. In one decision, Owen argued unsuccessfully in support of a water-quality exemption tailored for an Austin land developer who had given $2,500 to her campaign. The court majority dismissed her contention as "nothing more than inflammatory rhetoric."

[demigoddess]

1. I think the worst sentence is "by the time Rove was done, the last

democrat had been purged from the Texas Supreme Court." That is what they have in mind for all of america.

[Nothing Without Hope]

2. This is truly disgusting but important for the Senate committee

They need all the ammunition they can get.

Recommended

[Roland99]

3. I'll be sure my Senators get a copy of this

Won't do much good. They're in bed with the same types.

[Nothing Without Hope]

5. We also need to get it to the media. More pressure = better coverage

Here are DU threads with lists of media contact info:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=109x17759

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=106&topic_id=8816#9153

[Nothing Without Hope]

4. See also THIS thread, on why Myers, Brown and Owen are UNQUALIFIED

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1752088

Thread title: UNQUALIFIED: William Myers, Janice Rodgers Brown, and Priscilla Owen