Miers' Past Shows Signs of Support for Press Freedom

By: Joe Strupp Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' limited history on media issues offers little indication of how she would approach such cases on the court, according to a review by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Still, the group says her past work with The Dallas Morning News and as an editor of the American Bar Association's monthly magazine offers some hope that she would support press freedoms.

No substantive legal writings exist that would shed light on her commitment to the First Amendment or freedom of information,the Reporters Committee review states, but "interviews with those who know her and have worked with her indicate that she may have an appreciation of the legal issues facing the news media, and even a sympathy for the work of journalists."

The review points to Miers' time as a partner with the Dallas law firm Locke Liddell & Sapp LLP in the 1980s where she "worked on some issues for The Dallas Morning News, which had a long relationship with the firm." It also quotes a spokesman for the firm as saying "she did do some defense work insofar as subpoenas served on reporters" but said he offered no details.

John H. McElhaney, a partner at the firm, told the Reporters Committee that, in addition to the subpoenaed reporters, she also represented a sports columnist with the newspaper, although the details of that case and the subpoena challenges -- including the names of the reporters and whether she won or lost -- were not available.

Ralph Langer, a former executive editor for the Morning News, recalled for the committee that Miers was a supervising attorney on Morning News matters in the early 1980s. Langer, retired, said he did not work with Miers on any libel or freedom of information issues that the firm handled for the newspaper, instead working with other attorneys. "We didn't have any cases where she was around the table helping us decide what course of action to take," he told the committee, but through her firm's work, he was "sure she had a commitment to First Amendment issues."

Morning News columnist James Ragland told the committee that Miers was "extremely approachable and friendly to reporters when he covered her City Council term as a reporter from 1989 to 1991. She'd always respond and was very open to the press. She'd talk about almost any public policy issue. The only area she wouldn't [speak of] was if it was in client-attorney privilege. She respected that relationship."

Ragland's said he knew of no time when Miers tried to deny media access to any meetings or public records, saying that she would even "go the extra yard" to make sure the media had sufficient background information on various issues she was involved in.

Only one incident involving access to government proceedings came to light during a search of Miers' background, the review showed.

While serving on the Texas Lottery Board Commission in 1997, Miers voted to fire a lottery agent in what the agent alleged was a secret meeting. The agent sued for a violation of the state's open meetings statute and the case settled without a financial settlement, The New York Times reported. The fired agent was later awarded $750,000 in a suit against the lottery's operator, Gtech, but it remains unclear whether the later suit was related to an open meetings violation.

Miers past links to the media extend beyond Texas, to her work with the American Bar Association and its publications, the review said. "I don't think journalists have anything to fear from her," said Gary Hengstler, who worked closely with Miers for nine years when she was on the Board of Editors of the ABA Journal and he was editor and publisher of the monthly magazine.

During her nine-year tenure on the board, she never exerted editorial control, Hengstler told the committee. Miers "steadfastly stood by Hengstler and his staff after a December 1990 Journal cover story criticized the U.S. government's case in the first Bush administration against Colombian cocaine trafficker Jose Rafael Abello-Silva, who was convicted on conspiracy drug charges, sentenced to two concurrent 30-year terms in prison and fined $5 million," the review said.

"After the Journal published the article alleging a government conspiracy against Abello-Silva, Justice Department officials and many members of the association complained," the committee added. "The Journal issued a correction and clarification on some minor issues in the story, Hengstler said, but Miers weathered the flak, insisting the Journal must be journalistically independent from the association."

Miers also supported a controversial cover story asking "Is the ABA too Political?" Hengstler said. "She took a lot of heat for the kinds of stories we were doing," he said. "She never once said 'Change this' or 'Don't write that.'"

Miers' experience serving in a variety of official positions has given her opportunities for interaction with the media such that she "gets" issues facing journalists and "understands them the way journalists and those in the media see them," said Paul Watler, an attorney with Jenkins & Gilchrist who had previously worked with Miers at Locke Liddell when it represented the Morning News. "She certainly has an appreciation for the news media. I don't think she goes out of her way to make herself a friend to reporters, she's probably more formal and by the book. I think she will approach issues in the First Amendment area in a fair and balanced way."

Robert Latham, a media attorney with Jackson Walker LLP in Dallas, told the committee that Miers was "extremely well regarded" in Texas legal circles, but that there was not much information indicating her positions on First Amendment or freedom of information issues. He added that he was sure she would approach such issues "with a certain degree of knowledge and an appropriate degree of sensitivity."