Priscilla Owen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Priscilla R. Owen
Priscilla R. Owen

Priscilla Richman Owen (born October 4, 1954) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She was previously a Justice on the Texas Supreme Court. Owen was born in Palacios, Texas.

Contents

[edit] Early life and career

Priscilla Owen’s earliest years were on her family's farm in Collegeport, Texas.[1] She later grew up and went to school in Waco, Texas. She worked part time during high school and college at her stepfather's insurance company. During summers, she returned to Collegeport, working in rice fields and herding cattle.

Owen started college at the University of Texas at Austin, and later transferred to Baylor University to be near her family in Waco. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, from Baylor. She then went to law school at Baylor, where she became editor of the Baylor Law Review, and graduated cum laude in 1977, receiving a Juris Doctor degree. From among approximately 400 examinees, at age 23, she received the highest score on the December 1977 Texas bar examination. (There were 3 separate administrations of the Texas Bar Exam in 1977, each a different test. The February 1977 administration was administered to over 700 examinees, the July 1977 exam was given to over 1500 examinees. The recipients of the highest scores for each exam were recognized equally by the Texas State Bar Association.)

She joined the Andrews & Kurth law firm in Houston, as a litigator, specializing in oil and gas litigation. She made partner at the age of 30. In private practice, Owen handled a broad range of civil matters at the trial and appellate levels. She was admitted to practice before various state and federal trial courts and appellate courts. She is a member of the American Law Institute, the American Judicature Society, the American Bar Association, and a Fellow of the American and Houston Bar Foundations.

[edit] Texas Supreme Court

In 1993, after 17 years at Andrews & Kurth, she was asked to run for the Texas Supreme Court as a Republican. She won with 53 percent of the vote, promising to restore integrity and dignity to a court tainted by scandal.

Owen has written articles and lobbied the Texas Legislature to eliminate partisan election of judges, arguing that they hinder the ability of courts to provide impartial justice. When she was up for reelection in 2000, Democrats did not put up an opponent against her, and she was returned to office with 84 percent of the vote, defeating a Libertarian opponent with the help of endorsements from newspapers statewide.

Priscilla Owen has served on the board of Texas Hearing and Service Dogs, which rescues dogs from pounds, provides training for them, and then gives the dogs to disabled people who cannot otherwise afford them. She is a founding member of the St. Barnabas Episcopal Mission in Austin, Texas and has taught Sunday school.

In the mid-1990s, Congress reduced funding for the Legal Services Corporation. Owen was part of a committee that successfully encouraged the Texas Legislature to enact legislation that has resulted in millions of dollars per year in additional funds for providers of legal services to the poor.

Priscilla Owen has served as the Texas Supreme Court's representative on the Court-Annexed Mediation Task Force, working to resolve differences between lawyer and non-lawyer mediators, in order to provide an alternative to expensive courtroom trials. She has been a member of the Gender Bias Reform Implementation Committee and statewide committees regarding legal services to the poor and pro bono legal services.

Owen also served on the boards of advisors of the Houston and Austin Chapters of the Federalist Society. Owen was instrumental in organizing a group known as Family Law 2000 that seeks to find ways to educate parents about the effect that divorce can have on their children and to lessen the adversarial nature of legal proceedings when a marriage is dissolved.

[edit] Federal nomination and filibuster

In 2001, Owen was nominated by President George W. Bush to her current post on a federal appellate court that hears appeals arising in several states, including Owen's home state of Texas. (Two previous nominees that President Clinton had nominated to that seat, Jorge Rangel and Enrique Moreno, never received hearings from the U.S. Senate, which was controlled by Republicans during Clinton's second term.) However, due to Senate disagreement over the issue of appointees that Democrats considered too conservative, Democrats (who controlled the U.S. Senate at the time) did not let Owen come up for a vote. In 2003, after Republicans had taken the Senate back, Democrats filibustered her. Only in 2005, after Republicans picked up four more seats in the Senate did she again come up for a vote.

[edit] Support

Priscilla Owen had considerable judicial experience as a member of the Texas Supreme Court, and had been rated "well-qualified" (highest possible) by the American Bar Association for the Fifth Circuit position.[2] According to ABC News reporter Jan Crawford Greenburg, Senate Democrats strategically "targeted outspoken conservatives who were potential Supreme Court picks....their successes in filibustering women, Hispanics, and African Americans in 2003 undermined Bush's plans to replace O'Connor with another woman or a minority."[3] Supporters of the Owen nomination asserted that her criticized rulings were often near-unanimous, or simply followed federal precedents. Judge Owen was touted as a judicial conservative who would, in the words of President Bush, "interpret the law, not legislate from the bench."[4]

[edit] Opposition

Opponents criticized Owen for what they claimed were her conservative positions on contentious social and economic issues, and pro-corporate decisions. Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy said that President Bush's appointee as Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, during his service with Owen on the Texas Supreme Court had frequently criticized Owen; Gonzales argued, said Kennedy, that one of Owen's positions taken in dissent would "judicially amend" a statute for the benefit of manufacturers selling defective products. [5] On abortion, Owen was criticized by pro-abortion groups for her interpretation of Texas's parental-notification law, and for joining a majority decision on overrides only once. [6]

[edit] Gang of 14 and the Supreme Court

Democratic Party senators had filibustered her nomination until May 2005 when a compromise was arranged by the "Gang of 14," which was a group of moderate senators from both the Republican and Democratic Parties. On May 24, 2005 debate on her nomination was ended by a vote of 81-18. She was finally confirmed by a vote of 55-43 on May 25, 2005 and was sworn in on June 6, 2005.

She was often cited as a potential Bush Supreme Court nominee for the O'Connor vacancy. On September 17 of 2005, Minority Leader Harry Reid informed Majority Leader Bill Frist that Owen would be filibustered if she were nominated for the Supreme Court seat of retiring Justice O'Connor, but Frist believed that Owen could be confirmed in the face of a filibuster.[7] President Bush nominated Harriet Miers and then Samuel Alito to fill the Justice O'Connor vacancy.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Some of the material on this page is taken from the website of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Policy. As a product of the United States government, this material is in the public domain. Other material on this page is from a speech by Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.[1]

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ a b See Speech by Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison via Archive.org (2005-05-18).
  2. ^ ABA ratings during 109th Congress.
  3. ^ Greenburg, Jan Crawford. Supreme Conflict; The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court, pages 255 and 314 (2007).
  4. ^ Bush, George. Remarks by the President at Bush-Cheney 2004 Reception (2003-07-18).
  5. ^ Kennedy Statement (2005-05-18 via archive.org).
  6. ^ Report from National Abortion Rights Action League.
  7. ^ Novak, Robert. Chicago Sun-Times, (2005-09-18).

[edit] External links

Preceded by
William Lockhart Garwood		 Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
2005-present		 Succeeded by
incumbent