More on Miers
I've been doing some digging on Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' background and finding, like the rest of the world, remarkably little concrete evidence to go on. However, reading between the lines of the little that has emerged in the press, the picture-at least for practitioners of consumer bankruptcy law-is not an encouraging one. For example, Deborah Angell Smith, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Collin County, Texas, is dismayed by Miers' strong pro-business background:
"I'm seriously concerned that she'll be a judge in the model of Priscilla Owen, who has a clear record of consistently deciding in favor of corporations over individual citizens and working families."
Another interesting tidbit indirectly places Miers on the side of automobile industry, no great friend of the consumer. Locke, Purnell, Rain & Harrell, the Texas law firm where Miers was managing partner, represented a group of automobile dealers in a Texas case in which then Governor George Bush signed a law blocking Texas consumers from collecting a $6 billion dollar judgment against car dealers for predatory lending and keeping secret kickbacks.
Although the prediction business is clearly a dangerous one, my sense is that if Miers' nomination is approved, she will almost certainly take the side of big business against the consumer bankruptcy bar. And if we are lucky enough to have a constitutional challenge to BAPCPA come before the Court-well, let's just say you can forget about that one.
I'd love to be proved wrong, however. If any of you find some good news about Miers, please send it my way.
