Miers In Law School

Let's hope it's just a case of that when she was young and irresponsible she was young and irresponsible:

An earlier Texas court] reasoned that the common law should rule unless changed by the legislature and that the question of the 'new tort' was embedded in serious policy considerations which should be determined only by the legislature. However, courts have both changed common law where it became obsolete and have ruled in decisions involving vital policy questions with great success.

In fairness, it should be noted the new tort she supported creating involved intentional infliction of emotional distress caused by refusing to serve a black customer. In that area, the Court has been pretty proactive, and I'm not sure anyone would want to argue with that stance.

But... she did seem to be a pretty big enthusiast for the Court resolving "vital policy questions." I'm so glad the framers of the Constitution had the good sense to take the power of resolving "vital policy questions" from the people themselves and reposing it in a body of unelected elite philsopher-kings.

Thanks to "someone."

Caveat: Sometimes law students don't write what they really think in notes and articles. There's a go along to get along thing at work.

Double-Secret Caveat: An anonymous poster points out, quite relevantly, that that was written in 1968, the Summer of Love and high-water mark for liberalism.

So she was young, it was a different era, and undoubtedly her brain was clogged with several years of ossified bong-resin when she wrote that.

And yes, people do "evolve," occasionally in the right direction. Half of the readers of this site, and half of the bloggers here, were liberals or at least moderate Democrats when they were younger.

Point well-taken.

posted by Ace at 04:27 PM

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