As political activists rush to mine Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' slender public record, a former campaign manager says she opposed abortion rights while running for Dallas City Council in 1989, the (registration-restricted) Dallas Morning News reports Tuesday. Excerpts.
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"She is on the extreme end of the anti-choice movement," said Lorlee Bartos, who managed Miers' first and only political campaign and said they discussed abortion once during the race.
"I think Harriet's belief was pretty strongly felt," Bartos said Monday. "I suspect she is of the same cloth as the president."
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White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said she couldn't comment on Bartos' recollection but added that President Bush "does not have a litmus test for his judicial nominees."
Miers, a corporate lawyer who served on the City Council from 1989 to 1991, is something of a cipher as a judicial candidate, having never served on the bench or compiled extensive legal writings. That lack of a paper trail proved more vexing Monday to social conservatives, while many Democrats and liberal activists held their fire.
Bartos said Miers told her she was "pro-choice in her youth" but underwent "a born-again, profound experience" that caused her to oppose abortion.
As political activists rush to mine Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' slender public record, a former campaign manager says she opposed abortion rights while running for Dallas City Council in 1989, the (registration-restricted) Dallas Morning News