The Word is Out on Gonzales
In my last Palmetto Public Square, I suggested that there might be a social issues problem with President Bush nominating his friend, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, to the United States Supreme Court. Now. after reading a paper shared with Palmetto Family Council by Birmingham, Alabama attorney Phillip L. Jauregui, I believe the concerns over Gonzales are even broader.
Jauregui's paper, available on the PFC website here, is an analysis of a Parental Notification ruling [In re Doe19 S.W.3d 346 (Tex. 2000)], of the Texas Supreme Court when Gonzales sat there. It is telling, and not in a good way.
Not only was the effect of the court order the death of an unborn child, it clearly showed Gonzales as an activist joiner eager to overturn two lower court rulings and flout the legislature to allow a 17-year-old girl to have an abortion without notifying her parents.
Gonzales felt so strongly about the decision of the court's majority that he issued a separate, concurring opinion in which he said: "I fully join in the Court’s judgment and opinion.”
The dissenters in the case, (including then Texas Justice Priscilla Owen, who was recently confirmed to a federal judgeship in the deal worked out by the Gang of 14) violently disagreed saying Gonzales and the others "thwarted the Legislature’s purposes in the Parental Notification Act,” violated “parents’ fundamental, constitutional rights to raise their children,” “usurp[ed] the trial court’s authority to find facts,” and “trivialize[ed] the decision to have an abortion.” (I have cited three of their errors. The Jauregui paper cites a total of eighteen lapses for which Gonzales is responsible.)
The situation is clear. Alberto Gonzales, a good friend of a good President and a probably a good Attorney General, isn't the right appointment for the United States Supreme Court. Why? Because his hands are sullied with anti-family jurisprudence and with judicial activism. Long term,
I'm not sure which is worse.
Epilogue
In recent weeks Palmetto Family Council has partnered with Manuel Miranda and the Third Branch Conference, an affiliation of originalist, textualist and pro-family leaders monitoring the apponitment of new Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Miranda published an excellent piece in this morning's Washington Times on the Gonzales situation, raising many additional points to those cited in this edition of Palmetto Public Square.
