THE MODERATE BENCHMARK:

For a New Judge, Self-Reliance in Her Life and in the Law (DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, 5/25/05, NY Times)

When the Senate asked Justice Priscilla R. Owen for the most significant opinions she had written on the Texas Supreme Court, she provided a list with a distinctive theme: tough.

She chose opinions overturning rulings in favor of a child born with birth defects, a worker injured on an oil rig, a nurse fired for blowing the whistle on a drug-dealing co-worker, a family with an interest in an oil field that had been drained by a nearby company, asbestos and breast-implant plaintiffs and a student whose school made him cut his hair.

"She represents a part of the Texas culture that is basically a frontier mentality," said Linda S. Eads, a law professor at Southern Methodist University and a former deputy attorney general of Texas who supports Ms. Owen's nomination.

"You don't cry about your hardships, you just keep moving forward," Professor Eads said. "In some ways, it's a very empowering philosophy, and in some ways it can be seen as cold. I guess it depends on which side of the outcome you are."

After four years in the crossfire of partisan battle over her nomination to the federal bench - denounced by liberal critics as extremist and callous, hailed by conservatives as a kind-hearted Sunday school teacher who lifted herself up from humble roots - Ms. Owen finally won Senate confirmation Wednesday on a 55-to-43 vote to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans.

After Senate Democrats allowed her confirmation to break a stalemate over judicial nominations, her conservative supporters argued that her confirmation set a benchmark. Judges with records and views like Ms. Owen's, her supporters argue, can no longer be construed as objectionable. They note that none of her opinions have been overturned.

Janice Rogers Brown is likely to beat that 55.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 25, 2005 11:47 PM