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Judge janice brown militant about property rights Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-19-styles-usat_x.htmhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-19-styles-usat_x.htm
Two blocked court nominees differ in styles
Analysis by Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — They are prominent faces in the Senate fight over President Bush's judicial nominations. Both are women and both are conservative. But Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown have come to the national stage with strikingly different backgrounds and legal styles.
Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owens may each be conservative but they exhibit different styles.
By Win McNamee, Getty Images
Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice, is reserved, worked for a leading Texas law firm and is a longtime friend of Bush insiders such as Karl Rove and White House counsel Harriet Miers. She is a traditional conservative who in her decisions has narrowly interpreted state statutes.
Brown, a California Supreme Court justice with a bolder personality, is an outspoken supporter of property rights and the idea that government should have a limited role in Americans' lives.
Brown, the daughter of onetime sharecroppers in Alabama also has told senators that when she speaks publicly, she "tries to stir the pot a little to get people to think."
"If my family had a motto, it would be, Don't snivel," Brown said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 2003.
Owen, 50, and Brown, 56, are among seven Bush nominees for U.S. appeals courts who were renominated by the president after Democratic filibusters shot down their bids during Bush's first term.
The women have been front and center this week, as the Republicans who lead the Senate have tussled with Democrats over a GOP threat to ban filibusters, which have allowed Democrats to stop previous nominations with 41 votes in the 100-seat chamber.
Owen has been chosen for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which hears disputes from Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Brown has been nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which handles an array of regulatory disputes and often has been a steppingstone to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Three of the current nine Supreme Court justices once were on the D.C. appeals court.)
Both women are described by the White House and by their Senate supporters as intelligent jurists who believe that judges should use restraint on the bench.
"They have incredible life stories," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "Justice Owen broke through the glass ceiling to become one of the best lawyers in Texas, and Justice Brown was born a sharecropper's daughter and worked her way through school to land on the California Supreme Court."
Their opponents say the women's views are outside the mainstream. "Justice Owen sides with big business and corporate interests against workers and consumers in case after case, regardless of the law," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
He added that Brown "wants to take America back to the 19th century and undo the New Deal, which includes Social Security and vital protections for working Americans like the minimum wage."
Owen, a graduate of Baylor University's law school, was elected to Texas' Supreme Court in 1994, after 16 years in commercial law at a Houston-based law firm.
During her appearances before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2002 and 2003, Democrats complained about her opinions in business cases. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., told Owen he believed that she had "often stretched the law" to side with businesses and employers over plaintiffs.
"What I try to do," Owen said, "is to put aside personal feelings or put aside sympathy. ... And the question is, what does the law say?"
Owen also said that in several cases, she had ruled for individuals who had sued businesses.
Democrats also criticized Owen's decisions against young women who were seeking to obtain abortions without notifying their parents. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said it appeared that Owen interpreted Texas' parental-notification law too rigidly.
An opinion that Owen wrote in 2000 — dissenting from a majority opinion that granted a young woman's request to obtain an abortion without notifying her parents — drew particular attention. The majority said that it was acting under the wide latitude of the "judicial bypass" provision of the state's Parental Notification Act.
Feinstein noted that one of Owen's colleagues on the Texas Supreme Court — Alberto Gonzales, now the U.S. attorney general — suggested in a parental-consent case that Owen engaged in "an unconscionable act of judicial activism." (Gonzales later said that he was not referring to her position.)
In the ruling, Owen said the majority, including Gonzales, "manufactured reasons to justify its action" and acted "irresponsibly."
In California, Brown came to the attention of the Bush administration as more of a maverick. She has gotten attention "because she doesn't shy away from opinions that (criticize) both sides," Pepperdine University law professor Douglas Kmiec says. "Janice has deep intellectual thoughts on the structure of government. She grew up without much advantage and developed a spirit of self-reliance."
Brown was born in Greenville, Ala. After her father joined the Air Force, the family moved to various bases across the country. A graduate of the University of California's law school, Brown was a legal adviser to Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. He tapped her for a California Supreme Court seat in 1996, after she had been on a state appellate court for 18 months.
Much of Brown's Senate Judiciary hearing in 2003 focused on her view of limited government.
"You frequently dismiss judicial precedent ... when (it doesn't) comport with your political views," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told her. He noted that in a speech she had called 1937, the year that President Roosevelt's New Deal legislation took full effect, "the triumph of our socialist revolution."
Brown said she often was more provocative before audiences than she was in her legal opinions. She also said she thought it was legitimate to complain about legal precedents that were not working.
Brown's focus on property rights was evident in a 2002 case, in which she denounced a San Francisco law that imposed fees on hotel operators who changed their buildings from long-term residences into tourist places. The fees were intended to provide housing for displaced low-income tenants.
She dissented from the opinion that upheld the law. "Where once government was a necessary evil because it protected private property," she wrote, "now private property is a necessary evil because it funds government programs."
Priscilla Owen
Age: 50.
Born Oct. 4, 1954, in Palacios, Texas.
Education: Bachelor's degree, Baylor University; law degree, Baylor Law School.
Career: Texas Supreme Court, 1994-present; practiced commercial law, Andrews & Kurth, 1978-94.
Janice Rogers Brown
Age: 56.
Born May 11, 1949, in Greenville, Ala.
Education: Bachelor's degree, California State University-Sacramento; law degree, University of California.
Career: California Supreme Court, 1996-present; state appeals court judge, 1994-96; legal affairs secretary to Gov. Pete Wilson, 1991-94; lawyer, Nielsen, Merksamer, 1990-91; general counsel, California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, 1987-90; deputy attorney general, California Department of Justice, 1979-87; deputy counsel, California Legislative Counsel Bureau, 1977-79.
Source: USA TODAY research
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